Gaza violence spurring activists to call for divestment

Grass-roots campaigns are resurfacing at colleges and universities to pressure endowment officials to divest from international companies that are involved in or profiting from the recent violence in Gaza.

Some of the stocks that could be affected are United Technologies Corp., General Electric Co., Terex Co., Lockheed Martin Corp., General Dynamics Corp. and Northrop Grumman Corp., Los Angeles.

Among the activity:

• Student activists at the Dearborn campus of the University of Michigan have renewed their call for the University of Michigan's Board of Regents to create an advisory committee that would examine the moral and ethical implications of the university's investments in companies that support and benefit from the violence. The University of Michigan has three campuses, all managed by the Board of Regents, which oversees a $7.6 billion endowment.

• The Students for Justice in Palestine at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., have presented the trustees of the college's $33 million endowment fund with a recommendation to sell off holdings in a mutual fund run by State Street Global Advisors.

• Chiara Ricciardone, a 2005 graduate of Swarthmore College launched an online petition calling for divestment of Israeli-related holdings in the school's $1 billion endowment.

In late December, Israel launched a series of air and missile attacks on targets across Gaza. Health officials said more than 1,300 people were killed before Israeli troops withdrew on Jan. 21.

Meanwhile, divestment pressures are expected to spread to other university and college endowments.

“What's going on in Israel has a very frightening resemblance to South Africa during apartheid,” Ms. Ricciardone said in a phone interview. “I think we're going to see more and more campaigns at universities.”

Ms. Ricciardone mentioned that she was able to spread news of her campaign through Facebook, an online social networking program.

A search of “Israel divestment” on Facebook yielded 33 common-interest groups and several petitions.

The Dearborn campus' student government in 2006 passed a resolution supporting the creation of an advisory committee on divestment of companies that support or benefit from the “ongoing illegal Israeli occupation.”

Rashid Baydoun, president of Students United for Peace and Justice and the Arab Student Union on the campus, said the committee never was created, but the recent flare-up in Gaza, renewed the call for the creation of the committee and divestment of Israeli-linked companies.

“We're seeing more support on campus ... People want to do something about the crisis in Gaza,” he said.

Kelly Cunningham, a spokeswoman for the University of Michigan, said university officials were not aware of the group's initiatives. Ms. Cunningham pointed to a statement posted on the university's website that says the overarching principle of the endowment's investment strategy is “to protect assets for the long term.”

The university has made two exceptions, according the statement on the website,reflecting concerns about apartheid in South Africa and tobacco. In order to make another exception, the statement says, the concern must “express the broadly and consistently held position of the campus community over time” and “there must be reason to believe that the behavior or action in question may be antithetical to the core mission and values of the university.”

Mr. Baydoun said his group will start putting more pressure on the trustees and Michigan politicians.

Activity also is picking up at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., said Jay Cassano, a member of Students for Justice in Palestine at the college and the student representative on the board of trustee's subcommittee on investment responsibility. Mr. Cassano said the university's endowment has exposure to six companies identified last year by the United Methodist Church as supporting Israel's occupation of Palestinian land. The stocks are held in a socially screened mutual fund managed by State Street Global Advisors.

Mr. Cassano said his group presented the trustees with a divestment recommendation last spring, but the board has not yet acted on the proposal.

College spokeswoman Elaine Thomas said in an e-mail response to questions that the board of trustees' investment committee determined there were “likely multiple concerns about this one fund from the perspective of our socially responsible investing policy.” The investment committee is recommending moving the assets.

“At this moment, we are actively exploring if the shift can be made to another fund that will fulfill our legitimate investment objectives and we can effect the change in a prudent, responsible manner,” she wrote.

There may be more pressure to sell Israeli-related stocks at four nearby colleges, Mr. Cassano said, including Amherst College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. A Jan. 5 protest in downtown Amherst brought together students from the five universities, he said.

“We have had a pretty solid effort at Hampshire,” he said. “But the recent violence has led to a lot of interest at other schools that hadn't been active before.”

He added that the activity of students who sympathize with Students for Justice in Palestine, but do not normally participate in the groups activities, have picked up their activity since the violence started.

Ms. Ricciardone started the campaign at Swarthmore after reading an article by activist Naomi Klein in The Nation magazine that called for the creation and expansion of boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns against Israel. Ms. Klein, in her article, called for divestment initiatives similar to initiatives that were applied to South Africa in the apartheid era.

Ms. Ricciardone is now working on a Ph.D. at State University of New York - Binghamton. “I love Swarthmore ... I want to be proud of the institution I graduated from,” Ms. Ricciardone said in a telephone interview. “Divestment is really an effective material and physical way to support the end of apartheid Israel.”

Ms. Ricciardone launched the online petition on Jan. 16 and had more than 100 signatures in a matter of days (http://www.theswarthmorecampaign.com/). She hopes to collect 100 signatures a week from students, faculty and alumni and wants to meet with the college's administration to discuss divestment by June. She did not have specifics on how the college's endowment was invested and what holdings may be affected.

The petition lists as divestment targets: “U.S. companies doing business in Israel; companies that manufacture or sell military equipment used by Israel; Israeli companies; and any other holdings that financially support or sustain Israeli state sponsored apartheid.”

According to the college's website, the endowment had $1.4 billion as of June 30, but lost 30% of assets since then, according to a Dec. 10 letter posted on the website by Alfred H. Bloom, the college's president. An official at the college's communications office did not return a call seeking comment by press time.