The LPC Student Senate passed its long-awaited “divestment” resolution on March 11, citing the district’s previous million-dollar ties to the investment firm BlackRock. The district trust that held those shares sold them last June and faced backlash. The Student Senate’s resolution demands action on behalf of LPC academic faculty, not students.
The blunder comes after months of waiting for LPC’s official response to Chabot College’s divestment resolution. Chabot’s resolution recommended the district “divest (from) … entities financially benefiting from military and war in the U.S. and abroad.” The resolution passed all three campus senatorial bodies — the student, academic and classified senates — by August 2025.
A resolution from a campus governing body is a “note of opinion,” according to LPC Academic Senate President and mathematics professor Ashley Young. The Academic Senate first began drafting a separate resolution for Las Positas in December 2025. However, it stopped short of recommending divestment for one crucial reason.
The 2024 Futuris Trust report outlined how third-party management firms invest millions of dollars for the district’s pre-2013 hiree retirement benefit trust. The document detailed how millions of dollars toward current and former district employees’ “post-employment benefit plans” are being invested in the stock market.
The report covers investments made through June 2025 — including shares the district owned in BlackRock, which were sold on June 5, 2025. That investment was the target of Chabot’s divestment resolution and sparked district-wide protests earlier that year.
Dyrell Foster, LPC president and Retirement Authority Board member, was asked if there was a connection between the dual-campus protests in the 2025 spring semester and the June divestment from BlackRock. “I don’t know personally,” Foster said. “There could be a dotted line to that.”
This resulted in the LPC Academic Senate’s “Ethical Investment Policy” resolution. Instead of recommending divestment, the EIP resolution recommends the Retirement Authority Board introduce a policy aligned “with the values and ethics of Chabot and Las Positas Colleges with regards to the environment, social justice and civic responsibility.”
Collin Thormoto, the EIP resolution’s author and secretary of the Academic Senate, said that the absence of “anything that was too visibly egregious” led the Academic Senate toward “trying to make sure that (it) prevent(s) something egregious from happening in the future.”
The contested investments in BlackRock were already liquidated. Thormoto explained his thought process in drafting a response to the Chabot divestment resolution, saying, “If (Chabot’s resolution) is not relevant anymore, then it’s good to pivot around that and make it more holistic.”
The LPC Student Senate introduced the original Chabot divestment resolution for a first reading on Feb. 25. The Academic Senate’s EIP resolution was making its way “through divisions” — a feedback period between the first reading and motion to vote — in which policymakers fine-tune resolutions. The LPC Student Senate then sent the Chabot divestment resolution to divisions to be considered in a vote at the next senate meeting.
Both the LPC Academic and Student senates met next on March 11. The Student Senate meeting will follow the Academic Senate’s conclusion. The LPC Student Senate meeting agenda links three documents: Chabot’s original divestment resolution, the LPC finalized EIP resolution and a new, hybridized document. The third document replaced the resolved points of the Chabot divestment resolution with the Academic Senate EIP resolution’s resolved points. A resolution’s resolved points are the “note of opinion” and come at the end of the document.
The LPC Student Senate had already held a first reading of the Chabot divestment resolution. Thus, a vote on the edited combination of the Chabot and LPC Academic Senates’ resolutions would not require another first reading.
LPC Student Government President and Senate Chair Naomi Mangini said, “If there is a wish to instead look at the other version that our senates have been passing, then we could look at this in a different way. Then it would … be a separate meeting for a different resolution.”
This was visibly unpopular with several senators. Shortly after Mangini’s offer, Sen. Kazuya Yasui motioned for a vote on the hybridized Chabot divestment resolution. The resulting resolution no longer called for divestment, but instead mirrored the LPC Academic Senate’s EIP recommendation.
The resolution, passed on March 11 by the LPC Student Senate, states: “RESOLVED, That the Las Positas College Academic Senate calls on the Retirement Authority Board … develops an Ethical Investment Policy.”
The LPC Student Senate cannot resolve anything on behalf of the Academic Senate.
The LPC Academic Senate was scheduled to vote on a finalized resolution on March 11, but instead voted to table the resolution for its next meeting on March 25. Young explained to senators that the student government “indicated (it) might make some changes.” Answering The Express’ request for comment, Mangini said, “No, there are no plans to retroactively amend the document.”
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TOP PHOTO: From left, Rend Al Itbi, Mariia Volova, Naomi Mangini, Arya Ferozy, and Madina Qaderi host a LPC student government senate meeting at the Student Life Office on Feb. 25. (Photo by Eric Liang/The Express)
Daniel High is a staff writer for The Express. Follow them on Instagram @danielhigh05.
