UC Alumni Open Letter Sign On, No Donations Until Divestment

To the offices of University of California Regents Chair Richard Leib, Vice Chair Gareth Elliott, Maria Anguiano, Elaine E. Batchlor, Carmen Chu, Michael Cohen, Howard "Peter" Guber, Jose M. Hernandez, Nancy Lee, Hadi Makarechian, Ana Matosantos, Lark Park, John A. Pérez, Janet Reilly, Mark Robinson, Gregory Sarris, Richard Sherman, Jonathan "Jay" Sures, Merhawi Tesfai, and University of California President Michael V. Drake,

As alumni of the University of California (UC), we demand that the UC Regents call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, fully divest from weapons manufacturers and other targets of the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and immediately increase and formalize protections for current students, staff and faculty who are Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and those who are vocally condemning the genocide and calling for a ceasefire. The UC must end its systemic support for the settler-colonial apartheid state of Israel and its indiscriminate bombardment and genocide of Palestinians, and stand with the millions of people across the world who condemn Israel’s violence, including the alumni who have signed this letter. Until these demands are met, we pledge to withhold all donations to the University of California.

The alumni community demands that the University of California:

1. Call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza
2. Immediately divest from all enterprises of United States militarism and imperialism as well as companies profiting from Israel’s oppression of Palestinians as demanded by UC Divest and the Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS) Movement.
3. Provide special protections for current UC students, staff and faculty who risk retaliatory threats to their employment and safety while exercising their right to condemn the state of Israel and uplift Palestinian resistance.

We reject the widely propagated myth that to identify Israel as a settler-apartheid state or to name their ongoing violence against Palestinians as genocide is anti-Semitic. This false conflation of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism obfuscates Israel’s war crimes and does nothing to guarantee the safety of Jewish people. The UC’s statements thus far have been woefully inadequate, and contribute to a harmful narrative that ignores the context of over 75 years of occupation of Palestinian land. We join the faculty and students of multiple UC campuses in condemning the UC’s distorted narrative of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

We demand that the University of California divest from companies identified by the BDS Movement as divestment targets. We echo calls from the UC Divest Coalition for the divestment from all defense contractors, and drop its asset management contract with BlackRock, one of the world’s largest investors in fossil fuels and weapons manufacturing. We applaud the Regents in their recent divestment from fossil fuels and the historic $3.1 billion divestment from companies doing business with the apartheid government of South Africa. We are confident in the Regents’ ability to implement a divestment of even greater proportions to help end the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

In a moment when university campuses across the nation actively repress the voices of Palestinian students and their allies who demand an end to the ongoing US-enabled genocide of the Palestinian people, the Office of the President’s statement on intolerance of on-campus bigotry is insufficient to protect students facing real threats to their physical safety and to their future ability to find gainful employment. In response to this, the University of California must reject the narrative that students speaking out against Israel’s violence should lose job opportunities and create effective protection protocols for student groups affiliated with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and other advocacy groups who have been sanctioned or outright banned on other college campuses. We reject, in the strongest possible terms, Regents Chair Richard Leib’s public condemnation of lawful student boycotts, along with grossly unfounded charges recently pressed against six UC Irvine students affiliated with SJP and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) who exercised their right to peaceful protest. We demand that the charges against these UCI students be dropped, and that all UC campus administrators cease attempts to silence pro-Palestinian voices. Such censorship constitutes unjust and biased enforcement of university policy.

Until the University of California issues a statement calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, severs all investments in weapons manufacturing in support of the BDS Movement and the UC Divest Coalition, we join the graduates of Columbia University, Barnard College, and Brown University in withholding all future financial support for our alma mater.

Sincerely,

(13,176 signatories as of 5/11/2024.)

UC Alumni 4 Palestine
https://linktr.ee/ucalumni4palestine
https://www.instagram.com/ucalumni4palestine/