The Board of Regents (BOR) voted March 12 to deny the proposal calling on the UW to divest from companies complicit in the occupation, apartheid, and genocide in Palestine.
They made this decision knowing that the proposal had the largest and broadest support of any divestment campaign in the UW’s history, with over 4000 petition signatures, letters in support from over 50 RSOs, and resolutions in support of divestment from every single senate at the UW, including ASUW Seattle, ASUW Tacoma, ASUW Bothell, the Graduate and Professional Student Senate, and the Faculty Senate.
As the BOR deliberated, they sent a dozen UWPD officers and state troopers to harass students and community members holding a rally outside the building.
Inside the meeting, the BOR publicly voiced their support for an apartheid state while refusing to use the word genocide. After asserting that the community was too divided over ending the UW’s support for genocide, something proven false by the resounding support the movement has received, the BOR dismissed the petition, and even the ability of divestment to make meaningful change. Regent David Zeeck went so far as to propose that UW permanently stop accepting divestment proposals, an alarming declaration that disregards decades of student activism and would signify a complete abandonment by UW of principles of ethical investment.
The BOR has continually disregarded the popular will of the students, workers, faculty, and community, and there is a simple explanation why: the BOR has personal ties to the companies we asked them to divest from, a clear and unconscionable conflict of interest.
Regent David Schumacher is a former executive at Boeing, the company that builds the bombs that are being dropped on Gaza. Blaine Tamaki, the chair of the board, who motioned to deny the proposal, personally holds hundreds of thousands of dollars of investments in companies facilitating the genocide in Palestine, as indicated by his public disclosure form.The BOR never acts in the interests of our community primarily because of their conflicting interests. They are landlords, union busters, investment fund managers, and self-proclaimed zionists.
Questions over conflicts of interest are not new to the BOR.
In fact, after the BOR initially voted against divesting from South African apartheid in 1985, a UW group called Students Against Apartheid exposed the fact that numerous regents had investments in complicit companies, and even tried to bring conflict of interest charges to the attorney general. By 1986, the BOR voted to divest.
Just like the BOR of the 1980s underestimated Students Against Apartheid, the current BOR has underestimated us. A shameful and illegitimate vote that disregards the popular will of the UW community will not stifle the strength of our movement, and we will not stop demanding that the University of Washington cut ties with war profiteers and put people over profit.
As I write this, the genocide in Palestine has resumed in full force after a brief ceasefire that the occupation forces violated hundreds of times.It is being facilitated by companies that UW invests in, such as Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet, which provide software and artificial intelligence to the occupation; as well as those that it partners with, such as Boeing, which builds the weapons used against Palestinians.
So this is my message to my fellow UW students and community members: make your voice heard. Show the BOR that you won’t sit idly by while they ignore the will of our community. Join or support organizations fighting for justice in Palestine and against all human rights violations that our university is complicit in. Your presence and resolve are needed now more than ever.
We will end UW’s complicity in genocide, and we won’t rest until Palestine is free.
Suzanne Downey
UW sociology and political science, 2025
