Our coalition of UBC Vancouver student groups gathered almost 1,500 signatures to successfully petition our student union, the Alma Mater Society (AMS), to call a referendum to Demand UBC Cut Ties with Israeli Universities that Uphold Apartheid (Full wording in PDF format).
Endorsements from Student Governance
Our representatives presented arguments for the referendum at an AMS Council meeting last week, during which Council voted to endorse the Yes vote. Those same arguments were presented at the UBC Graduate Students’ Society (GSS) Council meeting the following day, and the GSS likewise endorsed the Yes vote.
The Case for Cutting Ties
The ethical imperative as well as UBC’s own policies makes the case for cutting ties with Apartheid-supporting universities in occupied Palestine insurmountable:
- Amnesty International has documented how the Israeli state practices racial segregation and systematically discriminates against Palestinian scholars on their own land.
- UBC students participating in mobility agreements with Apartheid-supporting universities would be directly exposed to that discrimination.
- UBC’s Discrimination Policy (SC7) and the British Columbia Human Rights Code explicitly prohibit such discrimination.
- UBC has previously cut ties with Russian and Thai universities out of concern for human rights violations. There is no reason that precedent should not be maintained in the face of the egregious human rights violations Palestinians continue to experience.
Vote in the Referendum
The full campus of 60,000 UBC Vancouver students will be able to vote on the referendum during the election period from March 9–13, 2026.
Last year, a similar referendum called by our coalition passed overwhelmingly with a 76% Yes vote.