SAN FRANCISCO – The UC Board of Regents heard public comment from community members calling for the University to divest from companies associated with the Israeli military, prevent antisemitism and freeze nonresident tuition.

The UC Board of Regents held its bimonthly meeting Nov. 12 to 14 at UC San Francisco. At the beginning of each day, students and community members from across the UC shared public comments with the regents.

On Tuesday, members of the UC People’s Tribunal for Palestine, a group that seeks to hold the UC “accountable for complicity in Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people,” spoke at public comment. The group held up signs that read “UC Regents, what happened to the $6,000,000 in direct holdings? Transparency now,” “History will remember where you stood” and “UC Regents complicit in genocide” above photos of individual regents.

Maya Hilmi, a Palestinian UC Berkeley student, said she believes the University’s investments are unethical.

“Thirty-six members of my family were killed in Gaza at the hand of IDF (Israel Defense Forces) soldiers,” she said. “With the weight of that unimaginable loss, I am asking you, UC Regents, to take a stand against the ongoing genocide unfolding in Palestine right now.”

Adam Tfayli, the president of the UCLA Undergraduate Students Association Council, also called for divestment at Wednesday’s public comment session. An international student from Lebanon, he said his village has faced daily rocket strikes from the Israeli military, leading to the deaths of his friends and family members.

Tfayli added that he believes the UC’s hesitation to divest comes from its perceived distance from the conflict.

“Whenever you take a sip of water, I want you to think of the children walking miles for a sip of water because of our investments,” he said. “Every time you have a bite of food, I want you to think of the people dying from starvation because of our investments.”

At public comment, members of the UC community also discussed antisemitism.

Leor Weinberger, a former UCSF scientist, said he recently left the university due to antisemitism. His choice to leave was in part due to an email he received from a graduate student claiming that Palestinian political party and militant group Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel did not target civilians or involve rape, he added.

“I have left UCSF and taken nearly $20 million in government funding with me,” he said. “The email was bad, but the nonresponse by the UC administration was worse.”

Vanesa Cruz Granados, a psychology student at UC Irvine, said the UC also failed undocumented students like herself by rejecting a plan to allow undocumented students to hold jobs on campus. She added that members of the board should implement programs called for by Opportunity for All, a movement that supports undocumented students gaining employment in the UC.

“We the students are the University, and without us, there is no University,” she added.

[Related: UC faces lawsuit regarding refusal to hire undocumented students to on-campus jobs]

Jayha Buhs-Jackson, the director of community relations for USAC General Representative Tommy Contreras’ office and a worker in the Black Bruin Resource Center, said working in the BBRC’s food pantry revealed the level of food insecurity students experience on campus. She added that the regents should extend the hours ASUCLA meal swipes are accepted on campus to accommodate more students, especially those who are economically disadvantaged.

“Without resources like this, Black students experience low retention similar to other marginalized communities such as undocumented students, disabled students and Indigenous students,” she said.

[Related: UCLA announces ASUCLA meal swipes will only be accepted at lunch hours weekdays]

Speakers at public comment Wednesday also urged the regents to vote against tuition hikes. The board voted Thursday to approve an increase in tuition of 9.9% for nonresident students who enroll beginning in the 2025-2026 academic year. The rise will not impact students already enrolled at the UC.

[Related: UC Board of Regents recommends tuition increase for out-of-state students]

Namrata Deepak, a third-year linguistics, anthropology and political science student and a member of USAC External Vice President Javier Nuñez-Verdugo’s office, said the proposed out-of-state tuition raise would make the UC inaccessible to out-of-state and international students and called on the regents to reconsider their decision.

Francis Villanueva, a political science student at UCLA, said tuition increases will widen the educational gap for low-income and marginalized students.

“If the UC passes this vote to increase the nonresident supplemental tuition increase, the educational gap will continue to widen,” he said. “The first thing that they’ll do is make students foot the bill while they rake in record-breaking profit to give themselves.”

During Thursday’s public comment, Javier Nuñez-Verdugo, USAC’s External Vice President, called on the regents to implement an inclusive program to offer high-quality respirators at each of the UC campuses to bolster the UC’s response to COVID-19. They added that the UC’s Time, Place and Manner policies that prohibit protesters from wearing masks to conceal identity worsens the problems of the ongoing pandemic.

“The pandemic is still ongoing and only worsening with each passing day,” said Nuñez-Verdugo, a fourth-year psychology student.

Dylan Kupsh, a doctoral student in computer science and member of Graduate Students for Justice in Palestine at UCLA, said the UC’s lack of response to violent counter-protesters against the Palestine solidarity encampment in April, followed by its subsequent sweep of the encampment, showed that the UC fulfilled the violent demands of the counter-protester attackers while failing to fulfill the demands of divestment.

He added that UCLA’s TPM policies have led to him experiencing harassment and surveillance on campus.

[Related: Pro-Israel counter-protesters attempt to storm encampment, sparking violence]

Deepak also spoke during Thursday’s public comment and called on the regents to allocate more funding for student-led access and retention programs that promote diversity. She added that this funding is necessary to achieve the goals of retention and graduation as outlined in the UC 2030 goals.

“Student-led, identity-based organizations know what their communities need best,” she said. “Please consider funding these programs.”