Amid a surge in campus activism related to the Israel-Hamas war, more students are voting on whether to call for their colleges to divest from Israel. Colleges have struggled with how to respond to the votes. Two colleges prevented students from voting at all.
The latest incident happened at Vanderbilt University, which blocked a student referendum in late March.
The measure asked whether students wanted to prevent student-government funds from being spent on businesses with ties to Israel. (The referendum used a list of companies that the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement has deemed to be “complicit” in violating the rights of Palestinian people.)
But Vanderbilt officials said a vote for such a boycott could have violated Tennessee law and federal law. The referendum had the support of around 1,000 students and 18 organizations before the university canceled it.
Students outraged by that decision staged a sit-in at Chancellor Daniel Diermeier’s office. Four students were arrested, as was a journalist reporting on the event, and more than two dozen other students were suspended by the university.
Standoffs over divestment — a movement that advocates cutting financial ties with certain countries or organizations to make a moral statement — are part of an increase in campus tensions since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. The efforts by the Vanderbilt Divest Coalition mirror other student groups across the nation as they clash with administrators on where funds and partnerships stand in relation to the war.
The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor also called off a student vote on a similar measure last November, citing election interference by a pro-Palestinian student group. Students at Rutgers University just voted on a referendum on divesting from Israel, but the outcome isn’t yet known; Cornell University students are poised to do so this month.
While student referenda do not control college boards, they do reflect what student voters think. Such referenda have led colleges to divest fossil-fuel holdings from their endowments.
“These kinds of referenda are just one tactic,” said Angus Johnston, a history professor at Hostos Community College of the City University of New York and a historian of student activism. “Obviously students don’t have the ability to force the university to do this, but by demonstrating widespread student support for divestment, it can help to ratchet-up pressure on the college or university.”
Universities Struggle With Responses to Boycott
Students’ pushing for divestment to try to influence their colleges has a long history, especially during the apartheid era in South Africa, said Johnston. Then and now, colleges have pushed back.
Opponents of such divestment campaigns have long said that cutting out certain investments undermines the primary purpose of endowments: to make money to support the institution. College leaders may also reject divestment from Israel because they fear it’s akin to taking a political stance — something that higher ed is increasingly reluctant to do.
Vanderbilt’s chancellor has drawn fierce criticism since canceling the referendum. Eleven members of the Nashville city council called for Diermeier to rescind the student protesters’ suspensions.
Students, faculty members, and the Tennessee chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union have challenged the university’s interpretation that state law bars students from voting on divestment from Israel. The law prohibits state and local governments from entering into contracts with entities that support boycotts, excluding contracts of less than $250,000. Vanderbilt’s student government has a budget under $200,000, the Vanderbilt Divest Coalition said.
Diermeier argued that the student government is not legally separate from the university in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece. Engaging in a boycott with a country “friendly” to the United States, he said, would put the university at risk on the state and federal level.
Over 40 faculty members signed an open letter saying that it was “ironic” and “disgraceful” for the university to suppress student voices while also claiming to be a beacon of democracy.
A Vanderbilt spokesperson didn’t respond to a request for comment on the university’s decisions related to the referendum and the sit-in. Vanderbilt officials announced on Thursday that they’d hired an outside firm to review the arrest of the journalist, who had been quickly released.
Back in February, the president of the University of Virginia allowed students to vote on an Israel-divestment referendum. But a spokesperson said beforehand that the institution would not be “bound by the results.”
Various student organizations sponsored the measure, which claimed that the university’s $13.6-billion endowment invests in companies associated with an “apartheid regime and acute violence against Palestinians.” The referendum also called for UVA to audit its endowment to determine which parts of it might have ties to Israel. The measure was supported by over two-thirds of the nearly 8,000 students who voted.
After the vote, UVA’s president, James E. Ryan, issued a statement to the university’s Board of Visitors, emphasizing that the referendum was a student-driven effort and had “stirred a lot of passion, activism, and emotion” on both sides of the divestment issue.
“The university administration, including my office, does not take positions on student referenda or elections while they’re occurring, regardless of whether we’re in favor or disagree with the referenda,” he said in the statement. Even after the vote, he declined to take a stance, citing his administration’s “respect for student government.”
However, the state’s attorney general, Jason S. Miyares, sent a letter to the board condemning the students’ vote and claiming that they were supporting “terrorism.”
More Votes Are Coming Soon
Over the past two weeks, tensions ran high at Rutgers as students were voting on a divestment measure. (Students at the New Brunswick campus voted on the referendum in late March; students at the Newark campus considered it last week. The results aren’t yet known.)
On the ballot were two questions: Should the three-campus university system divest from companies that are profiting from the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land? And should the university end its research partnership with Tel Aviv University?
Last Monday, Jonathan Holloway, president of the Rutgers system, issued a message to students expressing opposition to the BDS movement and support for the partnership with Tel Aviv University. He said he wouldn’t stop the vote from taking place, even though he’d faced demands to do so.
“On the question of divestment, I think the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement is wrong,” he told students in the statement, which was sent to The Chronicle. “I believe in engagement, not isolation. I believe that enlightenment comes from involvement and that lasting progress and peace are the outcomes of diplomacy and discussion.”
But on Thursday, a Rutgers town hall with administrators and students descended into a shouting match, with pro-Palestinian student protesters demanding that Holloway support divestment, according to a video posted on X.
Meanwhile, Cornell students will vote this month on whether to call for the university’s divestment from companies that are “complicit” with committing “morally reprehensible actions,” according to the resolution, as well as whether the university should publicly support a ceasefire in Gaza.
Cornell’s Student Assembly voted in March to hold the referendum, one month after rejecting a student-government resolution that would have backed disinvestment, according to The Cornell Daily Sun. A university spokesperson said Cornell had approved the holding of a nonbinding referendum on the issue.
Johnston, the historian of student activism, said the surge in referendums stems from student activists who believe their colleges have an obligation to respond to student opinions and answer their concerns.
There’s a generational divide when it comes to criticism of the Israeli government, Johnston said, and that often drives a wedge between students and administrators. He believes that suppressing student voices can have no positive outcome.
“There has never been an American higher-education environment where student protest wasn’t a major part of the student experience,” he said. “Efforts to marginalize student protests and efforts to suppress student protests are a violation of student’s academic freedom and I think, in the long run, doomed to fail.”
