More than 100 protesters gathered on the Savio Steps in a rally to demand that the UC Board of Regents \u201cdivest from war and genocide\u201d as the regents evaded divestment discussions Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n
Alongside calls and responses of \u201cmoney for jobs and education\u201d and \u201cnot for wars and occupation,\u201d the event featured about 10 speakers, including students, local business owners and professors from UC Berkeley and other universities.<\/p>\n
The rally was organized by student activist groups such as Bears for Palestine, Berkeley Law for Palestine, UC Berkeley Young Democratic Socialists of America, Students Organizing for Liberation, Students for Justice in Palestine and STEM for Palestine.<\/p>\n
This coincided with the Board of Regents meeting that took place Wednesday, which addressed concerns regarding UC investments in companies involved in war. UC Office of the President Chief Investment Officer Jagdeep Singh Bachher expressed that the issue is \u201ccomplicated.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe think it\u2019s completely horrific that the University of California continues to have these investments of our tuition money and the endowment funds into weapons manufacturing,\u201d said demonstrator Layla, who did not provide a last name. \u201cWe\u2019ve been out here day in and day out for the past many years protesting against the use of these investments \u2026 in the genocide in Palestine.\u201d<\/p>\n
A 26-page zine distributed at the rally lists several demands from the rally\u2019s organizers, including \u201cimmediate divestment of the UC\u2019s holdings in corporations that enable and profit from Israeli occupation and genocide and U.S. attack on Iran and increased deployment of ICE.\u201d<\/p>\n
Demonstrators chanted while holding signs with phrases such as \u201cstand with Iran against genocidal U.S.\/Israel warmongers.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAs an ethnic studies professor, our very department was formed through protest, and so we know that protest works,\u201d said Juana Mar\u00eda Rodr\u00edguez, an ethnic studies professor who also spoke at the rally. \u201cIt\u2019s a message that as individuals, we have power, we have our voice and we should use it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The demonstrators then hung a banner reading \u201cRegents Divest from War\u201d on Sather Gate. The banner listed the names of the Board of Regents alongside red handprints.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are singlehandedly financing multiple societal crises with our retirement funds and tuition money at this institution that claims to be this beacon of free speech and progressivism,\u201d said a rally organizer who was granted anonymity for fear of retribution. \u201cIt\u2019s completely hypocritical.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rally marched through campus. The demonstration ended in the area between California Hall and Doe Library.<\/p>\n
In her speech to the demonstrators, Rodr\u00edguez emphasized the UC Move Your Money campaign, which asks that UC faculty divest their own retirement funds from \u201cweapons manufacturing,\u201d according to Rodriguez.<\/p>\n
The demands of the demonstrators follow a longstanding history of protests and rallies that have pushed the regents toward divestment from various entities, including ones that supported South Africa\u2019s apartheid government in 1986 and the Sudanese government in 2006.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will not wait until Palestinians become a land acknowledgement in some sort of administrator\u2019s emails,\u201d said one rally speaker.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 100 protesters gathered on the Savio Steps in a rally to demand that the UC Board…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":226865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[103262,78312,19378,340,9712,74352,143,145,144,3783,103264,68193,30097,149,103263],"class_list":["post-226864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-bears-for-palestine","tag-berkeley-law-for-palestine","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-jagdeep-singh-bachher","tag-juana-mara-rodrguez","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-palestine","tag-stem-for-palestine","tag-students-for-justice-in-palestine","tag-students-organizing-for-liberation","tag-uc-berkeley","tag-uc-berkeley-young-democratic-socialists-of-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}