Occidental College, which former President Barack Obama attended before transferring to Columbia University, capitulated to a pro-Hamas “encampment” this week — and violated California “anti-BDS” laws in doing so.
As the student-run Occidental reported, the private university signed an agreement with the activists, agreeing to hold a vote by the governing body to consider divesting from companies that do business with the State of Israel:
May 7, Occidental president Harry J. Elam Jr. announced via email to the college community that the administration reached an agreement with Occidental Students for Justice in Palestine (Oxy SJP), Occidental National Jewish Voices for Peace (Oxy JVP) and other organizations to end their eight-day encampment supporting Palestine on the Academic Quad by May 10.
According to Elam’s email, the Investment Committee of the Board of Trustees will consider Oxy SJP’s divestment demands in a special session. This will be followed by a vote on divestment by the full Board during its next business meeting in June. In exchange, Oxy SJP and Oxy JVP agreed to permanently decamp from the Academic Quad by May 10 and to not disrupt Occidental’s May 19 commencement ceremony. Elam’s email also said that students will receive full amnesty if they abide by this agreement. According to documents obtained from Oxy SJP, the administration promised amnesty for students who peacefully protested up to and including May 10 at 6 pm but will be voided if student demonstrators expand the encampment or increase their activities.
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“After eight days of camping, we won,” Oxy SJP said via instagram. “Oxy has disclosed its investments in four companies that aid and abet the [IDF’s] conduct of its genocide in Gaza. Meetings will be held and a vote on divestment of Oxy’s money in the four aforementioned companies [Lockheed Martin, Elbit, Boeing and Caterpillar] will take place no later than June 6, 2024. No students, staff, faculty members, or community will be punished for participation in the Oxy Gaza Solidarity Encampment or related campus protests.”
(Jewish Voices for Peace is a misnamed and explicitly pro-terror organization, as documented by Breitbart News.)
However, as Breitbart News noted last week when discussing a similar deal by the University of California Riverside, divesting from Israeli companies violates existing California law. In 2016, then-governor Jerry Brown (D) signed a law designed to discourage the anti-Israel (and arguably antisemitic) “boycott, divestment, sanctions” (BDS) movement, barring any public or private entities contracting with the State of California from boycotting Israel.
The anti-BDS law was passed by a number of states, including liberal states, in anticipation of the potential of well-funded anti-Israel organizations to bully people into complying, as has happened on some college campuses.
The “amnesty” for the encampment comes amid a climate of antisemitic abuse at Occidental that became so bad by the winter that at least one Jewish freshman said that she would not return to the campus for her spring semester.
The left-wing Forward reported in January:
An 18-year-old Jewish student in her freshman year at Occidental College in Los Angeles said she will not return for the spring semester because much of the student body and faculty began expressing anti-Israel and antisemitic views following Hamas’ terror attack on Israel on Oct. 7.
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Interviews with the parents of three other Jewish Occidental students — two freshmen and a sophomore — revealed more Jewish students who feel isolated on campus over wartime demonstrations and other protests. The parents all spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.
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Another parent said her son questioned how faculty members who signed the letter could treat him “fairly” as a Jewish student. That same parent said his son was afraid, and confined himself to his room when pro-Palestinian demonstrations were at their peak this fall.
President Joe Biden described the “encampments” as antisemitic in a speech on Holocaust memorial day Tuesday.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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