The Associated Students of the University of California Davis (ASUCD) have a lot of responsibility. They manage a $20 million budget, hire upwards of 1,600 students, and provide essential services for the entire community. This is why it’s so alarming that such a body would be used to further an unpopular and deeply antisemitic political movement rather than take its responsibilities seriously.
After the atrocities of October 7, 2023, student leaders chose to redirect their priorities toward promoting an agenda whose sole purpose was to target both Jewish and Israeli students through the guise of “solidarity with the Palestinian cause” and the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Official ASUCD Instagram accounts platform an explicitly pro-Palestinian agenda with their profile pictures. Additionally, current ASUCD senators have tried to pass resolutions to steer all departments into political positions with the threat of intervention — essentially an attempt to force members to endorse anti-Israel positions or lose funding.
ASUCD originally passed a BDS resolution in 2015, but in 2019, that resolution was deemed unconstitutional. Despite this, in February 2024, ASUCD took further action by creating a new committee tasked with implementing the resolution. The committee now faces the sweeping challenge of divesting over $20 million from any company with even a tangential connection to Israel. For some reason, current ASUCD members don’t seem to care about their own constitution or the authority of the school’s judicial council.
Why was it struck down in 2019? Three reasons: it is impossible to implement, it is antisemitic, and it is illegal under state law.
BDS at UC Davis calls for total divestment from Israel and all companies that have supposedly committed human rights abuses. This goal is simply not possible. Israel is deeply connected within the global trade network, and many large companies like Google, Microsoft, and others have realized the opportunities presented within the “Start-Up Nation.” If somehow BDS is fully implemented to its extreme positions, basic services would no longer be available. ASUCD could not use Google, computers that use Intel, or even Amazon to order basic items for student events.
BDS is also antisemitic in both theory and practice. A co-founder of BDS, Omar Barghouti, explicitly denies the right of the Jewish people to self-determination and the legitimacy of the Jewish state. The membership of the National Committee of BDS includes members and people affiliated with Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — all of which are designated as terrorist organizations by the United States and other nations.
Furthermore, research has shown that the existence of BDS activity on college campuses is both a predictor of — and strongly correlated with — increased antisemitic incidents and the specific targeting of Jewish students on campuses. BDS also directly prohibits peaceful dialogues or interactions between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian people unless Israelis are all labeled as oppressors and colonizers.
California made BDS illegal in 2016 under AB 2844, which states that entities under contract with the government worth $100,000 or more must be compliant with the Unruh Civil Rights Act and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act. Furthermore, the act seeks to ensure that any policy that has been adopted against any sovereign nation or peoples recognized by the United States, including Israel, is not used to discriminate. BDS discriminates explicitly on the basis of national origin.
ASUCD relies on Federal funding in order to run the Unitrans unit, which provides bus rides across the city of Davis to all students. Unitrans received $2,922,243 in 2023-2024 from both the Federal CARES Act (2020) and the Urbanized Area Formula Grants or FTA 5307. In order to implement BDS within ASUCD, it would seem like our elected student representatives would have to shut down 32% of Unitrans’ budget, potentially crippling its critical service to the student community at UC Davis and the rest of the city.
In early February 2025, legislation was introduced in student government to force all units within ASUCD to adopt a singular political position. While the bill was withdrawn, it speaks to the priorities of certain members within the ASUCD legislative branch. In the proposed bill, ASUCD would be able to take positions on political issues and force departments without those positions to “make changes necessary to bring them in compliance with the official position.”
In layman’s terms, this means that the student government could punish student workers for not adhering to a specific political ideology. Not only is this authoritarian and contrary to the democratic nature of our country and student government, but it is plain wrong. Anti-Israel ideologues are literally trying to force their opinions onto the rest of the student body.
If BDS was ever implemented, Jewish students would face increased antisemitic incidents and targeting on campus, all students would face dramatic cuts to the vital bus network, and ASUCD would likely face legal repercussions for passing illegal policies that discriminate based on national origin.
We want our student fees to go toward improving our campus, not tearing it down in the name of supporting Palestinians (though this act does not support Palestinians, but rather only discriminates against Israelis and Jews). ASUCD should spend their vast budget and manpower dedicating themselves to their given mandate: the needs of all students.
This article was originally published in The Algemeiner.
