Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) announced March 6 via Instagram that they are planning to submit a new divestment proposal to the Board of Trustees this semester. According to the post, students can sign the proposal in person, while non-students can sign online.
SJP member Aurelia Mendez-Ortega (sophomore) said the proposal is going to be submitted in late April. According to Mendez-Ortega, companies llike Maersk, a transport company involved with shipping weapons to Israel, and The Geo Group, a private prison company that owns immigration detention centers and holds contracts with ICE, have been added to the divestment proposal.
The proposal, a copy of which was shared with The Occidental, also calls for the college to bar all future investments in companies that are listed on the MSCI Israel Index and the MSCI Global ex Controversial Weapons Index.
“It’s important for students to be aware of the school’s investments in the genocide that’s happening right now […] and to understand where the money they’re paying is going,” Mendez-Ortega said.
Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP) member Evan Zeltzer (sophomore) said the proposal stems from research done by both SJP and JVP into how investments play into the Palestinian genocide.
“While divestment is focused on Palestinian liberation, something that we are very aware of is that all of the issues oppressed people are facing are integrated,” Zeltzer said. “The proposal is addressing technologies that are developed in Israel and [exported] to the United States and other countries in the world.”
Mendez-Ortega said SJP is aiming for about 1,000 student signatures and will be tabling on the Academic Quad.
“Having this petition be an in-person thing for students is a way to get conversations started […] and to actually have students understand what this petition is for, as opposed to signing something online where they can do it in 12 seconds or maybe not read the whole thing,” Mendez-Ortega said.
SJP plans to submit its proposal to ASOC before it goes to the Board of Trustees. According to SJP, there has previously been no formal process for submitting a divestment policy to the Board of Trustees.
Last semester, the Board of Trustees revised its policies on how investment policy proposals should be submitted, according to ASOC President Trisha Bhima. The finalized policy stated that any investment policy proposal would have to be submitted through “… (ASOC), Faculty Council, the Alumni Association Board of Governors or a designated all-staff council before it was submitted to the [Board of Trustees],” Bhima said via email.
According to Zeltzer, ASOC will review the proposal not for content, but to check it if it meets specific informational requirements before sending it to the Board of Trustees.
Mendez-Ortega said this will be the third time SJP submits a divestment proposal to the Board of Trustees.
“[The proposal] outlines how the college’s values can be reflected through divestment,” Mendez-Ortega said. “That is a way to [see] if they actually care about the values they say they hold.”
SJP and JVP incorporate discourse about divestment in education sessions in order to keep the effort going as students who have submitted proposals in the past graduate, according to Zeltzer.
“There was so much excitement around divestment [on campus] immediately in the aftermath of when the genocide started,” Zeltzer said. “The centrality of divestment […] permeates through everything we do.”
Contact Ava LaLonde at lalonde@oxy.edu
