A faint murmur of student voices could sporadically be heard on
the third floor of Covel Commons on Thursday, where UC officials
met to vote on divestment from Sudan. About a hundred UC students
chanted outside, their voices echoing off the walls of the
building.
Inside the meeting, the room was already filled to capacity with
dozens of UC students, eagerly awaiting the UC Board of
Regents’ decision on a cause many have spent more than a year
fighting for. As each regent said yes to divestment, the students
erupted in cheers, ending a tense moment for those who began the
campaign.
Beginning with just a few students doing research on the events
in Darfur in Winter 2005, the student movement for divestment
gained momentum in the last few months, leading up to its success
with endorsements by members of the state and federal legislatures,
celebrities, faculty members and several survivors of past
genocides.
Less than a year ago, the regents had no comment when asked
about divestment, and UC officials said it was unlikely to be
picked up by the regents.
Then last fall, Student Regent Adam Rosenthal submitted a
proposal to look into divestment, and he and members of the UC
Sudan Divestment Taskforce have been at every board meeting
since.
Calling their student gatherings rallies instead of protests,
students said they have made a conscientious effort to work with
the board toward divestment.
At their recent board meetings, several regents commended the
respectable way students have handled the campaign.
In January, the two co-chairs of the divestment taskforce were
invited to be members of the study group appointed which made the
final recommendations on divestment to the regents.
Now, some students and UC officials described the campaign as
one of the most important student campaigns they will probably
see.
“It represents student activism of the 21st century. We
addressed every concern. … We always had an answer. We always
wanted to be able to say this can be done and this is how,”
said Adam Sterling, co-chair of the divestment taskforce.
At last week’s meeting, the regents praised students for
leading the way toward divestment, with some standing to applaud
the students after the vote.
Rosenthal said he always knew divestment would be a very long
process, but it was the students’ persistence to bring the
issue to the forefront of the regents’ agenda that led to the
divestment vote.
The regents expected a well-thought-out, analytical proposal for
divestment and received that because of the students’ work,
Rosenthal said.
The divestment taskforce focused on mobilization and research,
Sterling said, releasing reports of their research and mobilizing
of students and others around the state.
“If you look at the endorsement list we had … the
who’s who of California was coming together for the issue of
genocide. I think that impressed the regents,” Sterling
said.
Jeannie Biniek, external vice president of the Undergraduate
Students Association Council, said the students’ divestment
campaign is probably one of the most successful because the result
was so significant.
“It extends beyond the UC. It is going to create change in
the bigger world,” Biniek said.
State Assemblyman Paul Koretz, D-West Hollywood, said the
UC’s vote, brought about by the work of UC students, will
allow him to take divestment to the state level.
“Without (the students’) dedication and efforts,
this historic action would not have happened,” he said.
Koretz said he is authoring a bill to prohibit
California’s pension systems from investing in any companies
doing business with the government of Sudan based on the UC model
of targeted divestment. His bill, AB 2941, is expected to be heard
in committee in late March or early April.
Sterling said Kortez’s bill shows the influence the
students’ work has had as a catalyst for change beyond the
UC.
“At every point along the way, there were a number of
students giving everything into it. … The result shows how much
we have accomplished,” he said.
Sterling said the regents’ vote is a stepping stone for
divestment on a grander scale in the state and more work needs to
be done to stop the suffering in Darfur.
“The students are not done. It’s the big fish, the
bigger fish that we’re going to work on now,” Sterling
said.