For the first time since its launch in November, Princeton Israeli Apartheid Divest (PIAD) has released specific standards and steps for its campaign to divest the University’s endowment from Israel. The divestment plan is detailed in a 66-page proposal that was sent to the CPUC Resources Committee on June 18.
“Princeton University is committed to divesting its endowment of entities that enable or facilitate human rights violations or violations of international law as part of Israel’s illegal occupations, apartheid practices, and plausible acts of genocide,” the proposed policy the report recommends that the University adopts reads.
The document proposes seven criteria for divestment — the sale of investments held by the University’s endowment — to be overseen by a public-facing “Divestment Manager,” a new position operating independently of the Princeton University Investment Company (PRINCO), which manages the endowment.
The proposal comes nearly a month after members of PIAD met with the Resources Committee to discuss divestment and committed itself to bringing a formal proposal before the committee, which makes divestment recommendations to the Board of Trustees. PIAD is not an officially recognized student group.
Divestment from Israel was a core demand of the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” that occupied McCosh Courtyard and Cannon Green for three weeks in April and May. Both the sit-in and PIAD’s initial petition for divestment called for additional actions beyond divestment, including dissociation from military-funded research, an academic and cultural boycott of Israeli entities, and the development of relationships with Palestinian institutions.
The proposal sent to the Resources Committee, however, is primarily focused on divestment. PIAD wrote in a press release on Sunday that it would be pursuing these demands through other channels.
PIAD’s divest criteria include companies tied to Israeli settlements, weapons, military equipment, anti-Palestinian discrimination, the use of natural resources in Israeli-occupied areas, and walls and checkpoints — standards adapted from recommendations issued by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a Quaker organization that works on a variety of social justice initiatives.
The proposal also includes two potentially far-reaching standards for what qualifies as a connection to Israel: companies financing Israel through the AFSC guidelines or that have “headquarters, offices, or operations in Israel.” The “financing” standard includes companies that hold Israeli government debt or bonds, often held by states, municipalities, and labor unions.
Divestment from entities on these grounds would last until Israel “ceases the violations of human rights and international law” as outlined in the proposal.
PIAD said in its press release that a number of state pension funds have divested from Russian investments in response to the war in Ukraine, including companies domiciled in Russia. Some pension funds have also sold Russian government debt.
The extent of the endowment’s exposure to companies meeting PIAD’s proposed criteria is unclear. PRINCO relies on a network of more than 70 external investment managers and rarely holds direct investments, which may have to be publicly disclosed to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). PRINCO’s investment strategy also skews towards private equity, which accounted for nearly 40 percent of its investments in June 2023.
PIAD’s proposal, however, would not leave the implementation of divestment solely to PRINCO, creating an independent “Divestment Manager” as a “line of accountability.” The divestment manager, they propose, could be a “consultant, a firm, or an employee” that would oversee the divestment process and report to the CPUC Resources Committee.
The proposal also includes what it says is a preliminary list of “complicit” companies, including Boeing, Caterpillar, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman. PIAD also identified $1.9 billion in hedge funds, venture capital, and other indirect holdings in the endowment that have invested in companies that it says meet the divestment criteria.
University Spokesperson Jennifer Morrill did not respond to a question about whether the University is still involved in the indirect investments, which were disclosed in the University’s 2022 tax returns.
“The Resources Committee of the CPUC is proceeding as professor John Groves, chair of the committee, outlined in his May 21 piece in the Daily Princetonian,” Morrill wrote in a statement to the ‘Prince.’
In the piece, Groves outlined the 1997 divestment guidelines and said the committee would “establish a process that will allow us to get broad community input,” but gave few details.
“A successful proposal is necessarily lengthy and can take years,” Groves wrote.
The Resources Committee notified PIAD on Monday that they were discussing the proposal, according to a PIAD spokesperson.
Guidelines adopted in 1997 state that the Resources Committee considers three factors when evaluating a divestment proposal: “considerable, thoughtful, and sustained campus interest,” a central University value at stake, and consensus on how the University should respond.
The committee last formally took up divestment from Israel in 2014 in response to a faculty petition, but ultimately determined that there was not sufficient campus interest. Additionally, the Resources Committee’s standard of consensus could serve a significant roadblock to divestment.
PIAD’s proposal has been endorsed by 32 student, faculty, alumni, and community organizations. Signees include the Alliance for Jewish Progressives, the Muslim Students’ Association, and the Black Student Union, as well as groups that have worked on other divestment and dissociation efforts, including Sunrise Princeton, Divest Princeton, and Students for Prison Education, Abolition, and Reform (SPEAR).
But the committee has also received letters from some Jewish student organizations opposing divestment.
“We view the extreme measures of divestment and dissociation not as responding only to current grievances with the Israeli government or military, but as attacking Jews’ claim to a state in the Land in Israel at all,” members of the student board of Yavneh, an Orthodox Jewish student group, wrote in an email obtained by The Daily Princetonian.
Members of the Chabad’s student board said they worried about “the way that divestment and dissociation would impact our ability to engage in free inquiry” in a letter obtained by the ‘Prince.’
PIAD, however, said that it was not necessarily seeking unanimity.
“Absolute consensus on how to address an endangerment of University values is rarely achieved while issues are actively being debated,” the proposal reads. “Clear consensus to divest is only ever apparent in hindsight.”
These University values, the proposal says, include human rights, free speech, and “truth-seeking.” The proposal points to the destruction of universities in Gaza as “scholasticide” and “Israel’s killing, incarceration, detainment, and punishment of Palestinian members of the press and opponents of the occupation.”
It also contends that several historical and ongoing events constitute human rights violations, including the ongoing war in Gaza, the displacement of Palestinians during the founding of Israel in 1948, and the maintenance of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
While the question of divestment is pending in the CPUC Resources Committee, organizers are determined that divestment is inevitable.
“Princeton University has an opportunity to be a leader among universities rather than waiting for the status quo to change. Divestment from Israel’s violations of human rights and international law is not a question of if, but when,” the proposal concludes.
Miriam Waldvogel is an associate News editor and the investigations editor for the ‘Prince.’ She is from Stockton, Calif. and often covers campus activism and University accountability.
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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