In addition to a ceasefire in Gaza, protesters on university campuses across the country are calling for schools to cut off all financial support from Israel.
Divestment typically refers to the sale of shares in a company that does business with a particular country. The asset withdrawal has been a long-standing goal of the movement to limit what it considers hostile operations by Israel and end the expansion of what the United Nations has determined to be illegal settlements.
In order to achieve these two objectives, the university protesters now want to force the university to divest in order to put economic pressure on companies doing business in Israel.
“Universities should do what we are asking for, which is to do something about the genocide that is happening in Gaza,” said Palestinian Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student and protest leader. has called for Columbia University to withdraw from Israel. “They should stop investing in this genocide.”
Israel launched the Gaza operation shortly after the Oct. 7 attack by the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hamas that killed 1,200 Israelis and took an estimated 250 hostages, officials said. The ensuing Israeli military response left more than 34,000 Palestinians dead, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Like many universities, Columbia University owns stock in various companies as part of its financial operations and endowment. However, information about Columbia University's exact holdings was not immediately available, and it was unclear whether the investment information released by Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), the group leading the protests at the school, was accurate. It was unknown.
In any case, some of the shares owned by Columbia may be held directly as equity investments, while other assets may be held in mutual funds or exchange-traded funds that aim to expose investors to a variety of companies. It is likely that they are held indirectly through investment products such as (ETFs).
And, as Brown University students acknowledged in a separate proposal targeting the school's alleged Israeli-linked investments, excluding certain investments from these indirect stockholding products is a “logistical challenge.” It’s going to be difficult.”
Indeed, they concluded that the school's current direct investments do not appear to be in individual companies that violate anti-Israel screening standards.
Meanwhile, holdings in mutual funds and ETFs are constantly changing, Brown students said.
So how divestment actually works is a more difficult undertaking than it might seem at first glance, says Alison Taylor, a clinical associate professor at New York University's Stern School of Business.
“The question becomes, 'What percentage of a company's business is actually tied to the activity in question?'” Taylor said.
Columbia University Investment Management, which oversees the school's market assets, has an advisory committee on socially responsible investing.
The commission promised to review investments in companies that operate private prisons. Generate large amounts of revenue from thermal coal. and involved in the manufacture of cigarettes. It also has a policy of prohibiting investment in companies operating in Sudan.
Therefore, CUAD says there is precedent for Colombia to limit its financial exposure to socially irresponsible companies. At this point, CUAD says Colombian investments in companies that CUAD accuses of having ties to Israel are “complicit in genocide.”
In a December proposal submitted to the Socially Responsible Investment Committee seeking a sale, CUAD said: “By exiting shareholdings that profit from Israel's human rights abuses, Colombia will be able to invest in other, more valuable You can invest in a company.”
Colombian representative Responsible Investment Committee He did not respond to requests for comment.
Columbia University President Minoush Shafiq did not specifically mention calls for divestment in his statement about the campus unrest. Her predecessor, Lee Bollinger, said the students' vote for divestment in 2020 only represented “a particular view on a complex policy issue” and that the issue was a “university community… “There is no overall consensus,” he said, rejecting calls for divestment.
Sylvia Burwell, president of American University in Washington, D.C., said the student vote for divestment does not represent the school and cannot be recognized.
“It is the AU's long-standing position that it opposes boycotts, divestment and other related actions known as BDS,” he said in a statement last week. You mentioned exercise.
“Such actions threaten academic freedom, the respectful and free expression of ideas and views, and the values of inclusion and belonging that are at the heart of our community.”
There is debate about the effectiveness of divestment. New York University's Taylor said there is some evidence to suggest that the buyers of stocks sold as part of a divestment campaign may turn out to be more bad actors than the original holders. Ta.
She gave the example of Myanmar. Energy giant Chevron ultimately sold assets to companies that human rights groups say were even less responsible.
Proponents of divestment often point to the successful campaign to dismantle South Africa's apartheid regime as an example of what can be achieved.
But Taylor and others said the surge of international and civil society support needed to end apartheid has not materialized in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“Everyone needed to be at the table,” she says. “South Africa is a good story, but I don't know if we're there yet.”
In a 2021 study on the impact of divestment, professors at the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford University's business schools found that the practice had little impact.
Rather, they said, activists seeking to change corporate behavior should withhold investment and exercise whatever control they have to change corporate policy.
The Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit organization dedicated to combating anti-Semitism, similarly concluded that shareholder resolutions have proven effective in changing corporate behavior, and that such efforts are Criticized it as “simplistic'' and not constructive.
“Organizations repeatedly introduce resolutions until they achieve the change they desire, often receiving more votes each year,” the ADL said in a 2022 article on its website. “Even if a proposal fails, the mere fact that a proposal has been submitted may make companies wary of doing business with Israel.”