Above photo: University of Minnesota students continue to press for divestment from apartheid Israel. Annie R-P. /Fight Back! News.
And Salt Lake City shows solidarity with Palestine.
On August 30, 150 University of Minnesota students, staff, faculty and community members rallied and marched from Morrill Hall to McNamara Plaza in response to the Board of Regents vote that happened earlier this week.
The Board voted on a resolution that would impose political and institutional neutrality on the university’s endowment fund. This vote was pushed by new University of Minnesota President Rebecca Cunningham. It effectively makes any sort of divestment from Israel, or weapon manufacturers and other entities complicit in war crimes and human rights violations, impossible. It takes away any accountability that administration has to its students, to its staff, or to its faculty.
The protest was led by the UMN Divest Coalition, made up of Students for a Democratic Society, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), and Young Democratic Socialists of America.
Since launching the divestment campaign last October, thousands of students have demanded that their university take action and divest from companies that are complicit in the ongoing genocide in Palestine. Instead of standing with its students, even after 75% of students voted in favor of divestment, the University of Minnesota ignored the demands of divestment in favor of arresting and using cops on their students last spring.
As the UMN Students for Justice in Palestine president said during her speech at the rally, “We are not asking the University of Minnesota for charity; we are demanding an end to the complicity in genocide. Is profiting off of genocide politically neutral?”
At the same meeting as the neutrality vote, President Cunningham introduced a new policy that would effectively make any sort of protest on campus illegal. Students would have to apply for permits two weeks out if there’s to be a crowd over 100, are only allowed one bullhorn, and cannot have any signs or banners larger than 14 by 22 feet. The SJP president stated, “You can try to restrict our right to protest and not let us use our voices but let me tell you, you will lose [to the people] every time!”
The neutrality vote and protest policy were in direct response to the University of Minnesota encampment and its wins earlier this spring. As students go back to school, universities across the country are imposing harsher protest guidelines on their students. The University of Minnesota is doing the same.
The UMN Divest Coalition and UMN community will not stop and will not rest till we win divestment and a free and liberated Palestine.
Salt Lake City shows solidarity with Palestine
Salt Lake City, UT – Over a dozen students and youth gathered on August 30 to launch a campaign against the University of Utah’s affiliation with the University of Haifa, an Israeli university with deep ties to the Israeli military and the ongoing genocide in Palestine.
Utah Students for a Democratic Society hosted the event, which was itself a victory in the aftermath of arrests, intimidation and repression of the student and Palestinian movement in Utah during the last academic year.
The full extent of the University of Utah’s ties to Israel remains unknown, as the administration has declined to disclose its investments and partnership portfolio with Israel. However, beyond the academic partnership, the University of Utah is involved with the 47G research consortium, which includes companies supplying the Israeli military, such as Raytheon and Northrop Grumman.
Additionally, the university maintains relationships with Chevron and Intel, two companies singled out by the Palestinian movement for their profiteering off stolen Palestinian land and for aiding the Israeli occupation. Student activists will work to uncover and end all these relationships as part of the campaign.
“It’s easy to sign up for a study abroad program when you don’t know where that money is going,” said Adrian Romero of Utah SDS. “A bachelor’s degree in Israel costs about as much as one full-time semester in the U.S. The last university in Palestine has been destroyed. Education is an international right, not a way to enable a genocide.”
The activists resolved to unite as many students, community members and other organizations as possible around the divestment campaign, which will begin during the fall semester.