Students occupied Wesleyan’s investment office before the vote, disrupting campus activities
Wesleyan University’s board of trustees rejected a plan Saturday to divest from companies tied to the Israel-Hamas war.
The proposal was written by Wesleyan Student Assembly’s Committee for Investor Responsibility. It demanded “that the University’s financial instruments divest from close to 650 companies supporting the internationally-sanctioned occupation of Gaza and the West Bank,” according to the Wesleyan Argus.
“These companies enable indiscriminate bombings, manufactured famine and war crimes that include sexual violence and torture,” students wrote in a statement before the vote, according to the Middletown Press.
“Our demand remains clear: the Wesleyan Board of Trustees must approve the CIR’s divestment proposal, which acknowledges the severe ethical concerns surrounding the Israeli occupation,” the student group stated.
“As nearly 90 percent of schools in Palestine have been destroyed by tuition-funded, U.S.-made, Israeli-dropped bombs, we are committed to ceasing the operations of Weselyan’s investment office — which controls over $20 million in aerospace and defense companies — until the Board of Trustees commits to divesting from the U.S.-Israel war machine,” the students stated.
The school made a deal with the students to vote on their recommendation in September following weeks of anti-Israel protests in the spring. However, the trustees agreed with the investment committee’s previous unanimous decision to reject divestment.
Anti-Israel student activists occupied the school’s investment office in protest a day before the vote, “impeding administrative business,” according to a written statement from Wesleyan officials.
Five students refused to leave “in defiance of repeated warnings.” They agreed to disperse after Middletown police arrived, but will still “face internal disciplinary actions as a result of the disruption,” Wesleyan officials said, according to the Middletown Press.
While the vote was taking place Saturday, students continued to protest on campus.
The University of Virginia also recently announced that it will not sever financial ties with Israel, despite a student and faculty-led divestment campaign that began last fall, as previously reported by The College Fix.
The school cited financial reasons for refusing to divest. Additionally, the school does “not like using [its] investment strategy as a means of expressing a moral or political opinion,” Robert Durden, CEO of the school’s management company, said.
Brown University trustee Joseph Edelman resigned this month over the school’s decision to hold a vote on divesting from Israel.
“I find it morally reprehensible that holding a divestment vote was even considered, much less that it will be held—especially in the wake of the deadliest assault on the Jewish people since the Holocaust,” he wrote in a letter published in the Wall Street Journal.
Several other schools, including Chapman University, Oberlin College, Occidental College, Williams College, and the University of Minnesota have also rejected student calls for divestment, Inside Higher Ed reported.
MORE: New School student government yanks campus groups’ funding to demand Israel divestment
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