Over a year ago, after the Oct. 7 attacks and the beginning of the Gaza war, protests swept across U.S. college campuses as students called for their colleges and universities to divest from military contractors in response to civilian casualties resulting from Israel’s attacks on Gaza. At Smith College, the group Smith Students for Justice in Palestine (SSJP) is active in the divestment effort and broader activism for Palestinian sovereignty. After the inauguration of President Trump and the first phase of a ceasefire agreement in the region, SSJP says their goals remain unwavering as they enter a new semester.
Posts tagged as “divestment”
El 7 de diciembre de 2023, el capítulo de Estudiantes por la Justicia en Palestina (SJP, por sus siglas en inglés) de Smith College solicitó formalmente que el Colegio se deshaga de siete prominentes fabricantes mundiales de armas. Posteriormente, expandieron su demanda para abarcar la desinversión de todos los contratistas militares y fabricantes de armas. El 26 de marzo de 2024, el Comité Asesor sobre Responsabilidad del Inversor (ACIR, por sus siglas en inglés) emitió un correo electrónico a todo el campus revelando su decisión de no respaldar la propuesta de SJP al Comité de Inversiones.
It’s a common story at colleges across the country: student activists demand a phaseout of fossil fuel investment at the institutional level, and the board of trustees offers a provisional fifteen, twenty, or thirty-year plan. Smith made the switch in 2019 following a survey in which 92% of students voted in favor of divestment. Yet the school’s fifteen-year, best-case-scenario promise falls short of scientific consensus– the U.N. writes that we have nine years left before climate collapse becomes irreversible.
I've read last Friday's letter from President McCartney and the Board of Trustees with a plan for divestment from fossil fuels. I find it concerning.