San Diego State University (SDSU) students plan to walk out of class Tuesday afternoon in support of the people of Gaza and a divestment of university funds from companies they say benefit from Israel’s current war there.
The walkout comes a day after Columbia University announced that it would not divest from Israel after more than a week of student protests.
In a social media post, Students for Justice in Palestine at SDSU wrote the walkout is meant to show solidarity with students protesting at other universities and protest “spending on weapon corporations that kill Palestinians.”
The group led a similar campaign a decade ago. In 2014, the SDSU's Associated Students University Council rejected a resolution calling on SDSU and the California State University system to divest from companies they said benefited from violence against Palestinians. The list included Boeing, Caterpillar, Hewlett Packard and Motorola Solutions.
“Our university invests in and thereby profits from some of these companies which have an active role in the human rights abuse and institutionalized structural violence against the Palestinian people, thereby making it a complicit third party,” the resolution read.
Divestment may not have much impact on a country’s finances, according to UCLA Finance Professor Ivo Welch.
“It takes about a few milliseconds for other investors to pick up the shares that are being sold,” Welch said. “The universities all together, all their endowments together, are a drop on a hot stone when it comes to the capital that is invested in financial markets.”
Universities have given up certain kinds of investments in the past. Columbia has divested from private prison companies, Yale has divested from assault weapons retailers and the University of California has divested from fossil fuels.
UC San Diego’s student government passed a divestment resolution last month. The university opposed it.
In a statement ahead of Tuesday’s demonstration, Hillel of San Diego said their priority will be keeping Jewish students safe.
“Jewish students at SDSU should be able to express their Jewish identities and support for the Jewish state without fear, in a learning environment that is free of hostility,” they wrote. “As always, we are resilient in the face of these challenges. Our doors are always open, and we will continue to serve as a secure space for Jewish students.”
In a statement, SDSU said they expect and encourage respectful conversations and interactions on campus.
