On 1 July 2024, UCL’s Academic Board voted overwhelmingly to support student and staff recommendations urging Council to act against war crimes, violations of international human rights law, and scholasticide, including against the Palestinian people.
75% support:
Establishing a review body to examine and report on all of UCL’s ties with arms companies and other relevant industries involved in providing weapons to states under investigation for genocide or crimes against humanity, particularly where this involves the killing of academics and/or the targeting and destruction of academic institutions.
74% support:
Reviewing and reporting UCL’s ties with or investment in organisations that actively support or facilitate human rights violations abroad, especially those engaged in the destruction of academic institutions and undermining the rights of academic freedom.
72% support:
Establishing a scholarship and fellowship project for Palestinian students and academics respectively to visit and study at UCL.
We are proud that BDS pledgers were among the over 220 professorial staff and other elected members of academic board to pass these recommendations so conclusively.
We urge Council to respect the resounding call to review, and ultimately severe, investments and institutional ties which run contrary to UCL’s mission, are incompatible with the ethical values of higher education, and place the university at risk of legal action.
We call on Council to heed the vote and immediately set up scholarships and fellowships for Palestinians who have been denied the right to education and life itself in Gaza.
Full paper and recommendations for Academic Board
Transcript of presentation to Academic Board
See coverage in the LRB: Hope from Nothing, by Selma Dabbagh
Photo of the Tate Modern Yoko Ono exhibition, taken by Liz Herbert