Anas Tresh

Overview

Anas Tresh introduced and voted in favor of a Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) resolution at the University of Davis, California (UC Davis) in 2015.

As of September 2019, Tresh’s LinkedIn page said he was an M.D. candidate at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine (UCSF SOM), slated to graduate in 2020.

As of the same date, Tresh’s LinkedIn page also said he was a UCSF Muslim Student Association (MSA) Board Member since August 2017. Tresh has been listed as a group member on the MSA’s Facebook page, since August 2016.

Also as of September 2019, Tresh’s LinkedIn page said he graduated from UC Davis in 2016, with a bachelor’s degree in Neurobiology and Behavior. It also said he served as a Senator for Associated Students at UC Davis (ASUCD) in 2015-2016 and was the co-president of the Arab Student Union (ASU) at UC Davis the same year.

Promoting BDS

On May 28, 2015, Tresh introduced and voted in favor of a student senate divestment resolution at UC Davis, after divestment efforts failed at the university on two previous occasions, in January 2015 and April 2014.

The May 2015 resolution Tresh supported was titled: “ASUCD [Associated Students of the University of California, Davis] Senate Resolution #17 (SR #17)” and was written by then-SJP president Marcelle-Alexandra Obeid. SR#17 claimed: “enabling Israel’s occupation of Palestine compromises the integrity of students’ education.”

Tresh attended [00:04:18] the ASUCD meeting where SR#17 was discussed and passed. SR#17 was later ruled unconstitutional by the ASUCD Judicial Council.

SR#17, a reproduction of the April 2014 divestment resolution, which failed, was titled: “ASUCD Senate Resolution #20 (SR#20).” SR#20 was co-authored by former SJP at UCD president Diyala Shihadih and called on the University of California to divest from holdings in companies “that aid in the Israeli occupation of Palestine and illegal settlements in Palestinian territories.”

Tresh also presented an expanded version of the April 2014 resolution earlier in January 2015, at a student senate hearing he attended [00:00:05]. The expanded version Tresh presented was titled: “ASUCD Senate Resolution #9 (SR #9)” and was authored by SJP activist at UC Davis, Saliem Shehadeh.

SR#9 passed with a vote of 8-2-2 but UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi issued a statement that the resolution did not reflect the position of UC Davis or the University of California system.

Tresh then attended [00:23:37] a hearing that was called to challenge SR#9, at the university’s Court of Associated Students in February 2015. The Court overturned the resolution as unconstitutional, finding that the “ASUCD Senate resolution was political in nature and did not fall within the purview of the student government, which is to deal with issues affecting student welfare.”

In May 2019, SR#17, the resolution Tresh introduced and voted in favor of, was ruled unconstitutional by the ASUCD Judicial Council.

The Council noted that the resolution violated the ASUCD Bill of Student Rights because its passage “led to the discrimination and harassment of students whose ethnicity, national origin or political beliefs are in opposition to the content of the Resolution” and that the resolution’s wording had “caused harassment against many students.”