Pro-Palestinian students at the University of California, Santa Barbara, disrupted a vote to pull out of companies supporting Israel, according to a Wednesday report.
The disruption precipitated the fifth time in six years UC Santa Barbara’s associated student senate denied an attempt to divest from Israel, according to The College Fix.
“Shut it down!” The pro-Palestinian students shouted for over two minutes while they marched into the student senate meeting and occupied the stage. Protesters took issue with the fact the divestment proposal was “positional,” endorsing and sponsoring divestment from Israel — instead of “directional” — which entails commanding associated student senators or other members to do certain things.
While a positional resolution requires the votes of two-thirds of the senators to pass, a directional resolution requires only a majority vote. The student senators who introduced the divestment proposal intended for it to be directional, but Senate Chair Jasmine Sandhu changed it to be positional.
“I am a Palestinian, and I have to hide my f**king face in front of all of you for the sake of my family, for the sake of my people who are dying,” a masked protester shouted on the stage, “dying because of our money funding companies that are profiting off of our deaths. I have to wonder every time I see a f**king massacre in Gaza whether my f**king institution is making a profit off of it. Blood is on our hands!”
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“What’s happening now is illegitimate and unfair,” UCSB student and protester Justice Dumlao, who stood in for one of the senators, said. (Dumlao had wanted the proposal to be directional.) “So if you are upset with what is happening, you now share our frustration with last week.”
The protesters made their statements to a chorus of finger snaps.
“You don’t even give us a seat at the table,” an unnamed protester said. “You won’t even let black and brown bodies speak. This is desperation.”
The protest occurred a week after a walkout at another student senate meeting during which 12 out of 25 senators inhibited a vote on the resolution by leaving the room during an over 10-hour meeting, according to The Daily Nexus.
The Daily Caller News Foundation reached out to UCSB for comment but received none in time for press.
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