A new ASUC-backed ballot measure will give UC Berkeley students a chance to vote on university divestments from companies producing military weapons technology.
The ballot proposition allows students to vote on whether they want the UC Berkeley Foundation to disclose all current investments in companies that produce surveillance and military weapons technology, withdraw them and commit to not making future investments in such companies.
If a majority of students vote in favor of the proposition, the ASUC president and executive vice president will urge Chancellor Rich Lyons to meet with the UC Berkeley Foundation and present these findings in favor of divestment.
“(This vote) wouldn’t compel the Foundation to immediately take any action,” said ASUC Executive Vice President Isha Chander. “It’s more of a reflection of a popular vote and value statement from the student body about what they believe on this matter.”
Chander also noted that she hopes adding this proposition to the ballot will help drive up voter turnout and “inspire folks to fill out their ASUC ballots.”
According to ASUC presidential candidate Abdullah Memon — who is a current ASUC senator and co-sponsor of the divestment resolution — two resolutions have previously been passed calling for the ASUC to divest from companies supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza as part of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement. In September, a United Nations legal analysis found that Israel committed genocide against Palestinians during its war in Gaza.
According to Memon, this is the first ASUC resolution that broadly targets divestment across all weapons and surveillance companies rather than those from a particular country.
“It’s the first domino to pursue more material and tangible divestment through the Berkeley Foundation,” Memon said.
Memon also referenced a 2013 ballot measure in which students voted for the UC Berkeley Foundation to divest from fossil fuels as a precedent for the effect he hoped to see from this resolution. He noted that a few years after the passage of the fossil fuels measure, the UC Berkeley Foundation began to materially divest from fossil fuels.
He voiced a similar sentiment to Chander regarding the importance of this ballot proposition as a way to increase voter turnout by giving students the opportunity to vote on a pressing issue.
“We’ve seen a continued theme of suppression and repression of our student bodies, particularly in terms of divestments,” Memon said. “I think it’s also just seeing how we can as a student body counteract and counterorganize against efforts made by administrators, by the Regents, by UCOP, by the federal government.”