Portland State U. Considers Divestment After Anti-Israel Protesters Trash School Library
“pro-Palestinian protestors took over and vandalized the building in April, causing $1.23 million in damages”
Once again, bad behavior is being rewarded. You cannot appease a mob. It never works.
The College Fix reports:
Portland State U. considers divestment after protesters cause $1.23 million in damages to library
Portland State University just reopened its library after pro-Palestinian protestors took over and vandalized the building in April, causing $1.23 million in damages.
Now, the university is considering protesters’ demands to divest from companies with connections to Israel – prompting criticism from one scholar.
The Millar Library re-opened Sept. 16 after a lengthy repair process that cost $1.23 million, university spokesperson Katy Swordfisk told The College Fix in a recent email.
The protesters’ occupation of the library last spring proved very destructive. Walls, windows, computers, books, furniture, and more were damaged or destroyed, and images showed large parts of the building spraypainted with anti-Israel graffiti.
The fire safety system also was damaged, making it unsafe even for staff to have “consistent access” to the building for several months, according to an update on the library’s website.
Afterward, 22 protesters were arrested, including seven students, the Portland Police Bureau told KOIN News at the time.
Pro-Palestinian students want PSU to end ties to Boeing and other companies connected to Israel. In May, the student government passed a resolution calling for the university to end its “relationship” with the company.
Additionally, a video of the damage to the library shows the words “F— Boeing” spraypainted across glass doors.
This fall, the university is starting up a Committee on Socially Responsible Investment and Partnership to consider the divestment demands.
Swordfisk told The Fix the committee “is tasked with examining PSU’s practices around investment and partnership. The Committee will make recommendations to support and enhance alignment with PSU’s mission and values.”
Boeing has a longtime charitable relationship with PSU, donating “$150,000 to name a classroom in the Karl Miller Center” and “$28,000 a year for scholarships,” according to the student newspaper PSU Vanguard.
However, because it is a supplier of military equipment to Israel, some pro-Palestinian students want the university to end ties to the company. In April, PSU President Ann Cudd agreed to pause relations with the airplane manufacturer in response to the students’ demands.
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Comments
How stupid. If destroying the library proves to be a successful tactic, then …. but Portland U is too busy staring at its navel to consider any logical conclusion.
Even if you despise Jews and feel neo-Nazis deserve a place in mainstream discourse and are fighting for David Irving this is the definition of rewarding bad behavior which is why we know this has nothing to do with the protestors and everything to do with anti-Semitic administrators.
There are no shortages of young people who want to become doctors, scientists and lawyers which means a University could expel the entire class and not lose a penny because every seat would be filled next term with people who want to become doctors, scientists and lawyers.
When you remember why universities are so prominent in the culture and why young people go to them (again they are the source of American doctors, scientists including engineers and architects, they also account for every lawyer) you realize exactly how little leverage a student protestor has on any topic.
Pee-S-Yew has an endowment of less than $100 million. Knowing how leftist that school is, doubt they have any money in their likely “socially conscious” investments that would have any impact beyond a minor irritation to their investment counselors having to bother moving a little money around.
Hey, I know! Let’s do whatever a mob of immature, irresponsible, overprivileged and unaccountable whiny Marxists want!
Exactly. Instead of using whatever forces are necessary to stop all this crap from the mush brained idiots, the faux institutions of higher learning roll over and submit. Close ’em down and let the leftist faux profs find real jobs. Where they get their hands dirty preferably.
I didn’t have to read beyond “Portland.”
well they knew that trashing a library wouldnt affect their kind
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