Northwestern University students pass Israel divestment resolution
Nora Barrows-Friedman Activism and BDS Beat 19 February 2015
Northwestern University's student government passed a divestment resolution early Thursday morning after more than five hours of hearing and debate. The resolution calls on the university to pull its investments from companies that profit from Israel's occupation.
Twenty-four student senators voted in favor of the resolution, twenty-two voted against and three abstained. Campus paper The Daily Northwestern reported that the 400-seat auditorium was filled to capacity. Others live-streamed the hearing on YouTube.
Since Northwestern is a private institution, the university's investment portfolio is kept secret. The resolution demands transparency from the university administration regarding the billions of dollars it holds in assets. Student campaigners say these assets likely include investments in at least six US or multinational corporations which contract with the Israeli military.
Student senator Noah Whinston, who co-authored the divestment resolution, told The Daily Northwestern, "It's a validation of so much work we've done. It's just a culmination of all of the marginalized voices that we heard here speak tonight."
Wide support
Divestment campaigners were subjected to "vigilante censorship" of Palestine activism as flyers and materials have been torn down or destroyed, Moira Geary of the Northwestern chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine told The Electronic Intifada last month.
But activists also gained a lot of support from campus allies.
During last night's divestment hearing, activists from a variety of student groups spoke in favor of divestment, including representatives of For Members Only, which describes itself as "the voice of the Black student community at Northwestern."
After with Stanford University, Northwestern is the second university this week to pass a divestment resolution in the student government. The University of California at Davis and the UC Students Association also passed divestment resolutions in the last month.
Snapshot: reactions in the crowd moments after the #NUDivest resolution passes ASG Senate by photographer Amal Ahmed pic.twitter.com/iQI9CCIH6p
— NorthbyNorthwestern (@nbn_tweets) February 19, 2015
Congrats to #NUDivest! The Chicagoland elite can't be happy, which is a great sign for everybody else.
— Steven Salaita (@stevesalaita) February 19, 2015
By my count, @NUDivest is the 25th American university to pass a divestment vote: http://t.co/5U8KUydDBz.
— Palestine Today (@PalestineToday) February 19, 2015
We shall not be silenced. We will not remain complicit in human rights violations anywhere in the world. #NUDivest
— Sara Jo سارة (@HelloSaraJo) February 19, 2015
campus activism
Nora Barrows-Friedman's blog
Permalink James Cook replied on Fri, 02/20/2015 - 02:22
Thank you so much for standing up for what is right. #NUDivest
It was the zeal of students
Permalink maggie replied on Fri, 02/20/2015 - 14:01
It was the zeal of students just like these who began the movement that brought down apartheid in South Africa. Thank you, young people, for your sense of fair play and decency. I am applauding.
Nora Barrows-Friedman
Nora Barrows-Friedman is a staff writer and associate editor at The Electronic Intifada, and is the author of In Our Power: US Students Organize for Justice in Palestine (Just World Books, 2014).
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