Pro-Palestinian protestors peacefully dismantled their encampment at UC Berkeley on Tuesday. The move follows news that the university’s Chancellor Carol Christ agreed to convene a task force to explore what she describes as “industry-specific divestment” in areas including weapons manufacturing, mass incarceration, and surveillance industries. The move follows a similar agreement at UC Riverside that ended the encampment on that campus.
However, Chancellor Christ also acknowledged in a letter to protestors that the “sale of direct investments is not within the authority of the Office of the Chancellor but rather lies with the UC regents [the UC system’s governing body].” Both Christ and the regents have maintained that they oppose divestment from Israel.
The UC governing board’s stance is not surprising, says Blake Jones, education reporter at Politico. For years, its members have rebuffed calls for divestment and academic boycotts of Israel. However, during this week’s UC Regent’s meeting, Chief Investment Officer Jagdeep Singh Bachher provided a breakdown of the investments that pro-Palestinian protestors have targeted.
If the UC system were to comply with student divestment demands, it would be required to sell $32 billion of its $175 billion portfolio, nearly 20% of their total holdings. That includes US treasury bonds, stakes in private investment firms Blackrock and Blackstone, $3.3 billion invested in weapons manufacturers, and $3.2 invested in other targeted companies that do business in Israel, including Disney and Coca-Cola.
Despite the promises at Berkeley and Riverside, Jones reiterates the point that individual campuses don’t hold a lot of power over endowment investment decisions. “So many of these investments are pooled at the systematic UC Office of the President level.”
For now, that reality makes the agreements symbolic statements of campus values. As Jones notes, “There is this dialogue between protesters and the leaders of these individual campuses that does acknowledge this lack of power, but also that these independent campus chancellors are willing to at least look at the issue, talk about these things, and at least denounce war.”
While the dismantling of UC Berkeley and UC Riverside’s encampments came without police involvement, the scene looked different at UCLA two weeks ago. On May 2nd, law enforcement arrived on the Westwood campus to take apart its pro-Palestinian encampment.
CalMatters’ Investigative Reporter Sergio Olmos found that California Highway Patrol officers might have broken state law — and their own training guidelines — by firing into crowds.
He identifies at least 25 instances of CHP teams aiming or shooting their less-than-lethal munitions at protestors at eye level: “You're not supposed to aim or shoot these impact munitions at people's heads, necks, or vital organs. They can kill you. That's according to the manufacturer and the training itself. These are beanbag rounds, or in some cases, a 40mm sponge round. And I've been hit by both before. They hurt.”
The shooting of less-lethal devices to disperse crowds “solely due to a violation of an imposed curfew, verbal threat, or noncompliance with a law enforcement directive” was prohibited under a 2021 California state law.
“You can only use them for life safety issues. So if there's a threat to an officer or to someone else in the crowd, you're allowed to use these impact munitions. Again, even in those cases, not at the head or neck area or vital organs, because they can cause death,” Olmos explains.