Since November 2024, City Council has received over 1,700 emails demanding divestment from Israel and the expansion of our city’s investment policy to not include companies that facilitate human rights and state repression. Despite emails, phone calls, and meetings with council members, none of our representatives are willing to come forward as sponsors of this legislation.

While witnessing City Council’s stalling, we’ve seen the genocide in Palestine reach new levels of horror, with Israel extending its violence to Syria, Lebanon, and now Iran. While our East Bay neighbors in Richmond, Albany, Hayward & Dublin, responded to these atrocities by divesting city assets from the Zionist project, Oakland’s City Council has instead vacillated and dodged all opportunities to take a material stand.

We’ve heard a series of bad faith arguments and excuses, but none as frustrating as “the people of Oakland are not interested in global issues.” In response, we’ve drafted legislation and plan to introduce it ourselves to show them we DO care about human life and ending systems of oppression! We, the people of conscience in Oakland, are moving forward with a people’s introduction of our ethical investment policy.

Our coalition is prepared to introduce the ethical investment policy via Rule 24.4, which allows the people to bring forward legislation if no councilmembers will introduce. We were agendized for the rules committee on September 24th. Not long after emails started pouring in, urging council members to vote “Yes” on the people’s legislation, we got a call from City Council President Kevin Jenkins. He told us that based on his interpretation of Rule 24.4 (which differs from ours), we didn’t qualify, and used it to remove us from the agenda. In this blatantly undemocratic move, it is clear Kevin Jenkins is using his political power to obstruct the people’s legislation. Jenkins would like his actions and this legislation to be kept quiet, but we will not let him silence us!

We want to remind the City Council of widespread support across Oakland for ethical investment. Please join us in demanding our city representatives divestment from companies that enable genocide and human rights violations, by urging the Rules Committee to agendize our legislation! Send our email to show your support for this resolution and demand CM Jenkins puts us back on the Agenda.

***This is a new email campaign as of September 22nd, 2026. Even if you’ve previously sent an email in support, we ask that you send this latest version! It has significant, updated information. For other up-to-date information and more context on the Oakland Divest campaign, visit tinyurl.com/oaklanddivest***