The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) killed a student government bill endorsing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in March.
The bill, presented to the Illinois Student Government (ISG) Senate by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and obtained by the Journal, would have been presented as a referendum question asking if the university should “divest its stocks, funds, and endowment from companies that profit from or engage in human rights violations in US Prisons, at the US-Mexico Border, and in Occupied Palestine.” It specifically singled out companies like Caterpillar, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Company for conducting business with the Israeli military.
The bill passed the ISG Senate on February 23 by a margin of 17-14, with two abstentions; however, the university and the ISG Judiciary found that there were technical issues with the bill’s passage, and thus it was nullified. The ISG Judiciary noted in their March 9 ruling, which was obtained by the Journal, that there were three specific issues. First, the bill had passed via secret ballot at the behest of those opposed to the bill, which is unconstitutional in the ISG. The Judiciary lambasted the Speaker and Parliamentarian for failing “to detect such a breach,” calling it “appalling” and “damaging to the Senate’s case.” The bill also only obtained a simple majority vote (meaning the majority of senators present at a meeting) as opposed to the majority of the entire Senate body; the latter is required for referendum questions. Additionally, the ISG Judiciary found that the agenda for the meeting was released 24 hours prior to the meeting, in violation of the ISG Constitution’s requirement for the agenda to be released 48 hours before a meeting.
Prior to the ISG Judiciary’s ruling, Vice Chancellor Danita Brown wrote in an email, obtained by the Journal, to the Illinois Student Government (ISG) Leaders on March 3 that the bill will not be allowed on the ballot. “There were too many procedural concerns surrounding the presentation and narrow passage of the resolution,” Brown wrote. “I encourage you to still move forward with your judiciary process, but please note, regardless of any decision by the ISG Judiciary, my decision still stands.”
Illini Chabad Rabbi Dovid Tiechtel praised the university for doing “the right thing” and “taking a stand on the matter” in a phone interview, telling the Journal that during the week leading up to the vote there were antisemitic incidents on campus. Student Senator and ISG President-Elect Garrett Forrest, who ran on an anti-BDS platform, told the Journal that such incidents included “bags of rocks strewn around campus that contained notes blaming Jews for starting the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Garrett also told the Journal that he is “glad that the university was able to recognize that procedure wasn’t followed”; he added that during the meeting, those in favor of the bill accused those opposed to it of being racists. “That’s obviously not true,” Garrett said.
SJP UIUC wrote in a March 5 Instagram post that they are “cutting ties with the ISG,” and called “on students to denounce the corruption within ISG and UIUC admin.” They accused “Zionist senators” of exploiting “the flaws of student government in order to advance their insidious anti-Palestinian, settler-colonial ideologies” to block the referendum from reaching the ballot despite its passage in the ISG. SJP also alleged that “Zionists called a group of predominantly [Person of Color] students ‘terrorists’ and ‘threatening.’” “We are calling on the UIUC student body to stand with us against these malicious and unfounded attacked,” they added.
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Forrest told the Journal that he didn’t have much to say to SJP’s post. “I’m not a racist, I can tell you that,” he said. “I’ve been very intentional about building a diverse slate and campaign, and I look forward to appointing a diverse cabinet.”
