Vera Berger
Overview
Vera Berger voted in favor of a Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement resolution in April 2021 at Pomona College (Pomona).Berger’s BDS vote was in the Associated Students of Pomona College (ASPC) Senate, the Pomona student government, where she served as the 2020-2021 ASPC Commissioner of Facilities and Environment.
As of February 2022, Berger served as the 2021-2022 Board of Trustees Representative for ASPC’s Education Quality Committee.
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As of February 2022, Berger’s LinkedIn page said she was the ASPC Commissioner of Facilities and Environment from August 2020 to May 2021. Her LinkedIn page also said she was a Judicial Council Chair at Pomona since May 2021.
Also as of February 2022, Berger’s LinkedIn page said she was pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from Pomona, slated to graduate in 2023.
Pomona is one of five undergraduate colleges and two graduate colleges that share a campus in Claremont, California. The colleges are a consortium called The Claremont Colleges (Claremont) and alternatively are known as “5Cs” or “7Cs.”
As of February 2022, Berger’s LinkedIn page said she was a teaching assistant in Pomona’s 1-2-1 Bridge Program, a mathematics program, since June 2020.
Her LinkedIn page also said she had been a part-time teaching assistant in mathematics and astronomy at Pomona since August 2020.
Also as of February 2022, Berger’s LinkedIn also said she was a research intern at the Observatories of The Carnegie Institution for Science since June 2021.
Voting in Favor of BDS
The resolution was titled [p.1], “Banning the Use of ASPC Funding to Support the Occupation of Palestine” and it required [p.2] that ASPC “internal spending” could not be used on products or services from companies that “knowingly support the Israeli occupation of Palestine.”
The Claremont SJP and 5C JVP resolution cited [p.2] a list of mostly Israeli companies compiled by the United Nations Human Rights Council as a guide for which companies to boycott. ASPC internal spending includes multiple items such as funding 5C student clubs and student-run events.
The resolution created [p.2] an oversight role for Claremont SJP over the ASPC-run Coop Store and the Coop Fountain restaurant. ASPC would “work in tandem with members of SJP, and other pertinent parties, to perform an annual check on the ASPC’s businesses to ensure all goods sold adhere to the guidelines outlined in this resolution.”
The resolution also said [p.2]: “Clubs that fail to divest and/or refrain from such uses of funding would face the loss of all Claremont Colleges Student Government Association funds.” This clause effectively mandated BDS compliance even for pro-Israel and Jewish student organizations like Claremont Hillel and Claremont Chabad.
Claremont Colleges pool mandatory student activity fees and distribute the money to the 5C student governments. ASPC provides almost 47% of the funding for all 5C clubs, although each 5C student government can fund 5C clubs.
In spring 2021, ASPC gave more than $10,000 to 5C clubs. It also gave $30,000 for student-run events at Pomona that were coordinated through the ASPC’s Pomona Events Committee (PEC). The full ASPC spring 2021 budget was $216,700.
The Claremont SJP and Claremont JVP resolution also said [p.2] that ASPC’s “end goal” would be to lead other 5C student governments to pass similar BDS resolutions.
On April 22, 2021, the ASPC Senate passed the resolution with a vote of 10-0-0. Five senators were not present, representing one third of ASPC Senate’s 15 seats.
On the same day, Claremont SJP issued a press release calling the resolution’s passage “an important first step in reducing our complicity with a country that maintains an illegal military occupation and regularly commits crimes against humanity against the indigenous Palestinian population.”
On April 23, 2021, following criticism of the resolution reportedly among campus and national Jewish groups, Pomona President G. Gabrielle Starr sent an email to the student body opposing the resolution. Starr said that requiring student clubs to boycott Israel was “deeply concerning.” He said that since the vote “was held without representation from any student opposition,” the ASPC Senate should “reverse course and allow for full discussion.”
On April 29, 2021, the ASPC Senate held a Zoom meeting that included a “comment period” for student senators and student guest speakers to express their feedback on the resolution.
On April 30, 2021, the ASPC Senate reportedly decided to “table the resolution” for further discussion on the resolution’s call to deny funding to student clubs that failed to adhere to BDS.
On May 6, 2021, the ASPC Senate reportedly passed a modified resolution that omitted the original clause forcing student clubs funded by ASPC to comply with BDS.
The final resolution mandated BDS compliance for internal ASPC spending, PEC-coordinated events and the two ASPC-managed businesses. Claremont SJP also received its new oversight role regarding the compliance of ASPC businesses with the resolution.
BDS
The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement was founded by Omar Barghouti in 2005 to challenge “international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.” BDS is an allegedly “Palestinian-led movement,” although leading BDS activists have admitted [00:01:01] this is not true.
One of the demands of BDS includes [point 3] what is generally known as the “right of return,” a demand discredited as a way to eliminate Israel. Barghouti said the “right of return” is a means to “end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.”
Barghouti has said that BDS “aims to turn Israel into a pariah state, as South Africa once was.”
In his activism, Barghouti has also said [00:05:55] regarding Israel: “Definitely, most definitely, we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No…rational Palestinian, not a sellout Palestinian, will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.”
The movement has been linked to numerous terrorist organizations and received a public endorsement from Hamas in 2017.
BDS initiatives include calling on institutions and individuals to divest from Israeli-affiliated companies, promoting academic and cultural boycotts of Israel, and organizing anti-Israel rallies, protests and campaigns.
The movement’s most notable achievement has been the infiltration of university campuses through lobbying for “BDS resolutions.” In these cases, student governments and student groups, backed by their own anti-Israel members and affiliates, have proposed resolutions on some form of boycott of, or divestment from, Israel and Israeli-affiliated entities.
Boycott resolutions, although non-binding, have been passed by student governments on numerous North American campuses.
BDS activity is often aggressive and disruptive. It has been noted that universities that pass BDS resolutions see a marked increase in anti-Semitic incidents on campus. On one campus, when the student government debated a BDS resolution, reports emerged of violent threats against those opposing it.
Social Media and Weblinks
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/100011206746211LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vera-berger
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8031g9yKq3FqY2LAEJe44g
