About 6% of Michigan State University faculty continue to push for officials to cut financial ties with Israel, alleging continued investment conflicts with the university’s “mission and values.”
“Our investments right now do not promote MSU’s mission and values,” Alexandra Allweiss, assistant professor with the college of education, told the Lansing State Journal.
Alweiss is among 174 MSU faculty who signed on to an open letter to the MSU Faculty Senate to denounce the Senate’s decision in March to table a resolution calling for “the University to divest from all financial holdings that support and profit from Israel’s military campaign and plausible acts of genocide in the Gaza Strip.”
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“MSU was once an ethical leader among peer institutions for the historic 1978 Board of Trustees vote to divest from firms doing business with Apartheid South Africa. MSU’s current financial holdings, which support and profit from Israel’s plausible genocide in Gaza, show how far the university has strayed from its national and international leadership,” the letter read.
“Moreover, MSU’s mission and values statement for its 2030 strategic plan asserts a commitment ‘to improve the world we live in,’ to foster ‘a community that values the dignity of all people,’ and to ‘address past and present inequalities. Divestment from financial holdings that support and profit from the genocide in Gaza is in line with MSU’s past leadership, its current mission, and the student body’s position,” it continued. “Faculty senate’s rejection of the divestment resolution is not.”
The divestment resolution targets MSU investments in Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Black Rock, and BNY Mellon. MSU Chief Investment Officer Philip Zecher told journalists during a “Lunch and Learn” session in July the university receives money from Israel from a $200,000 bond purchased by an investment manager in 2023, WILX reports.
Zecher also made clear no one at MSU has control over investments, which are handled by outside fund managers. Student protestors have alleged MSU has nearly $600 million invested in BlackRock funds and weapons manufacturers involved in the ongoing conflict in Gaza.
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The “Lunch and Learn” session came ahead of a meeting between student activists and MSU President Kevin Guskiewicz, MSU Trustee Sandy Pierce, and Zecher the same day that resulted in disappointment for activists.
“They said that by divesting, we would be marginalizing students; we asked how they’re not marginalizing students right now by continuing the investments,” Jesse Estrada White, with the student group Hurriya, told WILX. “Then, they just said they don’t factor in politics when making the investments.”
The meeting stemmed from student protests at prior MSU board meetings that required officials to evacuate, only to later promise to meet with students if they ended their protest. In April, student activists spend days chanting and heckling at a pro-Hamas student encampment in the center of campus.
Ironically, funding for the encampment came through money raised by the Progressive Caucus of Mid-Michigan utilizing Democrats’ favorite fundraising platform ActBlue, which was also used to raise funds to re-elect President Joe Biden, who supports Israel.
“These past 10 months have been surreal …,” Waseem El-Rayes, associate professor at MSU’s James Madison College, told the Journal. “I wake up to news of massacres of people in so-called ‘safe zones,’ and then I talk to the investment office and administration and told it doesn’t matter.”
MSU faculty who signed on to the letter to the faculty senate have vowed to “continue to advocate for this targeted divestment until MSU’s Board of Trustees meets our demands.”
Pro-Hamas students, meanwhile, have promised to continue their protests on campus and Board of Trustee meetings, and are already rallying folks to attend the next meeting in September, WILX reports.