Students Demand Yale Divest from Military Production

Yale students demanding the University's $40 billion endowment divest from military production investments “including those profiting from Israel's genocidal war on Gaza,” have captured national attention.

After gathering for a week of teach-ins, book exchange, poetry and art at Beinecke Plaza in advance of the Yale Board of Trustees weekend meeting, the students erected tents and established an encampment on Friday April 19. Hundreds of students and allies came in solidarity.

On Sunday night students refused an offer to meet with the Trustees because their demand for disclosure of investments and divestment from military production would not be considered.

Early Monday April 22 University police removed and arrested 47 students who received misdemeanors. The protest moved to the busy public intersection of College and Grove Streets, shutting down traffic for a day. New Haven police said they would not interfere with a peaceful protest.

By agreement, the protest moved to Yale's Cross Campus at 5 pm where the protest continues daily. Yale Jews for Ceasefire (J4C) held a “Seder in the Streets” on that first night of Passover calling on Yale and the U.S. government to “stop starving Gaza” and “stop arming Israel.”

Earlier in the week J4C sang “We Shall Not be Moved” in Hebrew. Civil Rights Movement songs and performances of all genres have brought people together alongside beautiful posters memorializing Palestinian academics killed by Israeli arms.

Yalies 4 Palestine, a leader of the encampment and protest, joined in coalition with other campus groups to organize the actions. A large percentage of students have taken part. Conservative campus groups have held counter protests. Some in the Jewish campus community falsely labeled the protests anti-Semitic.

The students are in solidarity with an emerging national campus movement in solidarity with Palestine facing arrest and discipline. Campus protests at Yale in the 1980's led to divestment of funds from apartheid South Africa.

An on-line petition to the Board of Trustees, “Yale Corporation Divest from Weapons and Genocide” has nearly 1,000 signatures. Headlined “It's Your Yale. They're Your Bombs,” the petition questions Yale's $40 billion endowment investments saying, “Our community refuses to let Yale make our education in New Haven contingent on death and destruction abroad. Tell the Corporation: divest from military weapons now “

The New Haven Board of Alders will hold a virtual public hearing on a ceasefire resolution on Wednesday May 1.