Wesleyan University (CT) Agrees To Board Divestment Vote And Reconsidering Academic Partnerships With Israel For No Disruption Of Reunions and Commencement
The Wesleyan President and administration rightly are seen as giving in to extortion in order to preserve peace at reunions and commencement. In so doing, they have dangled the possibility of the university entering into some form of divestment or academic boycott of Israel in front of students …. Even if Wesleyan ultimately rejects these measures, it has done tremendous damage.
Add Wesleyan University in Connecticut, and its President Michael Roth, to the list of weak universities and leaders who have capitulated to demands of anti-Israel encampment protesters in exchange a promise not to distrupt reunion and commencement events.
Wesleyan is a campus awash for many years in anti-Israel activisms and hate. It was not surprising, then, to see a tent encampment arise as it did at dozens of other campuses around the country.
In an article in The New Republic explaining why he was not calling the police to dismantle the encampment, despite a clear violation of pre-existing campus rules, Roth noted that students sought to intimidate him after one meeting: “… outside the chants grew louder: “Roth, Roth, you can’t hide / you can’t hide from genocide.” When I walked home, an angry crowd of maybe 75 followed close behind.”
He also noted that some faculty abused their power over students to force their anti-Israel views on the campus:
“I’ve checked in with many Jewish students individually and sat down with a group to talk about their fears—and their complaints about faculty bias. Amazingly to them and to me, a few professors took votes in their classes to decide whether they should hold class in the encampment. Minority rights? Not something these faculty seemed concerned with, at least not until the provost reminded them that they could not force any student to support a cause with which the professor happened to agree. Of course, faculty are free to support any cause they like, but whatever political acumen they believe themselves to possess, they are not free to impose this on their students.”
This is important background because the notion that MORE ‘pro-Palestinian’ education and activism was needed bears no relation to reality. At Wesleyan, as at most universities (including Cornell), ‘pro-Palestinian’ voices are dominant by a large margin.
In his explanation for not removing the encampment, Roth laid bare his anti-Netanyahu, anti-Republican politics:
We could have immediately closed down the encampment because the protesters hadn’t gotten advance permission for tents, and because they were writing messages on the adjacent buildings in chalk. Over the last week I’ve gotten many notes from alumni, parents, and strangers chastising me for not making the protesters “pay a price” for breaking the rules. In my initial message to the broad university community, I wrote: “The students [in the encampment] know that they are in violation of university rules and seem willing to accept the consequences.” So why haven’t I made them feel those consequences? Cops don’t always give people tickets for going a few miles over the speed limit. Context matters, whatever Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik says….
How can I not respect students for paying attention to things that matter so much? I respect that they’re concerned about Gaza; I admire that they’re not entirely taken up with grades or lining up their credentials. Will their protest help? My fear is that such protests (especially when they turn violent) in the end will help the reactionary forces of populist authoritarianism. I also think student protesters are wrong to focus on university investments. I would prefer they use their energies to pressure the U.S. government to do more to get the hostages released, to stop supporting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war tactics, and to bring more direct aid to people in Gaza on the brink of starvation. My team expects to discuss all of this with students in the coming days. Right now, I’m most concerned with protecting their right to protest in nonviolent ways that don’t undermine our educational program. For me, the modest violations of the rules are preferable to the narrow-minded vocationalism that others seem suddenly to pine for.
But Roth didn’t just not punish the anti-Israel encampment protesters, he rewarded them.
To get anti-Israel protesters to remove the encampment and not to disrupt reunions and commencement, Roth agreed to push Palestinian activism deeper into the university, to put on the table a range of academic interactions with Israel, and also to put divestment to a Board of Trustees vote by September 2024 (similar to what happened at Brown University).
Roth sent an email to students and alumni on Saturday, May 18, 2024, announcing the deal (emphasis added):
“Dear friends,
Over the course of the past three weeks, the Administration has been in meaningful engagement with the group of pro-Palestinian protesters on campus. Our conversations have been rooted in a shared affection for Wesleyan and a desire that the institution be aligned as fully as possible with its community’s values. Provost Nicole Stanton and Dean Mike Whaley have now successfully concluded their discussions with representatives of the group of protesting students and their faculty monitors.
In these meetings, the University explained that as of December 31, 2023, 1.7% of Wesleyan’s endowment was invested in companies categorized as Aerospace and Defense businesses. None are directly involved in the manufacturing of weapons. As of the same date, 0.4% of the endowment is invested in companies in Israel, all of which are software companies. The protesters did not ask for information about investments in any other countries, but we can say that Wesleyan’s endowment is not invested in any companies listed by the protesters.
Later this month representatives from the pro-Palestinian protest will meet members of the Investment Committee. In the fall, the Committee for Investor Responsibility (CIR)—a standing representative body of students, faculty, alumni, and staff—will be able to propose changes to the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) framework for investment/divestment for consideration by the Board at its fall meeting.
Agreement Ending Wesleyan’s Encampment
The protesters have agreed to clear their camp by Monday morning. No students will face disciplinary sanctions for being in the encampment, but after the camp is cleared normal university regulations will be enforced. The protesters agreed not to disrupt Reunion and Commencement events. Individuals who refuse to comply will be suspended and face legal action.
It is always important that we maintain a safe enough environment on campus for people who disagree with one another and who embrace opportunities to learn from people with various points of view. Yes, protests are demanding for all constituencies of a university. At their best, they help turn our attention to issues that really matter. I am hopeful that soon we can re-direct our collective efforts to urging our lawmakers, both here in Connecticut and in Washington DC, to do everything in their power to create a resolution in Israel and Gaza that will result in the return of the hostages, an end to the fighting, and a commitment to a process that will recognize the rights of all parties. More generally, I have hopes that the political energies recently displayed by our students will play a positive role in addressing the momentous questions before this country in the coming elections.
Sincerely,
Michael S. Roth
President
You can read the main agreement with addenda here (full embed at bottom of post. Here are some of the main points:
Divestment Vote By Board In September 2024
In the main agreement, reiterated in Appendix 1, Wesleyan agreed to a September 22, 2024, Board of Trustees vote on divestment:
“Representatives of the SJP will meet with trustee members of the Investment Committee to present their perspective when the Board of Trustees is on campus for their upcoming meeting on May 23-24, 2024. The CIR, in consultation with various university constituencies, will forward a proposal to the Investment Committee at their earliest Fall convening. The Board of Trustees commits to a vote on the resulting proposal as early as their September 22, 2024 meeting.”
Reevaluation of Academic Partnerships With Israel
In perhaps the most shocking aspect, Wesleyan has agreed to open up for discussion its interactions with Israel and Israeli academia (emphasis added):
“III. Study Abroad & University Academic and Career-Services Partnerships
SJP-WPSE and University administration agree to convene a broadly collaborative ad-hoc community consultation process during the Fall 2024 semester concerning the norms and guidelines that might apply broadly and globally to other formal relationships that Wesleyan maintains with approved study-abroad programs, career services, and other formal academic partnerships. Examples relevant to the current crisis include the Tel Shimron archaeological field school, the pre-approved academic partnerships with universities in Israel, and career services programs (should they exist) to invite recruiters from industries with tied to the military industrial complex.
These consultations will begin in September of 2024 with the convening of a consultative ad-hoc committee (AHC) composed of students, faculty, and staff representatives. The Educational Policy Committee (EPC) will nominate three (3) faculty representatives to this working group. The WSA will nominate three (3) students, and the Office of Student Affairs will nominate three (3) staff members. The AHC will designate its own chair and meeting schedules, with the expectation that they will generate concrete policy recommendations by January 2025.
The AHC will deliver recommendations about study abroad and academic partnerships to the EPC, which will take these recommendations to the faculty for consultation and a formal vote by the conclusion of the 2025 Spring semester. The AHC will likewise deliver recommendations about the Gordon Career Center s (GCC) activities by January 2025, which will review and respond to those recommendations and implement any resulting policy changes by the end of the 2025 Spring Semester.
While Wesleyan has not agreed to any specific steps to diminish or remove interaction with Israeli academia, subjecting a specific program and the broader “academic partnerships with Israeli universities” to the “ad-hoc committee” process is a strong signal that Wesleyan is at least entertaining some form of academic boycott of Israel. The university could have just rejected the process completely.
That partnerships with Israeli universities is on the table was the understanding of Wesleyan SJP, celebrating the deal on Instagram:
SJP also included its goals in the statement attached as an addendum to the agreement:
“3. We demand Wesleyan University cease all affiliations with Israeli academic institutions and institute a full academic boycott of programs and affiliations with Israeli academic institutions; including termination of all Study Abroad programs with Israeli academic institutions by the Office of Study Abroad, the Wes-at-Shimron Archaeological Field School, as well as all Gordon Career Center recruitment programming involving companies target for divestment.”
Amnesty
No one will be punished for violating school rules.
“SJP-WPSE and University administration agree that formal judicial charges related to violations of Wesleyan s policies on disruptions (i.e. establishing the encampment without prior approval) and chalking in the immediate encampment area shall be suspended if the encampment is voluntarily cleared.
Policy violations (including disruptions, damage/vandalism, harassment, etc.) occurring in the encampment area after the clearing of the encampment, or that occur elsewhere on campus, will be subject to usual disciplinary procedures.
SJP-WPSE commits to the safe removal of all encampment-related material from Wesleyan property by the morning of Monday, May 20, 2024. After the clearing of the encampment, all parties will be subject to the existing disruption policy.”
Additional Provisions – Promoting Palestinian Narrative
Wesleyan also agreed to a series of steps to deepen the Palestinian narrative on campus, which already is dominant.
“V. Additional Initiatives
As a starting point, the parties agree to the following initiatives geared towards the overall campus response to this crisis, Palestine, and the study of Palestine:
• Utilizing Wesleyan’s existing “Scholar at Risk” program to bring displaced Palestinian scholar(s) to Wesleyan.
• Trying to provide scholarships to a cohort of displaced Palestinian students who are interested in studying at Wesleyan.
• Making available micro-grants from the political engagement fund to support Wesleyan students interested in working toward political solutions beyond campus during the summer of 2024 and beyond.
• Academic Affairs will review Wesleyan’s Middle Eastern Studies minor during the 2024-25 academic year and is open to enhancements and improvements to the program.
• The Wesleyan Office of Residential Life (Res Life) will assess student interest in the reestablishment of the Turath program house that previously served as the focal point of Arab, Middle Eastern, and Muslim cultural and religious activities on campus. Pending sufficient interest, the Office will initiate a relaunch of the program house by Fall of 2025.
• Wesleyan’s College of the Environment (COE) will explore a collaboration with the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library.
• The University will pursue opportunities to bring Palestinian artists to Wesleyan through the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC) as well as possible collaborations with the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music and the Barenboim-Said Foundation (USA).
• The Wesleyan Center for the Arts commits to bring Palestinian artists to campus as part of its programing during the 2024/25 academic year.
• The University as a whole invites all units to consider additional collaborations with Palestinian institutions.”
In all, Wesleyan’s capitulation is among the worst, or the worst, we have seen so far. It has anoined SJP, a national organization with questionable ties and which expressly seeks the destruction of Israel, as an officially recognized negotiator over the academic freedom of the university.
The Wesleyan President and administration rightly are seen as giving into extortion in order to preserve peace at reunions and commencement. In so doing, they have dangled the possibility of the university entering into some form of divestment or academic boycott of Israel in front of students who have learned that violating university rules pays. Even if Wesleyan ultimately rejects an academic boycott, or divestment, it has done tremendous damage.
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Comments
As Ben Franklin said. “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety”
“as giving in to extortion in order to preserve peace at reunions and commencement”
“Nice little college ya got here. Be a shame if something should happen to it.”
Even Starbucks stood up to Tony S,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gsz7Gu6agA
Did you read the article? The president did not give into the protest he WAS the protest. He started out by explaining that the students had no leverage and he could have stopped them if he wanted to and explained how he did not want to because he detests Jews and Republicans.
This is an inside outside game not a give in to pressure.
As Kipling said, once you have paid the Paligeld, you never get rid of the Pali. Not that it looks like Roth would be upset over never getting rid of the Pali, he would buy them all drinks instead.
Jews not welcome here; move out, take your tuition with you, and the same for your rich alumni. Wesleyan is clearly enemy territory.
The Left-wing Ratchet tightens again.
I have a river house in CT and some of my neighbors have children attending this joint. All of these children are scolding, ignorant, insufferable, brats who insist their parents display BLM signs in the 99% white town where we reside.
I fantasize about abandoning my vacation home to some Hartford gangbangers to sock it to this preening hypocrites. I can hear the wailing already.
Out of curiosity if you don’t like the neighborhood why have your vacation home in CT?
Your neighbors are paying Wesleyan more than $80,000 a year for their child to go there. Their president just agreed with the protestors to bring a cohort of Palestinian students to Wesleyan. Wait till your neighbor’s child invites his new Paly classmates home for the weekend. Sell now.
If you’re willing to abandon the property, you may as well rent it to “select” hard partiers via AirBNB instead. At least you’ll make some revenue from it.
The moral cowardice being displayed among the Dhimmi-crats in academia in fecklessly kowtowing to and appeasing goose-stepping, genocidal Muslim supremacists, Islamofascists and their non-Muslim, Dhimmi-crat enablers and allies, is shameful, nauseating, contemptible and indefensible.
The events of the 20th century should have impressed upon these reprobates that nothing good ever comes from appeasing totalitarian ideologies, movements and bullies.
One word
Cowards
The right word is Nazis. But the irony is too cosmic.
Instead, they should do a symposium on genocide. Too many idiots among them that believe and profess what Hamas and Code Pink tell them on the matter. Their sanctimony is noted and rejected when they trivialize for political points.
It’s so cute the way they act as if disruptions will actually cease.
This craven performance was entirely predictable once Roth stated, in his initial email to alumni, that he was amenable to a negotiated agreement such as had occurred at Brown and Northwestern (my law alma mater). My response at that time was that he was a pusillanimous putz. That was too mild a critique. I was a Wesleyan class agent for a number of years, but stopped donating a decade ago after the student governmentvoted to defund the student newspaper after it published some mildly conservative op-eds by students who were military veterans. The downward spiral by what had once been a genuine liberal arts college continues.
Trump should end all federal aid to non-STEM secondary education as a first day item. Take a chainsaw to it, a la, Javier Milei.
At a minimum, he should do so with respect to this a similarly behaving institutions.
¡Afuera!
He had a good idea in his 2016 campaign, which never went further. He said it in a speech he gave, for some reason, in Canada. Require private underwriting of at least a part of government guaranteed student loans.
The private lender will apply normal credit standards: is this borrow likely to repay? Ability to repay would enter into it. Will this student graduate, and with a good degree? B average in engineering, here’s your money to keep going. A average in sociology, sorry we don’t have any for you but all the best.
I doubt he has the discretion to do that. Remember, when Congress appropriates money for some purpose the president is required to spend it on that purpose, unless Congress specifically gives him the discretion not to. He can ask Congress in his first budget request not to fund such things, but whether it will give him his request depends on a lot of things, and most importantly on the congressional election results.
Also, why do you specify secondary education? Is your idea that the non-STEM classes at secondary schools feed into the radicalism at tertiary schools, so best to stop the rot at the source? Or what? Because as far as I can tell the rot actually starts in primary education, but you can hardly cut off non-STEM there, because that’s almost all of it.
Unless, of course, it’s bombs for Israel… or $1B US aid for a Poroshenko-led Ukraine.
The statute authorizing the arms shipments to Israel probably gives the president some authority to withhold or modify them; most such statutes do. That would be why there was an attempt to revoke that authority, which didn’t get the numbers to pass.
They negotiated with terrorists,……and lost
They favor the terrorists and used the available excuse to give them the win, while being sure that Jewish students get absolutely no satisfaction.
I am so old I remember when this was called racketeering.
Wesleyan says they have an agenda related to this war. They are supporting ceasefire and opposing Netanyahu.
Doesn’t that put their tax exemption in play?
No, why would it?
Because China is committing an actual genocide and being buycotted by them, making their decision to embrace boycott against Israel something that the United States Federal Government should not be paying for.
You are entitled to be an anti-Semitic POS, you are not entitled to money from Uncle Sam by getting tax exemptions. If you are implementing discriminatory boycotts you are most definitely crossing legal lines.
No, you’re not. crossing any legal lines. There’s nothing in any anti-discrimination law that covers inviting foreign professors, running student exchange or study abroad programs, investing in companies, or any of the other things the BDS mob are demanding of universities.
Even if we were talking about actual grants, rather than mere tax benefits (which are not “money from Uncle Sam”; remember, “it’s not your money”), the government doesn’t have to make them available in the first place, but once it does make them generally available on objective criteria you are entitled to them if you meet those criteria, and it cannot withdraw them as punishment for expressing an opinion it doesn’t like.
That’s why NYC was unable to defund the Brooklyn Museum because it displayed a picture Giuiliani didn’t like.
Not paying full tax required of all other businesses is absolutely money from Uncle Sam.
I pay full tax, The default for Americans is they pay full taxation. Reducing that tax burden is absolutely money from Uncle Sam.
We are in a budget crisis of bankrupting and national decline proportions right now. Uncle Sam deciding you should have a special privilege in taxation absolutely is him giving you money.
Discrimination between Jewish vs everyone else violates multiple laws on discrimination.
Anti-BDS laws are outright part of state law in 27 states but more importantly HR 644, HR 246 among others makes it clear you may absolutely not have Uncle Sam’s money while you are participating in BDS.
Tax privileges are absolutely a subsidy. By law the government is entitled to the tax rate provided under law.
Permitting some people to pay less is not a right. Furthermore Wesleyan is getting direct money from the U.S. Federal Government to (SEOG anyone? Pell Grants anyone?).
You very much are paying for Wesleyan right now.
To clarify reducing the burden for some people but not others is absolutely getting money from Uncle Sam.
The default for the commoner is the norm, noblemen being given noble privilege not to pay tax is a subsidy to their class.
giving up the country all so they dont have to arrest the blmplo armies
2020 “peaceful protests” allll over again
“mostly peaceful”
Wesleyan.
Trying like hell to be eaten last.
They will fail.
All institutions are choosing sides for what may be the final struggle. One side will lose and pay the price.
Subotai Bahadur
I don’t see any cowardice or giving in to terror here. On the contrary, from what Roth wrote it’s clear that he agrees with their cause and goals, and only disagrees with their methods and tactics. He disagrees with some of their demands, but only because he believes they’re unwise and unhelpful to the cause, so he hopes that by sitting down with them and explaining it they will be persuaded that the cause is helped more, e.g., by not boycotting far-left Israeli professors than by boycotting them. So this is not a surrender, it’s a win-win for both sides; they realize they’re really on the same side and can now cooperate to better achieve the ultimate goal of restarting the Holocaust after an 80-year pause.
Exactly correct.
When first appointed as Wesleyan’s President, Roth was an overt shill for Obama during his 2008 campaign. He rarely if ever demonstrated any Jewish identity. He does pride himself on being a voice of reason and defender of liberal arts education in the face of wokeness, but ultimately is as spineless as most college administrators.
it is in fact cowardice for roth to say that
“b/c the police *dont always* give tickets for a few miles over……”
that doesnt equate to a group of menacing /racist/ thugs who “might turn violent” etc etc
thats the exact same “reasoning” that his fellow leftists use in why
poc cant be held accountable in schools b/c of the “pipeline to prison” effect etc
THAT THEY THEMSELVES have caused
if roth is going to get that deep into the blmplo philosophy /agenda then why isnt he saying
sure they attacked peaceful humans at a concert on oct 7 2023 etc etc
b/c he only CHOOSES to try and intellectualize away the blmplo terrorists as humane
which they are not
That is not cowardice. The law is never to be enforced blindly and absolutely. It’s completely reasonable and expected to overlook peccadilloes even routinely, let alone when they are merely excesses in a good and noble cause. Since he evidently agrees with their cause, nothing they’ve done for it exceeds the equivalent of going a few miles over the limit, and thus while it can’t be allowed it needn’t be punished. The police can and do hand out “warning tickets”, when they think it appropriate, and that’s what he’s giving them, because from his point of view their hearts are in the right place, they’re just immature and zealous, and got carried away as young people will always be. The important thing is to get them to behave and help them learn how to achieve their joint goals more effectively. And that joint goal is to restart the Final Solution.
I do agree with you that their goal is the FS
and we are judging him on his vision of their hearts being in the right place
if they cared about the people they would tell them to take home in egypt etc
except those places dont want them either
only fjb >>omar want to give them a home in america
“sitting down with them”
they are not into debate ( thats what “sitting down with them” means)
otherwise they wouldnt help in shutting down debate
That is not true. They’re not open to debate, but they are certainly open to discussion, or they would never have been able to organize themselves as they have clearly done. No goals of any complexity can be achieved without sitting down and discussing ways and means, and being open to suggestion, correction, and compromise. So long as they’re all on the same page, these people are perfectly willing to do that. So all he has to do now is explain to them why some of their demands harm their cause rather than helping it. For instance boycotting a far-left professor who could help their cause just because ze happens to be from Israel.
yeah but thats just it
they are on the same page so again
if no debate is allowed then ROTH IS IN FACT a coward for not seeing >>representing the side thats NOT ALLOWED TO PRESENT
THATTTT fact makes him a coward
correction:
not allowed to be present
These people aren’t leaders. They are followers of professional agitprop performers.
The Czech Republic stands with Israel again and again. Look at the UN votes.
I’m sure Czech universities would be happy to increase academic partnerships with Israeli universities.
Why do these students seem to think they should have a voice in a school’s endowment? The money isn’t theirs, and given the complexity of modern business arrangements, complete divestiture and dissociation from dealings with any Israeli-based companies or its government is impossible. The vast shifts of any daily-managed portfolio in a mixed common investment fund contain thousands of individual portfolio elements such as money market and liquidity management investments that come and go so fast that no one could possibly keep track. Even individual companies have thousands of investments in different instrumentalities of the same nature. But of course we are talking about callow, indoctrinated college kids who think they are being environmentally conscious when they put a crushed beer can in the recycling bin as they spend hours on Instagram or other social media on their iPhones (made using Uighur slave labor in China) while whinging about Islamophobia.