After 11 hours of discussion between Wednesday night and Thursday morning, the Associated Students Senate voted against the divestment resolution on the table. The 72nd Senate elected to use a secret ballot and saw 13 noes, 12 yeses and zero abstentions. Â
Over 100 community members, faculty and students signed up to speak at public forum last night, but only 83 actually spoke with generally equal amounts of support for and against divestment.
The resolution called on the University of California Board of Regents to divest from companies that profit off of alleged human rights violations by the Israeli government against Palestinians. This is the seventh time since 2013 that a divestment resolution failed to pass, making UC Santa Barbara the only undergraduate UC campus to not pass a resolution on divestment. The Senate will not meet again until Fall Quarter 2021.
January 26, 2021 at 11:01 am by Harrison Kerdman
Editor’s note: Trigger Warning
On Nov. 29, The Guardian published a letter titled âPalestinian rights and the IHRA definition of antisemitism.â It was signed by 122 Palestinian and Arab academics, journalists and intellectuals who expressed their concerns about the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism. Among the signatories is Sherene Seikaly, an associate professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara. This letter is extremely problematic.
The signatories present seven points to attack the IHRA definition â points which they believe are instrumental in stopping âthe fight against antisemitismâ from â[turning] into a stratagem to delegitimize the fight against the oppression of the Palestinians, the denial of their rights and the continued occupation of their land.âÂ
Sometimes, I just have to stop and look back in awe at how far Iâve come in these past few months: from a sickly bat in a Wuhan meat-market all the way across the world to your neighborâs lukewarm.