The Associated Student Senate at UC Santa Barbara recently passed a passed a divestment bill to stop some student fees going to companies supporting Israel.

The bill means that Associated Student funds can’t be used to purchase, reimburse, fundraise from, or promote from companies, vendors, and other entities listed under the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, which calls for the boycott of companies supporting Israel.

An UCSB student and encampment spokesperson, who does not share her full name with media, said the bill ensures students that their money is being spent ethically.

“UCSB is a pretty big school and with its campus organizations alone there is a lot of money that gets moved around,” said the student, who goes by Orange at the encampment. “Not only do we want the university controlled portion of our tuition money to not go towards war profiteering and the military industrial complex, but same with our student fees.”

On May 29, the Associated Student Senate passed a resolution supporting students demands for UC-wide divestment from weapons manufacturing. 

The resolution demanded that the administration and UC Regents, a governing body for the university system, change their investment practices. 

Specifically, it asked the UC Regents to withdraw all $32 billion worth of investments, securities, endowments, mutual funds from any entities “supporting and/or facilitating the Israeli occupation and genocide of Gaza.”

“I think it’s a great first step,” said Orange. “It definitely doesn’t end there but it’s something that student activists on campus have been pushing for for about 10 years.”

Worker Strike and Commencement Changes

On Monday, two things happened at UCSB.

First, graduate workers with the UAW 4811 union walked off their jobs as part of an ongoing strike over the treatment of students and workers protesting the war between Israel and Palestine across UC campuses. 

“I think withholding labor is one of the strongest tools that the people have to make their voice heard,” Orange said. “And since the university cannot function without the labor of it’s very underpaid and exploited workers, I think the graduate workers taking a stand is a necessary act of solidarity.”

The second thing to happen on Monday was the university announcing that it was changing its graduation venue from the Commencement Lawn bordering the lagoon to the Recreation Center Fields. It would have affected seven ceremonies on the June 14-16 weekend.

The university has since gone back on this decision and returned commencement to the traditional venue. 

As a student set to graduate later this month, Orange said the move was a way for the university to try to decrease support for the divestment movement.

“My perspective on it is that it’s clearly a way for the university to try to antagonize the people participating in the encampment and people pushing towards divestment by trying to spin it as something it’s not, trying to spin it as something that’s potentially violent or a safety concern when it’s not,” Orange said.

Encampment Plans

Students in the encampment are still awaiting negotiations with administration but Orange told Noozhawk that Ralph Armbruster-Sandoval, a professor from the Chicana and Chicano studies department, has been selected as faculty liaison for communication between the encampment and administration.

As spring quarter begins to wind down, Orange said herself and many other students plan to stay in the encampment and keep pressure on the administration during the summer. 

“I think that’s when things like withholding labor and grades would be powerful,” Orange said. “Since not submitting those final grades means that the university can’t move into its next quarter and it disrupts the business as usual.”