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The Student Movement for Palestine Is Not Going Away · The Real News Podcast

0:11
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Real News Network. I'm Maximilian Alvarez.
0:14
Speaker 1: Two years ago, at the height of Israel's US backed
0:18
Speaker 1: genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, we witnessed one of the
0:21
Speaker 1: most widespread waves of college campus protests in this country
0:25
Speaker 1: since the Vietnam War. Student led Palestine solidarity encampments exploded
0:31
Speaker 1: from Columbia University in New York to UCLA to right
0:35
Speaker 1: here in Baltimore. And as we've been covering continuously here
0:38
Speaker 1: at the Real News, what we've seen since then has
0:41
Speaker 1: been a harrowing assault on free speech and the right
0:45
Speaker 1: to protest from the federal government and Zionist organizations. And
0:49
Speaker 1: we've also seen universities themselves, private and public, ramp up
0:54
Speaker 1: their own internal surveillance and repression machines and weaponize them
0:58
Speaker 1: against their own state students, grad students, and faculty. Life
1:03
Speaker 1: learning and activism on America's college campuses looks very different today,
1:09
Speaker 1: and today we're talking with a number of student organizers
1:12
Speaker 1: across our home state of Maryland about how they are
1:15
Speaker 1: adapting their tactics today to continue their struggle to end
1:19
Speaker 1: the slaughter in ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and to hold
1:23
Speaker 1: supporters and enablers of the genocide accountable, including their own universities.
1:29
Speaker 1: And I'm really grateful to be joined today by four
1:31
Speaker 1: students from different institutions across the University System of Maryland
1:36
Speaker 1: who are also organizers with the USM Investment Coalition. Thank
1:41
Speaker 1: you all so much for being here. Please introduce yourselves
1:44
Speaker 1: to our listeners. Hi.
1:45
Speaker 2: Everyone, We're so excited to be here today and grateful
1:48
Speaker 2: for the opportunity to share a little bit about what
1:50
Speaker 2: the University System of Maryland Investment Coalition does. My name
1:54
Speaker 2: is Clodija. I'm a student within the USM system. I'm
1:58
Speaker 2: also a member of the USM Divestment Coalition, and I'm
2:01
Speaker 2: a former member of UNBC SJP. The USMA Investment Coalition
2:05
Speaker 2: is an organizing body of students, faculty, staff, alumni, and
2:08
Speaker 2: community members of the USM and the broader Maryland community
2:13
Speaker 2: organizing for the end of our university systems complicity and
2:16
Speaker 2: violating Palestinian human rights and upholding the settler Zionist state.
2:20
Speaker 3: Hi.
2:20
Speaker 4: Everyone, really grateful to be here. My name is zid
2:23
Speaker 4: Con and I'm one of the members of the us
2:25
Speaker 4: AND Ivestment Coalition and a former member of the UMDSJP.
2:29
Speaker 4: I got involved with the coalition after we UMD finally
2:33
Speaker 4: had successfully achieved that investment win via our referendum in
2:38
Speaker 4: the student government elections, which over three thousand students voted
2:41
Speaker 4: in favor for calling the UMD to divest from companies
2:43
Speaker 4: complicit in the genocide in Palestine. The University of phus
2:46
Speaker 4: take action on this. However, we knew that the power
2:48
Speaker 4: of divestment was really at the USM level and recognized
2:50
Speaker 4: this led to where we are today with multiple USM
2:53
Speaker 4: schools part of the coalition.
2:54
Speaker 5: Yeah, hi minus Muhammed, I'm also student at the University
2:58
Speaker 5: of Maryland College Park involved the SJP don't want to
3:02
Speaker 5: reiterate what Zaide said too much, but similarly, we saw
3:05
Speaker 5: that there was only so much we could do at
3:07
Speaker 5: the school level. We've been meeting with like our school
3:09
Speaker 5: administration for years, and they would always just point their
3:12
Speaker 5: fingers and say like, hey, we don't have power over
3:14
Speaker 5: divesting the USM's two billion dollar endowment from weapons manufacturers
3:19
Speaker 5: and companies you know, enabling the genocide and Palestine.
3:22
Speaker 6: So yeah, that's why we got involved in just.
3:24
Speaker 5: To shift the pressure onto the people who actually have
3:26
Speaker 5: decision making power and you know, so hopefully shift all
3:30
Speaker 5: of our activism back to you know, gain back the
3:33
Speaker 5: momentum that we had during the encampments and actually start
3:37
Speaker 5: like negotiating, you know, with the people that have the
3:39
Speaker 5: power to divest rather than just kind of screaming it
3:42
Speaker 5: into a vacuum.
3:43
Speaker 3: My name is Phi. I am taos and Hyde essays
3:47
Speaker 3: incoming co chair. I am a taws And University student,
3:50
Speaker 3: and I got involved with the USM Divestment Coalition following
3:52
Speaker 3: a teaching that they had at our university.
3:55
Speaker 1: Well, thank you all so much for being here. It
3:57
Speaker 1: really really is incredible to have you all here on
4:00
Speaker 1: the same call together. And I wanted to ask if
4:03
Speaker 1: y'all could just kind of explain a little bit more
4:06
Speaker 1: for our listeners. You know what this devestment Coalition is,
4:12
Speaker 1: how it came to be, and how, yeah, you personally got.
4:16
Speaker 6: Involved in it.
4:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I was actually one of the founding members
4:19
Speaker 2: of this divestment coalition. Around two years ago. Post October
4:25
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three, a few of us starting started attending
4:28
Speaker 2: Board of Regions meetings to clarify how the University System
4:31
Speaker 2: of Maryland structure works. Essentially, there's twelve Maryland public state
4:35
Speaker 2: universities and they're governed by one body, which is called
4:38
Speaker 2: the Board of Regents. And these are twenty one governor
4:40
Speaker 2: appointed individuals, so they're not elected and they're not necessarily
4:44
Speaker 2: paid for their positions by the state, although we can
4:47
Speaker 2: kind of elaborate further on how they benefit from the
4:49
Speaker 2: structure later, but essentially they sit above the president. So
4:52
Speaker 2: most people think that university presidents actually control all university operations,
4:56
Speaker 2: but the presidents merely form one of multiple advisory ca
5:00
Speaker 2: councils to this Board of Regions that ultimately have final say.
5:03
Speaker 2: And these Board of Regents also govern over a two
5:06
Speaker 2: billion dollar pooled endowment that is shared between all the schools.
5:11
Speaker 2: So essentially, in that first year post October twenty twenty three,
5:14
Speaker 2: a few of us started attending Board of Regions meetings
5:17
Speaker 2: and speaking during the public comment portion. And in the
5:19
Speaker 2: past year we have done a lot of outreach and
5:22
Speaker 2: organized much more with Taoson and UMD students, and we've
5:26
Speaker 2: developed a lot more internally and externally with a social
5:29
Speaker 2: media presence as well as developing internal and external goals,
5:32
Speaker 2: increasing our presence at board meetings, and really built up
5:35
Speaker 2: a dedicated organizing body.
5:37
Speaker 3: Overall, I do want to say one small thing, although
5:40
Speaker 3: this coalition has sort of united around the issue of Palestine,
5:44
Speaker 3: and that will always remain, Like the core goal is
5:49
Speaker 3: liberation of the Palestinian people and the Palestinian cause. Divestment
5:54
Speaker 3: from weapons manufacturing is an issue that has much broader
5:58
Speaker 3: implications with other imperialist struggles.
6:02
Speaker 6: In the world.
6:03
Speaker 3: In countries such as the Philippines, weaponry manufactured by Lockheed Martin,
6:10
Speaker 3: a corporation that the university does a lot of business with,
6:14
Speaker 3: has sort of been used to target certain student activists
6:19
Speaker 3: that have done work in the Philippines, humanitarian work in
6:23
Speaker 3: the Philippines, which I think we're going to elaborate on more,
6:27
Speaker 3: but divestment is an issue that has very wide reaching implications,
6:34
Speaker 3: and we are fighting for freedom for colonized and oppressed
6:39
Speaker 3: peoples around the world.
6:40
Speaker 1: Well, let's talk a bit more about that and what
6:43
Speaker 1: the USM Devestment Coalition does and why you know, from
6:49
Speaker 1: the organizing and advocating that y'all are doing on a
6:53
Speaker 1: week to week campus to campus basis to you know,
6:56
Speaker 1: these larger actions and campaigns like the People's Tribunal that
7:01
Speaker 1: y'all held earlier this year, Like, tell us more about
7:05
Speaker 1: what this coalition does and tell us how your universities
7:10
Speaker 1: have responded to the coalition and your demands.
7:14
Speaker 5: So I was talking before about how, you know, the
7:17
Speaker 5: divestment movement has been around on USM campuses for over
7:20
Speaker 5: a decade now, right, there have been huge pushes. You know,
7:24
Speaker 5: I have friends who are around now who used to,
7:27
Speaker 5: you know, come to these divestment meetings urging the USM
7:30
Speaker 5: to divest from Israel.
7:31
Speaker 6: Like back when they were in middle school.
7:33
Speaker 5: So it's been going on for a while, but you know,
7:36
Speaker 5: during the encampments era, it escalated and you know, we
7:39
Speaker 5: got to the point where you know, the university couldn't ignore,
7:43
Speaker 5: you know, or at least not entirely ignore the calls
7:46
Speaker 5: of its students who you know overwhelmingly wanted to divest.
7:49
Speaker 5: And at first, you know, the way that manifested was
7:53
Speaker 5: they established like an inquiry process, right, so before there
7:56
Speaker 5: was no formal way to request that the USM divest
8:00
Speaker 5: it's endowment from anything, but they established like an inquiry
8:03
Speaker 5: process where every semester there's a deadline and you can
8:05
Speaker 5: submit something. Usually it's like a student government at the
8:08
Speaker 5: university that'll submit you know, a resolution calling on them
8:12
Speaker 5: to divest from and you know, anything whether it be
8:14
Speaker 5: fossil fuels or from Israel, from weapons manufacturers.
8:18
Speaker 6: You know.
8:18
Speaker 5: Unfortunately though it wasn't really legitimate. It was more so
8:22
Speaker 5: just like a formal way for them to tell us know,
8:24
Speaker 5: and it wasn't really being taken or you know, we
8:27
Speaker 5: still weren't being taken seriously at that point, which is
8:31
Speaker 5: you know why I think, you know, the coalition needed
8:34
Speaker 5: to be formed, right because all of us, like we
8:37
Speaker 5: had the three biggest universities in the US and University
8:41
Speaker 5: meliand College Park UNBC and Tawson University all pass resolutions
8:47
Speaker 5: calling on the USM to divest, and they were still
8:49
Speaker 5: ignoring it. Right at that point, you have like a
8:51
Speaker 5: you know, a substantial portion of the one hundred and
8:54
Speaker 5: eighty thousand students that you represent telling you that they
8:57
Speaker 5: want you to divest, and we still weren't actually having
9:00
Speaker 5: negotiations with them or having the demand seriously considered or
9:05
Speaker 5: given a reason as to why we can't divest. So
9:08
Speaker 5: the USN Collis was basically just you know, a way
9:12
Speaker 5: for us to bridge those concerns that people had and
9:15
Speaker 5: the call for divestment to the people who actually have
9:17
Speaker 5: the power to make it happen. And yeah, we can
9:20
Speaker 5: talk more later about like how the response has been
9:24
Speaker 5: on campuses, you know, to those calls, and you know
9:28
Speaker 5: the repression we've seen. Yeah, essentially what we've seen is
9:32
Speaker 5: just them, you know, kind of trying to give us
9:33
Speaker 5: more creative ways to deny the cultures.
9:37
Speaker 4: Yeah, and yeah, to add on to that, I think
9:40
Speaker 4: Muhammad mentioned and other people mentioned it as well, and
9:43
Speaker 4: I did as well, But I want to talk more
9:44
Speaker 4: specifically about them D at least at UMD and a
9:47
Speaker 4: divestment campaign there which has a history of dating back
9:50
Speaker 4: to actually twenty seventeen, where you know, the calls were
9:53
Speaker 4: investment specifically for powers sign were made. So you know,
9:56
Speaker 4: it's clear that the organizing that we're doing now isn't new,
9:59
Speaker 4: it's just how the strategy has shifted. For years, organizers
10:03
Speaker 4: would bring divestment our bills to the Student Government Association
10:09
Speaker 4: and again, like you mentioned before, this was done at UMD,
10:11
Speaker 4: at Taos and then also at UMBC. But at least
10:14
Speaker 4: at UMD they were blocked by legislators who weren't willing
10:16
Speaker 4: to take the stance, you know, and didn't have any
10:19
Speaker 4: morality because they were in there for their political gain. However,
10:22
Speaker 4: like I mentioned before, in spring of twenty twenty four,
10:25
Speaker 4: the strategy changed in the sense that instead of trying
10:28
Speaker 4: to persuade the legislatures that didn't represent the opinions of
10:31
Speaker 4: the students at umd LEA, we ran a pro palace
10:34
Speaker 4: signed slate that rans strictly on you know, being pro
10:37
Speaker 4: palast in the end and being pro divestment, and basically
10:41
Speaker 4: almost sweeping the entirety of the student government elections and
10:45
Speaker 4: building what became the first propouse sign super majority and
10:49
Speaker 4: MDSJA history. So with that supermajority, we passed our BDS resolution,
10:56
Speaker 4: which went more specifican to the other aspects of BDS
10:59
Speaker 4: boycott spensations that followed the demand from the referendum that
11:02
Speaker 4: over three thousand students voted for. And like we kind
11:05
Speaker 4: of mentioned before, the administration acknowledged the referendum and the resolution,
11:10
Speaker 4: but choose to ignore both, that being because of how
11:13
Speaker 4: the structure is, they actually generally don't have the power
11:15
Speaker 4: to divest at least at the system level. And with that,
11:20
Speaker 4: the coalition, the formula, the coation you know, it was
11:22
Speaker 4: a necessity because the money wasn't sitting in a place
11:26
Speaker 4: that into each individual university has to say over so
11:30
Speaker 4: because the in fact the investments were managed through the
11:32
Speaker 4: us SIM Foundation, the USM Foundation, and the Common Trust Fund,
11:36
Speaker 4: which are governed, like we mentioned, by unelected royal regions
11:40
Speaker 4: that are appointed by the governor. So you know, the
11:42
Speaker 4: campus organizing, the campus wins, they're real, and we saw
11:46
Speaker 4: a lot of that post October twenty twenty three and
11:49
Speaker 4: post the encampments because of the escalator organizing that was
11:52
Speaker 4: done specifically with the genocide and Gaza and seeing that
11:56
Speaker 4: escalate and over the last two and a half years
11:58
Speaker 4: we see these wins, but the actual target this entire
12:01
Speaker 4: time was the system itself.
12:03
Speaker 2: So I did my first two years and my undergraduate
12:06
Speaker 2: degree at University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and I spent
12:09
Speaker 2: two years heavily involved in the SGP there. UNBC was
12:12
Speaker 2: always heavily invested in divestment efforts post October twenty twenty three,
12:16
Speaker 2: as the genocide against LUSA accelerated and public consciousness simultaneously
12:20
Speaker 2: was raising. UNBC is actually a minority serving institution, so
12:25
Speaker 2: most the majority of our student body are minorities, so
12:27
Speaker 2: we did receive a lot of support amongst the student
12:29
Speaker 2: body for divestment, and we were the first university within
12:33
Speaker 2: the system to pass the divestment resolution within the Student
12:35
Speaker 2: Government Association, and it explicitly used the Palestinian Boykrant divestment
12:41
Speaker 2: sanctioned movement framework, which was definitely a big win and
12:44
Speaker 2: I think set UNBC a part early on within the USM.
12:48
Speaker 2: Not only that, though, hundreds of students also signed a
12:51
Speaker 2: petition urging the university's career center to stop inviting defense
12:54
Speaker 2: contractors to recruitment events, and two of the main war
12:58
Speaker 2: profiteers in America, Locking and in North of Grumman, actually
13:01
Speaker 2: did stop coming to our career fairs in twenty twenty
13:03
Speaker 2: four and have continued to stop. So unbc's student population
13:07
Speaker 2: has always been relatively easy to organize around. That being said,
13:11
Speaker 2: administrations are separate from the student body. We're lucky at UNBC.
13:16
Speaker 2: We're definitely a bit better off than umd UMD is
13:19
Speaker 2: definitely more repressive. Our administration was definitely willing to hear
13:23
Speaker 2: us out a little more and even remove like sober
13:25
Speaker 2: homes off campus, So that was a BDS win. However,
13:29
Speaker 2: they did charge the students wrongfully with student conduct violations
13:32
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty four, although they lost the case. The
13:35
Speaker 2: students won that case, but they did release interim time
13:39
Speaker 2: place manor policies, which all the universities around that time
13:44
Speaker 2: actually released post encampments across the nation. So there's collaboration
13:48
Speaker 2: between universities across the nation and also between the states.
13:52
Speaker 2: So universities serve as a mouthpiece of the state to
13:54
Speaker 2: repress us, and we saw that at a national scale
13:57
Speaker 2: after the encampments. Despite these strictive efforts, a student movement
14:01
Speaker 2: is constantly adjusting and growing despite their efforts to stall
14:05
Speaker 2: our clearly winning movement. In terms of I mentioned the
14:09
Speaker 2: Sabrahamus and like other divestment efforts at UNBC. But along
14:13
Speaker 2: with divestment also comes the academic and cultural complicity that
14:17
Speaker 2: our universities play in upholding the Zionist settler ideology. So,
14:22
Speaker 2: for example, at UNBC, a couple of the campaigns that
14:24
Speaker 2: we are still working on is one of the professors.
14:27
Speaker 2: His name is Eli Lieberman. He teaches Jewish studies, and
14:29
Speaker 2: his taught courses that are explicitly biased against the Palestinian
14:32
Speaker 2: people and their struggle for self determination. He has released
14:36
Speaker 2: papers on deterring terrorism where he compares Palstinian people directly
14:40
Speaker 2: to terrorist groups. There's been a call to remove him,
14:44
Speaker 2: which has not happened yet the administration has largely ignored
14:47
Speaker 2: those calls. And then, lastly, and also like very horrible
14:52
Speaker 2: and shamefully, UMBC has been in a partnership with Israel's
14:55
Speaker 2: Minister of Agriculture for an aquatics research partnership. And like
14:59
Speaker 2: em earlier, part of the divestment within the coalition is
15:02
Speaker 2: not only cessation or financial complicity, but also a cessation
15:06
Speaker 2: of academic complicity in the apartheid occupation. So UNBC students
15:11
Speaker 2: have been appealing to university and mean to end this
15:13
Speaker 2: partnership this minister. Current minister has called the current genocide
15:18
Speaker 2: and juza as rolling out the second NECA, which the
15:21
Speaker 2: NECVO was the expulsion of over six hundred thousand Palacinians
15:25
Speaker 2: from their homes in nineteen forty eight. But regardless, the
15:28
Speaker 2: university has made no.
15:30
Speaker 3: Effort on that I can say on TAS and university's
15:33
Speaker 3: campus students, there is one specific instance of students facing
15:39
Speaker 3: very clear repression for exercising their right to free speech
15:44
Speaker 3: being attacked under these time, place and manner policies. That
15:49
Speaker 3: die in was organized shortly after October seventh, where students
15:55
Speaker 3: mourned in the university square and they were like threout
16:00
Speaker 3: and with disciplinary action and some were even tracked to
16:03
Speaker 3: their vehicles as they were leaving. And recently there was
16:07
Speaker 3: a an IDDF soldier came to Towson's campus unregistered. They
16:14
Speaker 3: showed up, they set up a table in a kind
16:17
Speaker 3: of like Kirquean way, just sort of had this sign
16:22
Speaker 3: that was like, you know, I'm an EXIDF soldier, asked
16:24
Speaker 3: me anything, and they were able to bring their own
16:29
Speaker 3: security detail that was not vetted by the university. Their
16:32
Speaker 3: presence themselves was not vetted by the university, and it
16:37
Speaker 3: was a presence that was clearly very intimidating for Arab students.
16:42
Speaker 3: And yeah, the university responded to they have not released
16:47
Speaker 3: a statement on this, as I am aware, and even
16:51
Speaker 3: in the moment, they did not kick him off campus,
16:54
Speaker 3: even as he was in violation of the same sort
16:57
Speaker 3: of jurisdictions that caused like very intense disap pint of
17:00
Speaker 3: students for exercising similar rights. They just allowed him to
17:05
Speaker 3: be moved back to you know, a different area, a
17:09
Speaker 3: little further off campus, so there was very little solidarity
17:14
Speaker 3: for students and a tolerance for this kind of rhetoric
17:18
Speaker 3: as well.
17:18
Speaker 1: Let's take a step back and put all of this
17:21
Speaker 1: in the context of the past few years, from the
17:25
Speaker 1: genocide in Gaza to the student encampment movement, to the
17:30
Speaker 1: wave of repression from the Biden and Trump administrations and
17:35
Speaker 1: from university administrations themselves. Like, firstly, I wanted to ask
17:40
Speaker 1: y'all if you could just describe for people out there
17:43
Speaker 1: who aren't living or working on a college campus right now,
17:48
Speaker 1: what is it like to be a student and a
17:50
Speaker 1: student activist in the US in twenty twenty six And
17:54
Speaker 1: what is the you know, emergence of the USM Devestment Coalition,
17:59
Speaker 1: say about the of tactics and goals and strategies of
18:03
Speaker 1: the student movements against war and genocide and censorship.
18:08
Speaker 5: Yeah, of course, So I think the way that we've
18:12
Speaker 5: seen it at USM schools, and I would say the
18:15
Speaker 5: you know, College Park is probably the worst campus when
18:17
Speaker 5: it comes to repression is they've done it very sneakily.
18:21
Speaker 5: So the like Maryland s JPS you know, didn't host
18:25
Speaker 5: an encampment on any of their campuses. They help you know,
18:28
Speaker 5: participated in the DMV wide one which was out of
18:30
Speaker 5: DC campus. So our universities didn't have I don't think
18:35
Speaker 5: they had the same like pretext as many other universities
18:39
Speaker 5: did to go in and you know directly suppressed or
18:42
Speaker 5: like ban any s jps like we saw other campuses.
18:45
Speaker 6: So the way that they went about it.
18:46
Speaker 5: As as mentioned earlier, was with like these time, place
18:49
Speaker 5: and manner restrictions that they you know, rolled out on
18:52
Speaker 5: all campuses. But you know, like I said before, College
18:55
Speaker 5: Park probably being the worst example. Yeah, I mean, just
18:58
Speaker 5: to give a few examples. You know, amplified sound isn't
19:01
Speaker 5: allowed at all, you know during the week you can
19:04
Speaker 5: only use it, you know, over the weekend. That obviously
19:07
Speaker 5: makes it harder to protest. You can't have a group
19:10
Speaker 5: of over ten students gathering together without a reservation made
19:14
Speaker 5: because it's then considered an event and you need a
19:16
Speaker 5: reservation to be able to do an events. You're not
19:18
Speaker 5: allowed to chalk unless you know, outside of three designated
19:22
Speaker 5: areas on campus, and you're not allowed to put stickers
19:25
Speaker 5: up on university property. And you know what's more, disappointing
19:29
Speaker 5: than just the policies themselves, is how selectively enforced they are.
19:34
Speaker 5: If you take a walk around you know, the College
19:36
Speaker 5: Park campus, you'll see stickers for just about everything. Lots
19:39
Speaker 5: of organizations create stickers. You'll see them all over the place.
19:43
Speaker 5: You know, political not political, like it is a very
19:47
Speaker 5: casual thing. But I know personally of you know, two
19:51
Speaker 5: students who put up stickers that actually had their faces covered.
19:54
Speaker 5: But you know, we're investigated, and you know, the university
19:57
Speaker 5: tracked them down just based on like their height and
19:59
Speaker 5: their skin cot So that's how seriously they take it.
20:01
Speaker 5: When it's like a pro Palestine sticker is they'll track
20:04
Speaker 5: the person down, give them, you know, student conduct charges.
20:07
Speaker 5: But you know, any other type of sticker, it's not
20:09
Speaker 5: treated as a big deal because it shouldn't be a
20:11
Speaker 5: big deal. And yeah, obviously the we've called the university
20:16
Speaker 5: out on this, like why did these really strict policies
20:20
Speaker 5: come come about, you know, around the same time as
20:23
Speaker 5: the encampments were blowing up, And you know they have
20:26
Speaker 5: claimed that it isn't in direct response to it, but
20:29
Speaker 5: you know, we know it is, and you know, we
20:32
Speaker 5: we see it in other places, even like in my
20:35
Speaker 5: you know, orientation, when I was like preparing to I
20:38
Speaker 5: hadn't even like had my first class on campus yet.
20:40
Speaker 5: This was like my first time summer before my freshman year.
20:43
Speaker 5: In for context, I was a freshman like after the encampments,
20:46
Speaker 5: and you know, we had like the police talking to
20:49
Speaker 5: us again first day on campus about how they had
20:52
Speaker 5: like prevented any of the you know, they didn't use
20:57
Speaker 5: the word encampment, but like the chaos that they saw campuses.
21:00
Speaker 5: They were bragging about how they prevented it at UMD
21:02
Speaker 5: and how they wouldn't let it happen.
21:03
Speaker 6: So it was very like explicit.
21:07
Speaker 5: There's also been repression, like when we actually go to
21:09
Speaker 5: the Board of Regents meeting. This was like you know,
21:11
Speaker 5: more recently once two k the USM Coalition, which I
21:14
Speaker 5: think you can speak to.
21:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, just like really briefly, I've been attending the Board
21:19
Speaker 2: of Regions meetings since November twenty twenty three, I've attended
21:22
Speaker 2: eight Board of Regions meetings, and these meetings, the Board
21:25
Speaker 2: of Regions are extremely inaccessible. They basically never meet with students,
21:30
Speaker 2: the Board of Regents and the chancellor, even though that
21:33
Speaker 2: they're in these public serving positions to serve the students.
21:37
Speaker 2: They never meet with us, but regardless their public meeting,
21:41
Speaker 2: their meetings have a public portion, the beginning section, and
21:44
Speaker 2: then they have a public comments section, and people are
21:46
Speaker 2: limited to three minutes, which I know people who have
21:51
Speaker 2: attended meetings before we started attending, and they said that
21:55
Speaker 2: they never saw the time limit being in force. We
21:58
Speaker 2: would go up there and they would stand us with
22:00
Speaker 2: a timer. They would cut us off if we spoke
22:02
Speaker 2: on anything that wasn't explicitly on the agenda for that day.
22:06
Speaker 2: And mind you again, these are twenty one people, twenty
22:08
Speaker 2: one adults, grown up adults who are meant to serve
22:11
Speaker 2: as students. And these are like young eighteen nineteen year
22:14
Speaker 2: olds coming with a prepared siege just for three minutes
22:17
Speaker 2: to talk about something that they care about, you know,
22:19
Speaker 2: something that's an ethical concern, which the USM claims to
22:21
Speaker 2: have a commitment to global justice, so this should be
22:25
Speaker 2: directly aligned with their mission and values. But it's become
22:29
Speaker 2: increasingly apparent in the way that they have engaged with
22:32
Speaker 2: us at these meetings that it hasn't necessarily been in
22:35
Speaker 2: good faith. They also their security measures have like amped up,
22:40
Speaker 2: so they always have like security, but they had started
22:43
Speaker 2: searching through our bags, requiring us to open any posters
22:45
Speaker 2: that we have, searching through every single pocket, you know,
22:48
Speaker 2: turning students down from speaking just because they got there
22:51
Speaker 2: a few minutes late. Just things like that have definitely
22:55
Speaker 2: been I wouldn't say discouraging, but definitely disappointing.
23:00
Speaker 4: Back in October twenty twenty four, the UMDSJP we're planning
23:05
Speaker 4: organizing an a actually a vigil for the martyrs in Guzza,
23:10
Speaker 4: and that was faced by a lot of backlash from
23:13
Speaker 4: the Zionist community of UMD which is really large, and
23:18
Speaker 4: even threats were made to the president of the university
23:20
Speaker 4: threatening to lynch him in his family using the racial
23:24
Speaker 4: slurs in emails sent to him unless the event was canceled.
23:28
Speaker 4: And again this is a peaceful vigil that was being held,
23:30
Speaker 4: not even in protest honoring the martyrs in Guza, and
23:34
Speaker 4: the university floted to the threats, claiming that it was
23:36
Speaker 4: not safe for the students to organize that event, which
23:40
Speaker 4: in response to that, they created a blackout date to
23:44
Speaker 4: be held instead, so no student organizations were allowed to
23:47
Speaker 4: have any event, regardless of what it was about, which
23:50
Speaker 4: is obviously repressive in the sense of the Palestinian organizing,
23:55
Speaker 4: but also repressive in the terms of freedom of speech.
23:58
Speaker 4: Any other student organization want to have to event, they
24:00
Speaker 4: were not allowed to, and this has never been done before.
24:02
Speaker 4: There's never been a day where they can. You're not
24:04
Speaker 4: allowed to have an event at all. So the response
24:06
Speaker 4: with that was a UMDSVP sued the school and it's
24:10
Speaker 4: turned out to be the UMSHVP one the lawsuit and
24:14
Speaker 4: ended with a one hundred thousand dollars settlement, with majority
24:17
Speaker 4: of that being donated to direct dorectly back to Gaza
24:19
Speaker 4: and the people there. And then I also wanted to
24:22
Speaker 4: mention about doxing, which is very prevalent at UMD It's
24:26
Speaker 4: happened at UMBSS as well. I'm not too sure in
24:28
Speaker 4: terms of Taos and how common it's there, but doxing
24:31
Speaker 4: is a method used by Zionists, students and just general
24:34
Speaker 4: Zionists to target students that are speaking out against the
24:38
Speaker 4: genocide and speaking out as apartheid system. This has been
24:41
Speaker 4: something that's been done for almost ten years now, and
24:45
Speaker 4: students who were on student government myself voting for divestment,
24:50
Speaker 4: were docks do Actually, Iowa was dockxed over a resolution
24:54
Speaker 4: that cannet the university for allowing the university to host
24:58
Speaker 4: three IOF soldiers who participated in the genocide in Gaza
25:02
Speaker 4: and for the purpose of the event was to talk
25:03
Speaker 4: about their experience committing a genocide, which was appalling. The
25:08
Speaker 4: university claimed that this was not a security threat or
25:10
Speaker 4: safety threat to the students, but having a piece of
25:12
Speaker 4: vigil was and shows you that clear bias that they
25:15
Speaker 4: have against Palestine. And so in response to that, calling
25:19
Speaker 4: for the university to change your policies to not allow
25:22
Speaker 4: people that have been complicit in genocide and war crimes
25:26
Speaker 4: to be banned from the university resulted in being docked,
25:30
Speaker 4: and many other students have been docked as well. I
25:33
Speaker 4: think actually one of the people that leads the docing
25:36
Speaker 4: campaigns on a popular site that just used docting called
25:38
Speaker 4: Canary Mission, actually was a UMD alumni. So it kind
25:41
Speaker 4: of shows you those ties that it's pure malice targeting
25:45
Speaker 4: students who are just speaking against genocides. So, and I
25:47
Speaker 4: also kind of want to touch upon the Border Regents meeting,
25:50
Speaker 4: putting you touched on a lot of it, but just
25:52
Speaker 4: to kind of say, you know, for any other students
25:55
Speaker 4: here the meetings that they do or held on Fridays
25:57
Speaker 4: at eight thirty am. I don't know about you, but
25:59
Speaker 4: most students are not up at eight thirty am on
26:01
Speaker 4: a Friday, let alone being held at different campuses. So
26:06
Speaker 4: students who want to raise their voices to the board regents,
26:10
Speaker 4: the people that represent them, they have to wake up
26:12
Speaker 4: a thirty figure out a way drive, or figure out
26:14
Speaker 4: their intransportation to get to wherever they're holding the meeting
26:18
Speaker 4: just to speak to them, which that is even that
26:20
Speaker 4: is limited. Before there wasn't a time limit, but when
26:24
Speaker 4: in past and we've spoken, we've been given three minutes
26:26
Speaker 4: for time limit. That actually moved down to two minutes
26:28
Speaker 4: for one of the meetings for no reason at all,
26:31
Speaker 4: And they block out only fifteen minutes to hear from
26:34
Speaker 4: the people that they represent. So that kind of shows
26:36
Speaker 4: you how they use their oppression the tactics in terms
26:40
Speaker 4: of saying that there's only fifteen minutes allocated to that
26:42
Speaker 4: that we're going to only allow those students to speak
26:44
Speaker 4: for that long. And there's also double saying in terms
26:47
Speaker 4: of any other people testifying to the USM where they
26:51
Speaker 4: have allowed speakers to go beyond the time as allocated
26:53
Speaker 4: for them, whereas when students speaking out for divestments speaking
26:58
Speaker 4: out for the university to complicity with the occupation and
27:02
Speaker 4: weapons of manufacturers, they are not faced with that same opportunity.
27:05
Speaker 3: And Zaya did bring up Towson and the use of
27:08
Speaker 3: doxing over there, although I can't off the top of
27:11
Speaker 3: my head name any like direct examples of doxing. During
27:16
Speaker 3: testimonies for a SGA resolution calling for a divestment, an
27:20
Speaker 3: ex faculty member named Richard Vattz, who actually has an
27:24
Speaker 3: auditorium named after him, testified against the resolution and advocated
27:30
Speaker 3: for doxing of students, which is incredibly it's a very
27:35
Speaker 3: bad look for the university, to say the least, and
27:38
Speaker 3: the kind of message that it sends that an ex
27:40
Speaker 3: faculty member with the university holds very dear is willing
27:44
Speaker 3: to advocate for the doxing and essentially putting these students
27:49
Speaker 3: in you know, real harm, is kind of underlines how
27:54
Speaker 3: unprotected students are who advocate for this cost.
27:58
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I think another important you know thing to
28:02
Speaker 5: highlight is just that as the student movement has been
28:05
Speaker 5: more successful, I think it's really done a good job
28:08
Speaker 5: just exposing you know, the the like underlying racism and
28:12
Speaker 5: and agenda that the university upholds. You know, as a
28:17
Speaker 5: Palestinian student of myself, like I can speak to just
28:19
Speaker 5: like the double standards in how the university functions, like
28:23
Speaker 5: in terms of the you know, curriculum that's offered.
28:25
Speaker 6: There are no.
28:26
Speaker 5: Classes at UMD talking about the Palestinian experience. The closest
28:29
Speaker 5: thing there is is, you know, there's a class talking
28:31
Speaker 5: about the experience of the minority of Pastinians who you
28:36
Speaker 5: know live under like Israeli society and have Israeli citizenship.
28:40
Speaker 5: So you know, the only class like even mentioning Palestinians
28:43
Speaker 5: is taught in the context of like you know, like
28:46
Speaker 5: a very biased, like pro Israel perspective of you know,
28:50
Speaker 5: a specific portion of Pastinians who live, you know, with
28:54
Speaker 5: Israeli citizenship. We have Israel studies, Hebrew studies, and Jewish studies,
28:59
Speaker 5: but you know, there isn't anything about there's Arabic studies, right,
29:02
Speaker 5: but there's no like I said before, there's just a
29:05
Speaker 5: lack of coverage of like the Palestinian story and then
29:09
Speaker 5: Palestinian voices in the academics and even looking at like
29:13
Speaker 5: the guest speakers that departments invite. The Business School has
29:16
Speaker 5: regularly invited. They've made it like almost an annual thing
29:19
Speaker 5: at this point. They invite Israeli politicians and staunch like
29:23
Speaker 5: pro is Real advocates to come speak. And actually the
29:27
Speaker 5: one time that they did invite Palestinians, it was like
29:30
Speaker 5: the two most like sell out, like one in a thousand,
29:33
Speaker 5: worst of the worst Pestinians that they could find.
29:34
Speaker 6: So they just you know, have refused.
29:37
Speaker 5: To platform Palestinians in academia in general, while you know,
29:42
Speaker 5: not just normalizing but like promoting pro Israel narratives. And
29:47
Speaker 5: then I think the other area that we see a
29:49
Speaker 5: lot of bias is in their response to hate bias incidents.
29:52
Speaker 6: So they created after like.
29:56
Speaker 5: October of twenty twenty three, when they you know, observed
29:59
Speaker 5: a rise across country in both like islamophobia and anti
30:03
Speaker 5: Semitic hate crimes, they created like one committee to address
30:06
Speaker 5: both anti sensism and Islamophobia. But you know, there was
30:10
Speaker 5: very clear bias. I've spoken to people on the committee
30:13
Speaker 5: who've talked about this, and also reading the report they published.
30:17
Speaker 6: They published like a sixty page.
30:18
Speaker 5: Report, and in it there was a list of like
30:21
Speaker 5: quote unquote anti Semitic incidents. Right, they have a list
30:23
Speaker 5: of like all the hate crimes. Of course, none of
30:25
Speaker 5: the many, many instances of Palestinian students being you know,
30:29
Speaker 5: regularly harassed by U Zieni students who are listed. Any
30:32
Speaker 5: Palestinian can speak to that. It is unfortunately very commonplace.
30:36
Speaker 5: But you had a long list of incidents that were
30:40
Speaker 5: literally you know, a sighting of a free Palestine sticker
30:43
Speaker 5: or someone hearing someone else chant free Palestine, and students
30:47
Speaker 5: would like call the police and report that and label
30:50
Speaker 5: as an anti Semitic hate crime. And the police not
30:53
Speaker 5: only kept a record of that, which was crazy and
30:55
Speaker 5: out of itself, but they published it, you know, somewhere
30:57
Speaker 5: in the sixty page report.
30:59
Speaker 6: Right. So the fact that they're.
31:01
Speaker 5: Associating these very like mundane examples of people like expressing
31:05
Speaker 5: their oppositition to the genocide and support for Palestinian people
31:09
Speaker 5: with anti semitism is alarming.
31:12
Speaker 6: And you know, when there's a very real.
31:14
Speaker 5: Rise in anti Palestinian racism in Islamophobion campus, we see
31:17
Speaker 5: absolutely nothing. Actually, in like the last few weeks of
31:21
Speaker 5: justice past semester, we had you know, two very good
31:24
Speaker 5: examples to highlight just that. So there was an instance
31:28
Speaker 5: of you know, someone who who did make an anti
31:31
Speaker 5: semitic post featuring you know, a Jewish student's face and
31:34
Speaker 5: then posting it online with like anti Semitic symbolism in
31:38
Speaker 5: the back, and the school responds to that like very
31:41
Speaker 5: quickly and very with heavy condemnation. Within twenty four hours,
31:46
Speaker 5: the president of the university had sent an email to everyone,
31:48
Speaker 5: the police department had sent an email to everyone saying
31:50
Speaker 5: that they were actively investigating it.
31:52
Speaker 6: And then not even a week.
31:54
Speaker 5: After that, there was a pro Israel influencer on campus
32:00
Speaker 5: who posted a Muslim girl's face visibly Muslim girl, she's
32:03
Speaker 5: wearing her job. He posted her face and called her
32:05
Speaker 5: a terrorist and posted online right on. This wasn't an
32:09
Speaker 5: anonymous post like the other one. This was on his
32:11
Speaker 5: personal account. We know who the student is, and multiple
32:14
Speaker 5: people reported this to the administration and we're told nothing
32:17
Speaker 5: could be done. We asked them, you know, why did
32:20
Speaker 5: you just a week ago, you know, can loudly and
32:23
Speaker 5: openly condemn you know, an anti semitic post featuring you know,
32:27
Speaker 5: a student's face, But now a very similar incident is happening.
32:30
Speaker 5: So a Muslim student need to do nothing, and the
32:32
Speaker 5: explanation was that one was a hate biased incident and
32:35
Speaker 5: one was a hate crime. So it's using this like
32:39
Speaker 5: vague technical language to justify doing nothing when Muslim pasting
32:44
Speaker 5: and auto students are being victimized and you know, not
32:47
Speaker 5: necessarily for others. And that same student who posted the
32:50
Speaker 5: Muslim girl's face went and did it again a week
32:52
Speaker 5: later to another Muslim girl, you know, calling her a
32:55
Speaker 5: terrorist and posting it online, which was I mean, you know,
32:58
Speaker 5: no need to say it is unacceptable, but the university
33:02
Speaker 5: has been unable to condemn or even acknowledge it outside
33:05
Speaker 5: of like closed door meeting. So there's that very clear
33:09
Speaker 5: like inequity in how they address that. And you know,
33:12
Speaker 5: aside from like the administration, even just like the Zionus
33:17
Speaker 5: presence on campus, as I had talked about before, has
33:20
Speaker 5: just got a lot more like animalistic in the past
33:23
Speaker 5: two years, they've.
33:24
Speaker 6: Gotten a lot more bold.
33:26
Speaker 5: There are you know, too many examples to name, but
33:28
Speaker 5: I mean just walking around on campus, you know, with
33:31
Speaker 5: a with a kofia on, or you know, being visibly Palestine.
33:34
Speaker 6: You're talking about Palestine.
33:36
Speaker 5: You know, I have friends who've been who've been like shoved,
33:38
Speaker 5: you know, physically attacked I personally. During my freshman year,
33:42
Speaker 5: like a group of friends and I were like harassed
33:45
Speaker 5: by with like twenty Zionists who came up to us
33:47
Speaker 5: because we were playing like Arabic music on a speaker
33:49
Speaker 5: and you know, like leaving notes on our backpacks accusing
33:53
Speaker 5: us of like having ties to you know, foreign terrorist organizations,
33:58
Speaker 5: you know, even like university officials.
34:01
Speaker 6: Right, So for example, the director of.
34:02
Speaker 5: HELLEL, multiple Palestinian girls specifically have spoken out about you know,
34:07
Speaker 5: being harassed by him at protests to the extent that UNPD,
34:12
Speaker 5: the police Department has had to go and talk to
34:14
Speaker 5: him and tell him to stop coming in to STP events,
34:17
Speaker 5: which you know, to mynology, has since but the fact
34:19
Speaker 5: that got to that point was insane, and the university
34:21
Speaker 5: allowed him to maintain his position as like an adjunct
34:25
Speaker 5: professor at the university, so he still teaches a class
34:28
Speaker 5: last semester. There was also a case where like a
34:30
Speaker 5: business professor who you know, was organizing an event where
34:34
Speaker 5: she invited some pros real speakers, was confronted and she actually,
34:38
Speaker 5: to my face and in front of other students, was
34:40
Speaker 5: like accusing us of taking money from like Iran and
34:43
Speaker 5: then like foreign terrorist organizations. So you know, these are
34:47
Speaker 5: people with like faculty appointments in the university. It's not
34:51
Speaker 5: just like outside agitators or even random students. Like these
34:54
Speaker 5: are people who the university has direct ties to going
34:59
Speaker 5: and being able say whatever they want. And disappointingly, but unsurprisingly,
35:03
Speaker 5: the university does nothing. You know, it doesn't treat those
35:05
Speaker 5: incidents the same as they treat others. And you know,
35:09
Speaker 5: it's really just a general like lack of I can't
35:13
Speaker 5: even say lack of initiative, just lack of care when
35:15
Speaker 5: it comes to, you know, addressing the you know, needs
35:19
Speaker 5: of students who are actually being targeted, whose families are
35:22
Speaker 5: being genocided overseas. And yeah, I guess that's just like
35:26
Speaker 5: the like student experience the last future.
35:30
Speaker 1: Well, let me ask y'all before we have to wrap up,
35:33
Speaker 1: like where do things stand now with this coalition and
35:37
Speaker 1: where do they go from here? Like what are your
35:40
Speaker 1: ultimate goals and what do you think it's going to
35:43
Speaker 1: take to achieve them?
35:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say at a broader scale, student organizers
35:47
Speaker 2: across the nation have become increasingly more aware of the
35:50
Speaker 2: university system structures and how they all nationally function as
35:54
Speaker 2: an arm of America's military industrial complex, and that has
35:58
Speaker 2: created the need for centralized campaigns. I would say this
36:01
Speaker 2: is widely reflected within the USM Divestment Coalition. It was
36:05
Speaker 2: the decentralization of all of our university separate divestment efforts,
36:09
Speaker 2: combined with the greater understanding of the system itself, that
36:13
Speaker 2: revealed the necessity for US to shift our strategy, and
36:16
Speaker 2: that was the motivating effort for US coalescing our efforts.
36:20
Speaker 2: Not only has combining efforts strengthened our campaigns through numbers
36:24
Speaker 2: and resource sharing, but this formation of a coalition has
36:27
Speaker 2: allowed us to begin actively archiving our work. Students are
36:30
Speaker 2: only part of the system for around four years, give
36:32
Speaker 2: or take, and the structures are intentionally complicated, so it's
36:36
Speaker 2: necessary that we have increased our internal research. We've increased
36:39
Speaker 2: our political education. We've increased our base building with other
36:42
Speaker 2: USM schools as well as local Maryland campaigns such as
36:45
Speaker 2: the Break the Bonds campaign, which was recently successful that
36:48
Speaker 2: we were an official endorser of. We've collaborated with unions
36:52
Speaker 2: and the broader community at large. But and along with
36:55
Speaker 2: doing network, we've institutionalized all that. We've institutionalized the research,
36:59
Speaker 2: the education, and the relationships so that we are not
37:01
Speaker 2: reinventing the wheel every few years. And this strategic shift
37:04
Speaker 2: has allowed us to progress beyond the post encampment stall
37:08
Speaker 2: where many student organizers were kind of left picking up
37:11
Speaker 2: the pieces and trying to figure out how to emulate
37:13
Speaker 2: a spark. But we're not trying to do that. Ultimately,
37:15
Speaker 2: we're concerned with our university's material function as financial backers
37:19
Speaker 2: of genocide, and we're strategizing how to achieve material wins
37:23
Speaker 2: because thus far the winds have been largely symbolic. To
37:27
Speaker 2: build off of that, I think as students, like I mentioned,
37:30
Speaker 2: we understand that our universities they serve as landlords. They
37:34
Speaker 2: serve as extensions of US capitalist imperial society, and to
37:37
Speaker 2: reproduce that they were built on stolen land and they're
37:40
Speaker 2: sustained on the extraction and exploitation of the global community.
37:44
Speaker 2: I think it's important and necessary that we recognize the
37:48
Speaker 2: systems for what they are and that we reject some
37:50
Speaker 2: of the social norms that come with it. And unless
37:52
Speaker 2: we reject them, we can't really move forward. So although
37:55
Speaker 2: the material aspect is the most important. I mentioned earlier
37:59
Speaker 2: that the US is also uniquely complicit in the Zionis state,
38:04
Speaker 2: and that it's upholding it in a way beyond material
38:06
Speaker 2: but also ideologically and culturally. Universities are not exempt for that,
38:10
Speaker 2: and so our complicity is unique as a result. So
38:13
Speaker 2: we recognize that true divestment means a dismand line of
38:16
Speaker 2: many of these structures as we currently know them. It
38:18
Speaker 2: would mean a dissolution of the Board of Regions, for example.
38:21
Speaker 2: It would mean they're replacement with a popular elected body.
38:24
Speaker 2: It would mean the end of the university's current volatile
38:26
Speaker 2: investment structure that prioritizes growth at any cost over human rights.
38:31
Speaker 2: There is recently a position paper put out by National SJP.
38:34
Speaker 2: It's only about seventy pages. I recommend anyone and everyone
38:36
Speaker 2: to read it. It's called The University and the Reproduction
38:39
Speaker 2: of Capitalists and pos Society. It's publicly available, but it
38:42
Speaker 2: expands upon this idea of the so called good student,
38:45
Speaker 2: where students accept their own subordination within the system and
38:49
Speaker 2: keep their head down so that they may be accepted
38:51
Speaker 2: and receive the material and social benefits that come from
38:54
Speaker 2: the university. It is ultimately our responsibility to disrupt that structure.
38:58
Speaker 2: We are aiming to empower the student and broader community.
39:01
Speaker 2: We want to understand that there is power within us.
39:03
Speaker 2: We don't need to rely on the structures as heavily
39:05
Speaker 2: as we have before. And lastly, I want to mention
39:08
Speaker 2: like in part of moving forward is like I mentioned,
39:11
Speaker 2: empowering the student community, but also the larger broader community.
39:14
Speaker 2: So if the USM, when we say that they control
39:17
Speaker 2: the universities, that really does affect all of us. So
39:19
Speaker 2: the USM has recently put forth a proposal for a
39:23
Speaker 2: over three hundred million dollar development contract basically to turn
39:28
Speaker 2: the surrounding area of umb So University of Maryland, Baltimore,
39:31
Speaker 2: to gentrify it, essentially to turn it into a college town.
39:34
Speaker 2: An interesting link is that Steven Sabelle, who sits on
39:37
Speaker 2: the board of Regions, is one of the I think
39:40
Speaker 2: main financial partners for I think it's called Caves Valley Partners,
39:43
Speaker 2: which is I think the largest gentrifier of Baltimore. That's
39:46
Speaker 2: not a coincidence. There's a reason that you know, Lockheed
39:49
Speaker 2: Martin is one of the largest employers of the USM
39:52
Speaker 2: and recruiters, and that's simultaneously the chair of the Board
39:55
Speaker 2: of Regions. Linda Gooden is the retired VP of Lockheed Martin. Lastly,
40:00
Speaker 2: and also that relates to Baltimore, and like the broader community,
40:03
Speaker 2: there was a proposal to spend over three hundred million
40:05
Speaker 2: dollars again on a cop training facility at copp And University,
40:09
Speaker 2: which is an HBCU, which just further increases the over
40:12
Speaker 2: militarization and criminalization of the black community and marginalized communities
40:17
Speaker 2: in Baltimore. So divestment truly involves all of us. It's
40:19
Speaker 2: not just as students, it's truly all of us, students
40:22
Speaker 2: and non students alike. And the system benefits were almost
40:24
Speaker 2: not interacting with each other and not recognizing that our
40:27
Speaker 2: struggles really are interconnected.
40:29
Speaker 4: Yeah, and to go off of that, like as mentioned before,
40:32
Speaker 4: we're a coalition consisting of organizations across USM and we
40:36
Speaker 4: really won't stop until we reach each school and all
40:39
Speaker 4: types of organizations because we know that our demands connected
40:42
Speaker 4: and that we will continue in start emends reality. In May,
40:46
Speaker 4: we saw the system wide Student Council pass that investment resolution,
40:50
Speaker 4: which was the first of that's kind of the entirety
40:52
Speaker 4: of the US calling for the divestment of arms manufacturing.
40:56
Speaker 4: And we know that the our matufacturing that we're charting
40:58
Speaker 4: don't only supply the IOF who you know have mad
41:01
Speaker 4: com Many Escalator gen aside for the last two and
41:03
Speaker 4: a half years legally stealing land and creating settlements. But
41:06
Speaker 4: these are the same companies that are supplying the human
41:09
Speaker 4: rights violations and Sudan that are armed by you know,
41:12
Speaker 4: Saudi Arabia and other parties, by companies like Lockheed Martin
41:17
Speaker 4: or in the Philippines, and you know, in the Philippines.
41:20
Speaker 4: We want to name this because of people like Chantal Nicoche,
41:23
Speaker 4: who was a UNBC alumni who was kidnapped by the AFP,
41:29
Speaker 4: or the Negros nineteen who were murdered by weapons used
41:33
Speaker 4: weapons made by the by Lockeed Martin and other manufacturing.
41:37
Speaker 4: The weapons economy that killed them is the same economy
41:40
Speaker 4: that the endowment dollars are financing through the USM Common Trust.
41:44
Speaker 4: When we say divest, we're not making a statement about
41:47
Speaker 4: only one particular cause, where withdrawing material support from a
41:51
Speaker 4: goal system of militarized violence. That is the long term project,
41:55
Speaker 4: not just resolution. It's not just one board meeting it's
41:57
Speaker 4: not just one disruption, but building a coalition of students,
42:00
Speaker 4: some faculty, union and committee members who understand that these
42:02
Speaker 4: struggles are structurally connected and refuse to let our institutions
42:06
Speaker 4: be complicit in any of them.
42:08
Speaker 3: And to piggy off what Zaiat and Kadija have been
42:12
Speaker 3: saying about, like the material consequences of the investments that
42:15
Speaker 3: the USM is making into arms manufacturing. Not only does
42:19
Speaker 3: this have like international ripples and the human rights violations
42:23
Speaker 3: in Sudan and Palestine and the bombing of Mindoro and
42:28
Speaker 3: capture of Chantal and a Coche by the AFP, and
42:32
Speaker 3: the murder of nineteen activists in Negros and the Philippines,
42:37
Speaker 3: but you know, even domestically, the USM is making decisions
42:43
Speaker 3: that financially disadvantage their workers and the people that are
42:47
Speaker 3: keeping these institutions going, Like divestment is an issue that
42:52
Speaker 3: is for the workers as well. We're advocating for more
42:55
Speaker 3: transparency of where the money is going. I believe it
42:59
Speaker 3: was afts ME is a faculty and staff union that
43:04
Speaker 3: just suffered mass layoffs across the USM system, and at
43:08
Speaker 3: Bowie State University, they're in a huge deficit right now,
43:12
Speaker 3: due to a misappropriation of funds that haven't been going
43:17
Speaker 3: toward upkeeping like positions for like workers that have been
43:23
Speaker 3: working there for a long time, but the creation of newer,
43:26
Speaker 3: higher paid consultant positions that are sort of just replicating
43:32
Speaker 3: that sort of you know, anti worker, sort of pro
43:38
Speaker 3: capitalists establishment where you know, there's this whole class of
43:43
Speaker 3: like consultants and you know, people who are getting paid
43:46
Speaker 3: these large amounts of money and disenfranchising the people that
43:51
Speaker 3: actually run to keep this university going. We're talking about
43:54
Speaker 3: like healthcare professionals or students with like mental health problems,
44:00
Speaker 3: talking about like cultural centers such as Norramborough at UMD,
44:05
Speaker 3: which has faced like you know, ongoing structural issues and
44:11
Speaker 3: has you know, consistently been advocating for reallocation of funds
44:15
Speaker 3: to sort of create a more sustainable university that reflects
44:20
Speaker 3: the future that the students are advocating for. And the
44:23
Speaker 3: Board of Regents as an unelected body, consistently again and
44:27
Speaker 3: again with the way they allocate the funds of the
44:30
Speaker 3: USM system show very little interest in representing the people.
44:34
Speaker 3: And yeah, it's about time that you know, students come
44:38
Speaker 3: together and form these strong coalitions and we stand in
44:42
Speaker 3: solidarity with unions as well that are also getting like
44:47
Speaker 3: screwed over by these same like misappropriations and unethical decisions. Yeah,
44:53
Speaker 3: the issue of divestment is kind of it's very all encompassing.
44:57
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I think I'm just surround that. Ut you
45:00
Speaker 5: described it very well, you know, when you look at
45:03
Speaker 5: it from like a broader view, tying in what Zide
45:07
Speaker 5: and Fees said. Right the when we're talking about like
45:10
Speaker 5: divesting for Palestine, that's not just obviously that is a
45:14
Speaker 5: moral obligation in itself. We should not be, you know,
45:17
Speaker 5: financing the suffering of any people overseas. But you know,
45:20
Speaker 5: the same endowment that is being used to reinforce the
45:25
Speaker 5: suffering of Palestinians is upholding systems of oppression all over
45:29
Speaker 5: the world. And you know, the same Board of Regents
45:33
Speaker 5: members claiming that they can't pay their own workers despite
45:36
Speaker 5: being allocated money by the Maryland state legislature to do so,
45:40
Speaker 5: are claiming they can't. And all of this just ties
45:43
Speaker 5: back to the issue of the American universities in general.
45:48
Speaker 5: But we can see it very clearly here in the
45:50
Speaker 5: us M, which is that we have a for profit
45:53
Speaker 5: university system even though you know, these are our public institutions,
45:58
Speaker 5: they are supposed to serve like the people of Maryland,
46:00
Speaker 5: they do not. If you look at the makeup of
46:02
Speaker 5: the Board of Regions, it's not made up of academics
46:05
Speaker 5: or you know, former university administrators or leadership. All of
46:09
Speaker 5: them are business people. Right the head of the Board
46:11
Speaker 5: of Regions, she was a former vice president of Lockheed Martin.
46:15
Speaker 5: The chancellor currently well, he actually was an academic, but
46:18
Speaker 5: his legacy was a partnership program he established with like
46:22
Speaker 5: a medical.
46:23
Speaker 6: School in Israel.
46:24
Speaker 5: And all all of the Board of Regions members, most
46:27
Speaker 5: of them are really just like wealthy people who were
46:30
Speaker 5: appointed not to you know, advance the university's mension or
46:34
Speaker 5: to benefit the people of Maryland, but just to uphold
46:37
Speaker 5: our university's corporate ties and make sure that you know,
46:40
Speaker 5: we're still doing research to help develop weapons, you know,
46:46
Speaker 5: weapons for Lockheed Martin and northropk to make sure that
46:48
Speaker 5: we aren't divesting our our endowment from you know, war profits. Heers,
46:54
Speaker 5: to make sure that we're still inviting IDF soldiers and
46:57
Speaker 5: not taking the public stand against the that you know,
47:01
Speaker 5: our our university is complicit in, and you know That's
47:06
Speaker 5: just why it's important for us to you know, fight
47:10
Speaker 5: on the USM level. As we've been saying before, we
47:12
Speaker 5: are still very optimistic. I mean, if you look at
47:15
Speaker 5: like where the movement is now compared to two years ago,
47:18
Speaker 5: like students would have been shocked that we passed resolutions
47:21
Speaker 5: at all, right, but now we've passed resolutions at the
47:23
Speaker 5: SJA level, right, the students have made very clear where
47:25
Speaker 5: they stand. We've gotten around all you know, the red
47:27
Speaker 5: tape that was set in place. We're escalating it at
47:30
Speaker 5: a higher level. Now there's you know, the break the
47:33
Speaker 5: Bonds campaign that Kadija mentioned, Like we're seeing divestment actually
47:36
Speaker 5: happening and taking shape now, and you know, which is
47:40
Speaker 5: why it's just like more important than ever for us
47:42
Speaker 5: to you know, continue pushing just as hard, hard than
47:46
Speaker 5: we ever have been, and you know, making noise.
47:54
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to this episode of the Real
47:56
Speaker 1: News Network podcast, and thank you to our panel of guests, Zaid,
48:01
Speaker 1: Mohammed and Fi who are all student organizers with the
48:05
Speaker 1: University System of Maryland Investment Coalition. If you want to
48:09
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48:35
Speaker 1: is Maximilian Alvarez signing off from Baltimore. Take care of
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Speaker 1: yourselves and take care of each other.