Ruqayya Toorawa

Ruqayya Toorawa promoted an anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign at Stanford University (Stanford) and was affiliated with Stanford Out of Occupied Palestine (SOOP) from 2014 to 2015.

As of 2015, SOOP was reportedly a coalition of 19 student groups campaigning for Stanford to “divest from corporations profiting from human rights abuses in occupied Palestine.” The campaign was initiated [00:12:16] by Stanford Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).

As of May 2020, SOOP’s Facebook page said its mission was “To end Stanford's investments in corporations which profit from the Israeli Occupation of the Palestinian Territories.” 

As of May 2020, Toorawa’s LinkedIn page said she graduated from Stanford with a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering in 2018.

Also as of May 2020, Toorawa’s LinkedIn page said she was a “Spacecraft Assembly, Test, and Launch Ops Engineer” at Millennium Space Systems in Stanford, California, since August 2018. 

It also said she was an “Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition Team Co-Lead” at Stanford Student Space Initiative and a “Research Assistant” at Stanford’s Wieman Lab.

On October 26, 2014, Toorawa co-signed a SOOP op-ed in The Stanford Daily student newspaper, titled: “Stanford must divest from the occupation of Palestine” that suggested Israel’s Operation Protective Edge (OPE) was not self-defense. 

Israel commenced OPE in July 2014 to stop rocket fire targeting Israeli civilians and to destroy Hamas attack tunnels.

On November 23, 2014, Toorawa co-signed an op-ed by “the students behind Stanford Out of Occupied Palestine,” promoting BDS and SOOP’s campaign. 

The op-ed claimed: “The narrative of the Israeli state cannot be equated with the narrative of those they occupy” and that “international corporations in Palestine/Israel and the United States” formed “interconnected systems of oppression.”

On January 9, 2015, Toorawa featured in a SOOP campaign video, titled: “#FilasteenFridays: Collective Punishment in the Palestinian Territories.” 

In the video, Toorawa claimed [00:00:14] that Israel carried out “collective punishment” in Gaza during OPE. She went on to allege [00:00:31] that Israel “does so regularly” against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. 

The next person in the video said: [00:10:50] “collective punishment is a war crime… Stanford University should not be investing in companies that facilitate Israel’s war crimes.”

On January 27, 2015, SOOP published a BDS resolution calling for Stanford to divest from companies it claimed “violate international humanitarian law by: maintaining the illegal infrastructure of the Israeli occupation…facilitating Israel and Egypt’s collective punishment of Palestinian civilians…[and] facilitating state repression against Palestinians.”
 
On February 10, 2015, the SOOP resolution initially failed [00:00:42]but was later brought forward in a motion calling for a re-vote and passed on February 17, 2015.

On April 14, 2015, however, the Stanford Board of Trustees announced that Stanford would take no action on SJP’s request. 

In accordance with the board’s Statement on Investment Responsibility, the board said in its statement on the resolution that they focused on “questions of divisiveness and negative impact” and determined that acting on the request would be “likely to impair the capacity of the University to carry out its educational mission.”

SOOP #Stanford Divest 

Stanford Out of Occupied Palestine (SOOP) was reportedly a coalition of 19 student groups campaigning for Stanford University (Stanford) to “divest from corporations profiting from human rights abuses in occupied Palestine.” 

The campaign was initiated [00:12:16] by Stanford Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and promoted on social media under the hashtag “#Stanford Divest.”

As of January 2020, SOOP’s Facebook page said its mission was “To end Stanford's investments in corporations which profit from the Israeli Occupation of the Palestinian Territories.”

SOOP - 2015 Divestment Campaign  

In February 2015, members of SOOP presented a petition and a divestment resolution to the Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) Undergraduate Senate to further the agenda of the Boycott, Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement.

The resolution, titled: “A Resolution to Divest from Companies Violating Human Rights in Occupied Palestine,” was co-authored by Ramah Awad, SOOP leader and co-president of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Stanford (SJP Stanford) at the time and then-members of SOOP, Clayton Evans, Laura Perez and Emma Hartung.

The resolution called for Stanford University Trustees to divest from companies that it alleged: “violate international humanitarian law by: maintaining the illegal infrastructure of the Israeli occupation.”

The resolution also called for divestment from companies it claimed facilitates Israel’s “collective punishment of Palestinian civilians…[and] state repression against Palestinians.” 

On February 8, 2015, The Stanford Review, a student-run political magazine reported that the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings showed no evidence that Stanford has been invested in any of the companies that SOOP targeted for divestment over the last ten years, with the exception of Raytheon, for one filing period.

The resolution initially failed [00:00:42] to garner the required 66% majority senate approval, in a vote held on February 10, 2015. 

Senate Chair Ana Ordonez then brought forward a motion calling for a re-vote. Ordonez reportedly initially abstained from voting and was later quoted in the student newspaper, the Stanford Daily, as saying: “Now that the noise has subsided, I know that I voted incorrectly.” 

Ordonez voted in favor of the resolution in the re-vote, which passed on February 17, 2015. However, the Stanford Board of Trustees later announced on April 14, 2015, that Stanford would take no action on SJP’s request.

SOOP - Promoting BDS  

On February 10, 2015, SOOP promoted a BDS Youtube video on Facebook, titled: “Stanford Student Groups Support #StanfordDivest.”

The video featured members of student groups, including [00:03:38] SJP Stanford, expressing why they support “#StanfordDivest.” Ramah Awad, SOOP leader and co-president of SJP Stanford at the time, said [00:03:45]: “We recognize divestment as one step on that path to liberation.” 

On January 23, 2015, SOOP posted a photo album on Facebook titled: “Human of ‘Out of Occupied Palestine,’” which featured photos of Stanford students holding posters with anti-Israel messages and showing support for #StanfordDivest.

One photo showed a student holding a sign which read: “I support divestment because collective punishment is a war crime.” Another sign read: “There are better & more commendable ways to fiscally profit that doesn’t contribute to the displacement & exploitation of human lives.”

On January 21, 2015, SOOP reportedly organized a panel discussion to promote its BDS petition, which called for Stanford’s divestment from corporations that allegedly “facilitate human rights violations in Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territories.”

On January 9, 2015, SOOP published a Youtube video titled: “FilasteenFridays: Collective Punishment in the Palestinian Territories.” The video urged Stanford students to support their BDS campaign as “the only way to show true moral neutrality.”

On January 8, 2015, SOOP hosted an informational event titled: “Case for Divestment from the Occupation of Palestine.”