From Cal Poly Humboldt to UC San Diego, students across the state—and across the country—have been fighting for their universities and local governments to stop funding the ongoing genocide in Gaza. While other local universities have made the news consistently with their direct actions – from the large encampment at UC Irvine to the takeover of the Student Services Building at Cal State LA – Fullerton has largely remained out of the news.

At Cal State Fullerton, while we have not had an encampment, we have been anything but quiet about divestment. From administrative negotiations and political education campaigns to several large rallies, students locally have been fighting hard.

CSUF administrators sent an email to students refusing to divest from companies financially and materially supporting genocide. As explained below, indirect investments are the primary targets for divestment. Source: Campuswide email; the original source has been deleted from the University’s web page due to the presidential transition.

We have done this amidst a large wave of even local campus backlash and misinformation. After we held a rally on May 8 alongside many other CSU campuses, including Cal State LA and San Francisco State, CSUF Vice President for Administration and Finance Alexander Porter sent out a campus-wide email attempting to claim that our demands were simply “concerns [that] have been raised about whether the university’s investments are supporting the” genocide.

“Indirect” investments – where the investments are technically controlled by a fund manager, even if that fund manager is directed by the campus – have always been the target; as mentioned by the CSU Chancellor’s Office, “because of state law … the CSU [cannot] invest in direct stocks or equities in any companies.” This is regardless of whether they are within a category we are demanding divestment from or not.

Our work has also extended to supporting other campuses in their divestment efforts, and to supporting statewide efforts. I myself am a member of the Convention Committee – which acts as an interim steering committee – for the CSU Student Divestment Coalition, a statewide group focusing on getting the CSU Chancellor’s Office to divest.

Aside from individual campus investments, and the investments of campus foundations and auxiliary organizations, the CSU Chancellor’s Office – the statewide coordinating office for the whole CSU system – also has its own investments. Per student and faculty research which led to the formation of the Coalition, $1.04 billion of these investments are substantially exposed to companies that financially and materially support genocide. These companies include Google and Amazon, who develop technology for the Israeli military through Project Nimbus, and weapons manufacturers like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon.

Titan YDSA and other organizations at CSUF have been a key component of actions in the Coalition. At the May CSU Board of Trustees meeting in Long Beach, we turned up to demand that the system divest, joining in taking the streets to make it clear that we would not accept our tuition dollars going toward genocide. Representatives from CSUF were widespread throughout coordinating and organizing roles, making for an incredible action that began mounting pressure on the CSU system.

We’ve now seen the effects of this pressure. Recently, the Chancellor’s Office released new policies that heavily restrict the rights of students to protest. They are likely unconstitutional, and are even facing challenges from the ACLU. However, they have not stopped the movement; our organizing is as strong as ever.

In fact, our work is only expanding. We have begun looking toward city investments, and are about to launch a campaign to get the city to divest. We are awaiting further information and research before we fully progress, but we do know that the city has intermingled investments, and that (based on the City’s most recent financial report) those non-property investments total $241,727,235. These investments then yield $4,686,501 each year in revenue.

As the city’s financials get reworked to solve our chronic budget deficit, they could be done in a way that revitalizes investments – shifting them toward companies that are not complicit in genocide. 

The same goes for city infrastructure. To accommodate smaller vehicles and cyclists, the city is currently upgrading its traffic lights and vehicle detectors. Many of these products are made by Siemens Mobility and Yunex LLC, who are on the BDS National Committee list for divestment. There are plenty of other companies who make these technologies, and who aren’t on the BDS list.

From our upcoming General Assembly – where CSUF will unite even further to fight for divestment – to the City of Fullerton’s divestments, organizations at CSUF are helping to lead the charge for divestment and to mount pressure to stop the genocide in Gaza. The ‘70s are back in Fullerton – and they won’t stop any time soon.

Amy Parker is a resident of Fullerton and the General Secretary of Titan YDSA, who submitted this article as a community piece. Titan YDSA is the California State University, Fullerton chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America.