WINNER OF 2023 ASSOCIATED COLLEGIATE PRESS PACEMAKER AWARD, NEWSPAPER/NEWSMAGAZINE NAMED BEST CAMPUS NEWSPAPER IN CALIFORNIA FOR 2022 BY THE CALIFORNIA COLLEGE MEDIA ASSOCIATION AND CALIFORNIA NEWS PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION
Thursday, April 25, 2024
Volume 162 No. 37 SERVING SAN JOSÉ STATE UNIVERSITY SINCE 1934
WWW.SJSUNEWS.COM/SPARTAN_DAILY
KAYA HENKES-POWER | SPARTAN DAILY
Masked protesters hold signs and chant outside of the Student Union on Wednesday evening after packing the second to last Associated Students’ meeting of the semester.
A.S. votes on boycott resolution By Jonathan Canas STAFF WRITER
Dozens of students piled into the Associated Students’ Board of Directors meeting in the Student Union on Wednesday evening. This was Associated Students’ second to last Board of Directors meeting of the semester before beginning its transition to next
semesters’ new directors. The Board of Directors is the official body representing and the voice of over 35,000 students at San José State, according to the Associated Students website. There were six action items on the agenda, as well as two discussion items according to the same website. The first action item was a vote on an A.S.
resolution to boycott HP Inc. and Dell Inc., which are involved with human rights violations going on against Palestinians, according to the A.S. agenda. The B oycott, Divestment, Sanction (BDS) movement seeks to end international support for Israel’s oppression toward Palestinians, according to the BDS Movement website.
CAMPUS VOICES
Joshua Suizo Computer engineering senior "I thoroughly enjoyed every A.S. event but I wish things were better publicized. . . I normally hear about the events from my friends who live near campus or on campus. They go, 'Hey! This is happening at the Student Union, Let's go!' "
Ray Ton Business marketing sophomore "I know that they watch over what the clubs do. I think they don't really publicize what they are doing for the students. I don't even know about any events that happened. If you asked me to guess how much their budget is I would guess $5,000."
Christian Figueroa Computer science senior "I know they organize a lot of events for students around campus. Also that elections and Student Government are associated. . . I am not too familiar with how the student government works, and I believe most students share my level of unfamiliarity."
ETHAN LI | SPARTAN DAILY
BDS claims that HP Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise provide hardware to the Israeli army and maintain data centers through Israeli police, according to the same website. HP Inc. is for consumer products like PCs and printers, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise is for business and government services, according to the BDS website. SJSU Student for a Democratic Society (SDS) protested outside on the Student Union patio at around 4:30 p.m. following the meeting. Student for a Democratic Society is a national, student and youth-led political organization according to the Instagram bio for the National SDS. Protests involving Gaza and Palestine have intensified in universities from Texas to California as students have been setting up encampments as a way of protesting, according to an April 24 article by the New York Times. Protesters at the Student Union echoed the chant, “SJSU no more genocide in our name” and “From Palestine to the Philippines, fuck the U.S war machine”. Students For Democratic Society declined to speak with the Spartan Daily. The resolution was passed unanimously 12-0-0. The Board of Directors did not get through all the action items due to a time restraint on the meeting. Biomedical engineering junior Ariana Lacson, the vice president of Associated Students, said there were eight people who signed up to speak about the first resolution before getting into the vote. Multiple students spoke
up as to why they believe the resolution should be passed, before the directors read out the resolution. Ariana Shah, the director of Intercultural Affairs for Associated Students, read out the resolution to the public and listed multiple reasons as to why she believes the student government should pass this resolution. Palo Alto-based technological company HP Inc. released a statement addressing a call for boycott in 2021. “The misinformation about HP Inc. being circulated by some on social media is unfortunate and untrue,” the statement said. HP states the company operates in strict accordance with all applicable laws and regulations and implements rigorous policies to respect human rights in every market where it operates. Shah said Associated Students should follow the guidelines of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement. She said Dell and HP are two companies that have been involved with assisting Israel in supplying them with technology. SJSU Jewish Student Union and Students Supporting Israel at SJSU didn’t comment in time for publishing. Associated Students President Sarab Multani said Shah wrote the resolution. “We’ve seen an uproar of our students show up and show out in solidarity with what's going on in the Middle East,” Multani said. “Thank you for taking your leadership and applying it to the resolution.” Multani said he made an amendment on the resolution in regards to the Black Lives Matter 2020 protests and its ties to Israel in terms of the
police brutality being used. He said the statement might not be seen as factually correct. “Specifically saying that the 2020 protests were tactics used and learned by Israel, I just feel like it takes away from the validity of the rest of the statements,” Multani said. The Board of Directors amended the statement between the 2020 protests and the tactics learned by Israel. Multani said the past week had been very stressful for him because there were various attempts of intimidation from outside the SJSU community. “Folks that aren’t SJSU students have been creating narratives, questioning the integrity of our board, claiming we’re antiSemitic,” Multani said. “The things that have been said are unbelievable.” Multani said he wasn’t supposed to mention the intimidation tactics, but all the work of A.S. is public information. He said the fact there are many students attending the meeting shows there is a sort of revolution happening within the United States. Multani said he thinks the boycott resolution was a successful one, and the students coming out to the meeting shows the importance of this topic. He said he wanted to reiterate that this resolution is A.S. calling out human rights violations. “This is the third or fourth board meeting where we’ve had a large attendance and every single time the students have acted with integrity and compassion,” Multani said.
Follow the Spartan Daily on Instagram @SpartanDaily