NEW ORLEANS — In your Breakdown: pro-Palestine protestors who oppose Israel’s military action in Gaza are asking for universities to divest from Israel. But what does that mean?
First, many academic institutions have endowments, which are donated funds usually invested in stocks and bonds. The returns are used to support the institutions or specific programs.
And protestors at more than a dozen schools are now asking their institutions to disclose those investments and sell investments with any ties to Israel; sending a strong political message.
Pro-Palestine protestors from Tulane and Loyola have demanded that both universities, “….divest fully from Israeli corporations and corporations that supply arms, fuel, or technology to Israel.”
And “disclose the annual investments of their endowment beginning with 2023.”
Tulane students are also asking that the university cut ties with Israeli universities, and cancel all ‘birthright trips’.
At Columbia, one student coalition is asking the university to divest its $13.6 billion endowment from tech companies like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, and Alphabet, which owns Google.
Brown University has been receptive and will be having a meeting to hear arguments from five students. It plans to take a vote from its board members in October.
But actually divesting could be complicated. Some financial experts and university administrators say it may be hard to untangle and track which companies in a large investment portfolio touch Israel and by how much. Plus, most companies’ retirement plans involve some investment in large tech companies.
Tulane and Loyola have so far not responded to calls to divest.
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