A faint murmur of student voices could sporadically be heard on the third floor of Covel Commons on Thursday, where UC officials met to vote on divestment from Sudan. About a hundred UC students chanted outside, their voices echoing off the walls of the building.

Inside the meeting, the room was already filled to capacity with dozens of UC students, eagerly awaiting the UC Board of Regents’ decision on a cause many have spent more than a year fighting for. As each regent said yes to divestment, the students erupted in cheers, ending a tense moment for those who began the campaign.

Beginning with just a few students doing research on the events in Darfur in Winter 2005, the student movement for divestment gained momentum in the last few months, leading up to its success with endorsements by members of the state and federal legislatures, celebrities, faculty members and several survivors of past genocides.

Less than a year ago, the regents had no comment when asked about divestment, and UC officials said it was unlikely to be picked up by the regents.

Then last fall, Student Regent Adam Rosenthal submitted a proposal to look into divestment, and he and members of the UC Sudan Divestment Taskforce have been at every board meeting since.

Calling their student gatherings rallies instead of protests, students said they have made a conscientious effort to work with the board toward divestment.

At their recent board meetings, several regents commended the respectable way students have handled the campaign.

In January, the two co-chairs of the divestment taskforce were invited to be members of the study group appointed which made the final recommendations on divestment to the regents.

Now, some students and UC officials described the campaign as one of the most important student campaigns they will probably see.

“It represents student activism of the 21st century. We addressed every concern. ... We always had an answer. We always wanted to be able to say this can be done and this is how,” said Adam Sterling, co-chair of the divestment taskforce.

At last week’s meeting, the regents praised students for leading the way toward divestment, with some standing to applaud the students after the vote.

Rosenthal said he always knew divestment would be a very long process, but it was the students’ persistence to bring the issue to the forefront of the regents’ agenda that led to the divestment vote.

The regents expected a well-thought-out, analytical proposal for divestment and received that because of the students’ work, Rosenthal said.

The divestment taskforce focused on mobilization and research, Sterling said, releasing reports of their research and mobilizing of students and others around the state.

“If you look at the endorsement list we had ... the who’s who of California was coming together for the issue of genocide. I think that impressed the regents,” Sterling said.

Jeannie Biniek, external vice president of the Undergraduate Students Association Council, said the students’ divestment campaign is probably one of the most successful because the result was so significant.

“It extends beyond the UC. It is going to create change in the bigger world,” Biniek said.

State Assemblyman Paul Koretz, D-West Hollywood, said the UC’s vote, brought about by the work of UC students, will allow him to take divestment to the state level.

“Without (the students’) dedication and efforts, this historic action would not have happened,” he said.

Koretz said he is authoring a bill to prohibit California’s pension systems from investing in any companies doing business with the government of Sudan based on the UC model of targeted divestment. His bill, AB 2941, is expected to be heard in committee in late March or early April.

Sterling said Kortez’s bill shows the influence the students’ work has had as a catalyst for change beyond the UC.

“At every point along the way, there were a number of students giving everything into it. ... The result shows how much we have accomplished,” he said.

Sterling said the regents’ vote is a stepping stone for divestment on a grander scale in the state and more work needs to be done to stop the suffering in Darfur.

“The students are not done. It’s the big fish, the bigger fish that we’re going to work on now,” Sterling said.