Divestment

Hard at work on my presentation. Will break for nothing except food, the phone, The New York Times, my laundry, Grey's Anatomy and the two friends I have over... Wait, I swear I thought I was being productive. It was the first sunny day in Berkeley in what seems like a month - so the fact that I got anything done is a miracle. Momentarily distracted by my need to see in the Cal Women's Basketball team won in the first round of the NCAA, I came upon this news item at the Berkeley website: http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/2006/mar16.html

The University of California has rightly divested itself from companies doing business with the Sudanese government. I almost wrote my undergraduate history thesis on the student movement at Berkeley to end apartheid in South Africa. Student divestment movements at universities (esp. Columbia and the UCs) went a long way towards change in that country and we can only hope this might too be a turning point.

Now don't consider me a traitor, but I am quoting from Nancy Su's article in the Daily Bruin:

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.