The student antisemites and cretins (they overlap quite nicely) on American campuses have been calling, chanting, screaming for their universities to engage in a policy of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctioning — known as BDS — of companies doing business with Israel. They huff and they puff, but they haven’t been able to blow that particular house down. Almost all universities that have taken up the matter have rejected demands for BDS, on economic as well as on moral grounds. After all, the endowment fund managers have a fiduciary duty to reduce risk and maximize return. More on this rejection of BDS can be found here: “US Colleges Reject Divestment Proposals Targeting Israel,” by Dion J. Pierre, Algemeiner, September 13, 2024:
American universities are largely rejecting demands to divest from Israel and entities at all linked to the Jewish state, delivering further blows to the pro-Hamas protest movement, which students and faculty pushed with dozens of illegal demonstrations to coerce officials into enacting the policy.
“We have a fiduciary responsibility to preserve and grow the endowment, which directly supports the mission of the university,” Chapman University trustee Jim Burra said in a statement issued on Wednesday. “It is important that we make financial decisions based on risk and return.”
Late last month, the University of Minnesota provided similar reasons for not divesting from Israel, citing “fiduciary duty” and the extent to which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict polarizes the campus community. However, the university adopted a new policy for its investments, a so-called “position of neutrality” which insulates official business from the daily caprices of political opinion.
“For the past several months, we have sought expert analysis and a variety of perspectives on how the university invests its Consolidated Endowment Fund,” Board of Regents chair Janie Mayeron said in a statement. “We have reviewed how this fund operates, how it supports affordable education for students, groundbreaking research, and community engagement, and the possible financial challenges of divestment … In the end, it is clear our community is divided on the topic. After careful consideration of all this input, we believe today’s action honors our fiduciary duty and the long term needs of the university.”
Several weeks earlier, Oberlin College’s Board of Trustees voted against divestment after reviewing a proposal submitted by “Students for a Free Palestine,” a spin-off of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which has been linked to Islamist terrorist organizations.
“Accepting this proposal could substantially limit our ability to deliver on Oberlin’s mission, namely, by reducing our financial resources and restricting critical discourse, as described below,” the college said in a statement. “The burden it would impose on Oberlin could be substantial and out of proportion with the direct and indirect impact of divesting.”
Oberlin also explained that divestment would undermine its mission to create a space in which students “express contested views,” adding that adopting the divestment proposal “would be taking a clear institutional stand on one side of a fraught and contested issue that divides the Oberlin community.” It continued, “The board believes that doing so could constrain critical thinking, discourse, and debate on the subject, which would jeopardize the college’s mission.”
Oberlin fears that were it to adopt BDS as its official policy, the BDSers would declare victory, and all further “critical thinking and debate on the subject” — which the university rightly regards as its the university’s core mission — would end. And the university does not want to be seen as “taking a clear institutional stand” on one side of what is a hotly contested matter. Some might argue, however, that in rejecting BDS, the university is taking a side in the matter.
These colleges and universities are not the first to reject divestment from Israel, a core tenet of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate the Jewish state from the international community as a step toward its eventual elimination.
Williams College’s Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (ACSR) rejected a proposal to divest from weapons manufacturers that sell their products to Israel in May, handing an early and substantial loss to the anti-Zionist movement in the final days of an academic year convulsed by pro-Hamas demonstrations. In addition to ruling out divestment as a possibility, ASCR declined to make itself a permanent standing committee or to recommend adopting controversial Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) principles which have been pushed by far-left groups aiming to use the market as an accelerator of social change.
ASCR cited a number of reasons why the move would be disadvantageous to the college, including that some of its funds are potentially “commingled.” Divesting from them, it explained, “could have a negative impact on investment performance out of proportion to the negligible impact on the targeted company.” It also said that the anti-Israel activists’ demands were “broad” and target companies such as Boeing, which “not only builds missiles, but also satellite systems and commercial aircraft.”
ASCR added that there is no “shared understanding” among scholars and experts, nor among its own community, about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that would make divestment from Israel as morally cogent as divesting from South Africa in the 1980s or, more recently, fossil fuels.
In other words, there are a great many people who strongly support Israel, reject the calumnies launched against it, and regard divestment from Israel as rewarding Hamas terrorists.
With all the Sturm-und-Drang on American campuses emanating from the raucous supporters of BDSers, the latter have practically nothing to show for their displays of the screaming meemies. California State at Sacramento and Union Theological Seminary in New York appear to be the only academic institutions, among the hundreds where demands for BDS have been made, that have decided to enforce such a policy, and they may find, once they do so, that anti-BDS legislation runs the risk of violating anti-BDS state laws in both California and New York. President Paxton of Brown has agreed to hear the arguments presented by the BDSers, but that is the extent of her commitment. And she has been warned of possible legal consequences, in a letter from two dozen attorneys-general, if the university decides to enforce BDS. Meanwhile, the pushback against BDS has been ferocious. And it is not only in the universities, but in local and state governments. Nearly three-fourths of states now prohibit their instrumentalities from “contracting with, investing in, or otherwise doing business with entities that discriminate against Israel, Israelis, or those who do business with companies that participate in BDS policies.” And more states are passing anti-BDS laws every month. Don’t be fooled by the anti-Israel chanters on campuses. On hundreds of American campuses, as in Gaza, the pro-Israel side has been relentlessly winning.
Walter Sieruk says
Concerning the American Universities and Colleges across the United States that have heads of those institutions ‘sold out” to the influence of the stealth jihadists, who are, no doubt, backed by oil rich nation as Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Therefore, those places of “higher education” which have become more of indoctrination centers for Islam and Islamic causes rather than genuine places of advanced education.
This is betrayal of all those young people who entered into those universities and colleges who sincerely wanted an actual, real, education. This is also betrayal the true spirit of America.
For example the former United States President, William Howard Taft, who in a speech, wisely, declared, “Anti-Semitism is a noxious weed that should be cut out. It has no place in America.”
Furthermore there should really no place in America for such un-American indoctrination centers, therefore such universities and colleges need to reform or closed down, For those places are now doing more harm than good.
As the other former US President Theodore Roosevelt, had, rightly, announced in a speech that “There can be no fifty –fifty Americanism in this country. There is room here for only one hundred percent Americanism, only for those who are Americans and nothing else.”
Walter Sieruk says
Many of those poor misled university and college “student protesters “ against the nation that is the Jewish State of Israel who how up the signs that read “Free Palestine” don’t know or understand that history reveals that the ancient Philistines recorded in the Bible and history reveals the people who came from the Greek Islands and some parts of the mainland Greece. They have no connection, at all, the to the Arab /Muslim of modern times who called themselves the “Palestinians.”
From those ancient people, the Philistines, the word “Palestine” .came into being.
There is no genuine ethic group or race who are the “Palestinians.”
Early in the last century a anyone living in that land, Arab or Jew, who lived in that land was called a ”Palestinian.”
Only after 1964 did the Arab/Muslims start to refer to themselves , exclusively , by the word “Palestinian.”
The reason for that is that they felt that by giving themselves that title they would appear to have some kind of valid claim on that land.
Indeed , there never was a “Palestinian state.”
࿗Infidel࿘ says
All of the woke movements have been losing steam. The gender-ideology movement has been losing ground, as women have started asserting their rights to keep men out of their spaces, and their achievements. On the race front, most corporations have been quietly getting rid of all their DEI goals, even if that movement is trying a comeback w/ an Orwellian rebrand called “belonging”. I expect that anti-Semitic part of this movement to collapse as well, particularly as Israel succeeds in wiping out Hamas and Hizbullah, and maybe targets islamic jihad next
In fact, the defeat of anti-Semitism will depend on the success of “far-right” parties in the West, such as AFD in Germany, PVV in Netherlands and so on, in making inroads in their countries and coming to power. In the US, if we can restore the travel ban, this time adding people from “Palestine”, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Qatar, Turkey, et al, we should see an end to these campus anti-Semitism, which is mainly driven by Muslims.
Walter Sieruk says
Iran’s top Muslim cleric leader, Ayatollah Khamenei,is ,without doubt ,is very happy and glad those in high positions in institutions of “higher education” brainwashed and manipulated those poor naive and misinformed college young people to be his useful idiots to attempt to fulfill that Islamic goal of destroying the State of Israel and then replacing her with an Islamic “state.”
Another terrible harsh and tragic reality is that Khamenei,couldn’t care less about those American college people who he only uses as his stooges. that Ayatollah ,because of his religion shiite Islam even dislikes those non-Muslim youth who are his tools and he even hate those Sunni Muslims who are also they his tools.
Those college young people who have been led astray deceived and are now being used should not be scorned but instead they should be pitied.
Walter Sieruk says
It’s sad and even tragic that those naïve and brainwashed young college and university students non–Muslims Americans, who are taking part in this Red/Green alliance, throughout the United States, who are protesting against the State of Israel and who likewise greatly favor Hamas are people who are ,rightly , described ,as the “useful idiots” of the leaders of Hamas and their jihadist members who are dedicated to the cause of conquest for the cause of Islam.
Those Americans who aren’t Muslims the stooges of those Hamas chefs and the other Muslim terrorist, For those of Hamas view all people who are not Muslims as inferior creatures to them and refer to them .
Behind their backs as , “Kafirs,” which is the Islamic derogatory term for “disbelievers.”
It’s tragic that those non-Muslims pro-Hamas America protesters against Israel are so very deluded by Hamas that this Islamic terror / murder organization so easily manipulates and uses them as their tools.
Those poor young people are ,truly, their useful idiots.
Walter Sieruk says
A Newsmax reporter walked over to one of those “student protesters” who was holding a sign that read “From the River to the Sea” and asked her “What river ?” and she replied “I don’t know.” Then the reporter asked her “Which sea ?” To that question, she answered “I don’t know.”
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Yeah, that’s the best illustration of what a bunch of morons our schools have turned out
Walter Sieruk says
There is obviously something terribly wrong with a those young people on campus who aren’t Muslim who nevertheless admire and support that vicious dangerous and deadly jihad entity ,Hamas. It might be that they had been deceived, as in lead astray by misinformation by the propagandists for Islam. ?
They, sadly, are confused or outright ignorant or both on the subject of Israel and the religion of Islam with its Muslim terrorist organizations.
Those people must not be aware of the wicked dangers of that demonic jihad entity, Hamas, with is jihadists, have no limits, at all, to its cruel heinous and vile horrendously horrific Islamic evils that it so maliciously and murderously commit.
Walter Sieruk says
It’s very obvious that those insidious stealth jihadists gaining power and influence of those high positions institutions of “higher education” must, obviously , be accepting “gifts”, bribes, from persons from foreign oil rich countries.
Many universities and colleges across the United States and in the United Kingdom have been thoroughly infiltrated and influenced by the insidious stealth jihadists.
There may be little doubt that those stealth jihadists are backed and funded by Qatar as well as oil rich Saudi Arabia.
Walter Sieruk says
Qatar and Saudi Arabia. are supporting that Muslim terrorist organizations and it doesn’t stop with that insidious evil .Qatar has, the stealth jihad , has infiltrated and influenced many universities and colleges in the United Kingdom and across the United States.
So now those “institutions of higher education” have indoctrinated many young impressionable students to be very anti-Jewish , ant-Israel and even pro- Hamas.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Saudi Arabia at a government level hasn’t done that: they have been pretty pro-Israel, other than diplomatically at the UN. Under MbS, funding of dawa and jihad efforts have ended: Tablighi Jamaat has been banned, while Saudi textbooks no longer demonize Jews and Christians. However, they can’t open up a teaching of real Judaism or Christianity w/o contradicting islamic texts, so they teach Buddhism and Hinduism instead
That said, individual Saudi citizens, such as Prince Alaweed bin Talal, still fund these activities that you listed, and it’s not insignificant. They should obviously be sanctioned, be it by Western regimes or the one in Riyadh, but aside from them, it will take a bit before we have a new generation of Saudis who’re not indoctrinated w/ Wahabi ideology
What you wrote about Qatar is on point, and we need to ban them from lobbying here in the US
OLD GUY says
The endowment funds of many of our Universities and colleges are full of money from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran etc. They them demand muslim studies be taught by muslim instructors and that Islamic student unions be opened and that more islamic men and women fill positions on campus. They are indoctrinating our young with their propaganda.