University of California, Berkeley students stage a sit-in on the steps of Sproul Hall to protest Israel’s mass killing of civilians in the Gaza Strip and demand that the university sever financial ties to companies with ties to Israel. It started.
On Monday afternoon, students from the UC Berkeley Divest Coalition pitched about 10 tents on the steps of Sproul Hall in the center of campus. Their actions, which began with a rally, are in solidarity with pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, where more than 100 students were arrested on Thursday. California students have been protesting at Sathergate since February.
Activists say the university is working with asset managers like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and BlackRock, which have invested in companies that protesters believe are “arming and sustaining the genocide in Gaza.” The university insists that it will maintain the “Free Palestine Camp” until the university cuts ties with the university. The University of California, Berkeley Retirement Program’s latest holdings report shows $427 million invested in BlackRock’s portfolio.
This has been the aim of the long-standing boycott, divest and sanctions movement since the early 2000s.
They are also calling for an immediate cease-fire in the war that has killed 34,000 people in the Gaza Strip, after an October 7 Hamas attack on Israel killed 1,200 people. This is an academic boycott that will result in “severing ties and academic cooperation” with Israeli universities. This includes creating the Berkeley Summer Global Internship Program in Israel and a permanent Palestine Studies program at the University of California.
“This work was inspired by the people in Gaza who actually live in these tents day in and day out, because they are being deported and bombed and massacred,” said Berkeley Law Student Association member said co-chair Malak Afaneh. Justice for Palestine.
University spokesman Dan Moguloff said UC Berkeley has no plans to change its investment policies or practices.
“With three weeks left in the semester, Berkeley is prioritizing the academic interests of our students,” Mogulov said. “We will take necessary measures to ensure that the university’s operations are not disrupted by protests,” he said.
The sit-in began this week in conjunction with dozens of other actions on university campuses in the wake of police crackdowns on pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University.
Today, police arrested approximately 50 student protesters who were occupying Yale University’s plaza.
While student governments across the country, including the University of California, Berkeley, have passed resolutions supporting divestment, few university officials are achieving that goal.
In 1984, hundreds of students from the University of California, Berkeley, occupied the steps of Sproul Plaza to demand divestment from the companies that were enabling apartheid in South Africa. University of California he sold those holdings in 1986.
