Press Release – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Students end 12-day Hunger Strike Calling for Divestment from Genocide and launch ‘UBC is Racist’ campaign.
VANCOUVER, BC – After 12 days of voluntary starvation, student activists at the University of British Columbia (UBC) have ended their hunger strike, condemning the university’s continued silence and inaction on demands to divest from corporations complicit in Israel’s war crimes and the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
The strike, organized by a coalition of students across UBC’s Vancouver and Okanagan campuses, was an effort to pressure the university to further discussions with the administration and urge them to cut financial ties with weapons manufacturers and companies profiting from apartheid, illegal settlements, and the destruction of Palestinian life. Despite overwhelming student support and months of protest that included an 8,000- strong referendum yes vote – the first of its kind in Western Canada – in favor of a two-day strike for divestment, three days of student strike action, mass rallies, and sustained encampments, UBC’s administration has refused to even engage with students.
“We starved ourselves because UBC refuses to stop investing in starvation,” said May Lim. “While Palestinians in Gaza are deliberately deprived of food, water, and medicine, UBC continues to profit from their suffering. This is not neutrality—it is complicity.”
Despite months of promises by the administration, President Bacon and the UBC Board of Governors refuse to meet with students they claim to represent. Bacon has, however, consulted regularly with student groups that condone the genocide of Palestinians, thus upholding and supporting anti-Palestinian racism on our campus. He repeatedly dismisses student concerns, refusing even to acknowledge the word “Palestine” in official communications. Meanwhile, the university has escalated securitization, unlawful arrests, and disciplinary measures against students, staff, and faculty exercising their right to protest and free expression.
“UBC claims to uphold academic freedom and human rights, yet it funds the annihilation of education in Gaza,” said student organizer Frank Wilson. “How can this institution condemn historical genocides while bankrolling one in real time?”
The 12-day hunger strike and a two-day student strike for divestment galvanized widespread solidarity from faculty, staff, labor unions, and community members, including a six-hour shutdown of UBC’s bus loop—the busiest in North America—with drivers honking in support. Yet the administration remains unmoved, prioritizing corporate partnerships over its ethical obligations.
“History will judge UBC’s cowardice,” the coalition warned. “We will not stop until this university is forced to choose: Will it stand with genocide, or with its own students?”
As the strike concludes, organizers say they have no option but to escalate tactics, promising that UBC’s inaction will only fuel broader mobilization. “UBC has shown its hypocrisy and double standards,” they declared. “As our next campaign makes clear, UBC is a racist institution actively profiting from genocide. The world needs to know.”
The hunger strikers’ demands have remained steadfast, and include the following:
- Full divestment from all companies supplying weapons, surveillance technology, and military infrastructure to Israel.
- A meeting with the Board of Governors to discuss the group’s Responsible Investment Proposal as submitted on February 12th.
- An end to double standards, with a call to address Palestine with urgency equal to that UBC had shown towards Ukraine, and equal concern for ALL violations of international law.
- Public condemnation of Israel’s destruction of Palestinian universities and the targeted killing of scholars.
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