Michigan State U. Will Not Divest From Israel Despite Pressure From Student Activist Groups

These students need to be reminded that they don’t run the school, they’re just passing through.

WILX News reports:

MSU students say the University will not divest from Israel despite multiple calls for actionAt Michigan State University, a call for action from a coalition of 20 different student groups, pushing the University’s President and Board of Trustees to divest from Israel.“That was draining,” said Saba Saeed with the Arab Cultural Society, after leaving the meeting.The Hurriya Coalition met with President Guskiewicz, Trustee Pierce, and Chief Investment Officer Phil Zecher among other faculty at the Hannah Administration building on campus. Students say the meeting didn’t go as they wanted.“They said that by divesting we would be marginalizing students, we asked how they’re not marginalizing students right now by continuing the investments. Then, they just said they don’t factor in politics when making the investments,” said Jesse Estrada White, a member of Hurriya.Hours before the meeting with the students, Phil Zecher held a “lunch and learn” meeting where he discussed the University’s investments and their complexity. In the meeting, he said the University invests in a variety of things and fund managers do it, and that no one at the University has any direction on who or what they invest in.When encampments popped up on campus earlier this year, dozens of professors and faculty members teamed up and took a look at the University’s investments.“I think a lot of us got a lot of clarification on it, we came to an understanding. We now know the bond is what the professors thought it was. It was issued in 2003, the US government bought the bond from Israel, and people invested in it. The bond was specifically for national security,” said Estrada White.Zecher also said during “Lunch and Learn”, that the University is not giving money to Israel, in fact, Israel provides money to the University and that this has been explained to students multiple times.

Tags: Antisemitism, BDS, College Insurrection, Israel, Michigan

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