Context: College Protesters Make Divestment From Israel a Rallying Cry
Universities have so far rebuffed exhortations to divest. Defenders of Israel say these calls are unfair to a country that is under threat of attack, and antisemitic because they target the only Jewish-majority nation in the world. That’s a long-running accusation against the “boycott, divestment, sanctions” movement targeting the country.
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One often-cited example took place in the 1980s, targeting companies that did business with South Africa, which was under apartheid rule. Columbia made headlines when it sold $39 million of stock it held in companies including Coca-Cola, Ford Motor and Mobil Oil following weeks of sit-in protests from students on its campus.
Will any US college announce plans to divest from Israel, in response to protests by June (assumed to be the end of the school year)?
Announcements from university presidents or boards here will count, even if the divestment does not begin by June (i.e. “we will begin divesting from Israel-supporting stocks in 2024” would Resolve YES).
Related questions
@IasonKoukas We'd have to read the actual document to see if it was intended to take action or just research.
Here is a link to the actual agreement:
https://www.evergreen.edu/sites/default/files/2024-05/2024-04-30-mou-scanned-with-signatures.pdf
I think it's clearly in the Yes camp in a way that UC Riverside wasn't, because it both explicitly mentions Palestine and more importantly, because it includes this language:
"This task force will work with the Foundation and the college to establish the soonest time recommendations can be made and acted upon... with the implementation of the divestment policy to begin during Spring quarter 2025 and completed by Spring 2026."
The ellipses cover additional timeline details. So while the creation of an advising committee has been ambiguous at other schools, I believe this one explicitly has teeth, and the research period is just to deal with the already discussed complex process of exposing and selecting investments to remove or replace (especially since they are beholden to define and find socially responsible alternatives).
@mattyb Can this resolve Yes?
@Panfilo To be honest, this doesn't seem that different from UCR? There is stronger language on the task force, but it structurally is a very similar agreement.
Arguments for NO:
Announcing that they are "charging" a committee with "proposing revisions", to "convene in the end of Spring quarter 2024", before "consideration by the Foundation and College" in fall 2024. So no specific commitments around divestment.
References "companies that profit from gross humans rights exploitations and/or the occupation of Palestinian terroritories", not specifically Israel
YES:
The language on the committee does seem stronger than UC Riverside. There is a commitment to complete divestment by Spring 2026.
Students advocating for divestment are treating this as a win
The divestment is explicitly the context of Palestine this time
I want to stress again I'm happy with whatever's decided and precommit to a 5 star review on this market regardless of the outcome.
@DanMan314 I think the first No bullet is poking holes in the fact that we have a timeline and it involves discussion at all. The first Yes bullet undermines it and makes clear what the commitment/purpose of the signed document is. The second No bullet, I just think is mincing words, and Matty didn't have an issue with UCR not having any mention of the specific issue.
@Panfilo Agreed on the second bullet, was just following the same format as my other list.
As for the first, again not knowing the exact criteria of the market I’m not going to guess. If it requires a commitment to specific divestments seems like a no, otherwise could be a yes. I think the key phrases I was trying to point out is that the foundation/college is only committing to considering the future committee recommendations. But that may well be sufficient for yes.
@DanMan314 I think the biggest swing for me is that it's commited to implementing a divestment policy on that new ethical standard regarding Palestine, and you can't "implement" a divestment policy with no actual divestments. Previous committees did not have this commitment.
@RussellBatemanBuckley So based on the conversations thus far it sounds like the resolution is somewhere between your first and second sentences. Like, a mere study wouldn't be enough, but also the money doesn't have to begin moving yet. If there were a committee that was commited to I/P divestment action on some longer timeline, that would be a Yes. (and please correct me @mattyb!)
@Panfilo so, that would be a study with an action pre-detetmined as the outcome? For example, the UC Riverside study very clearly does not commit to an action.
@RussellBatemanBuckley I think I personally could use more clarity from earlier convos, but I want to be patient since Matty is also frustrated with all the wordiness.
I'm still a little unclear on the criteria, so
Arguments for NO:
No specific divestments committed to, just a "taskforce" to "explore"
Task force only specifically mentions "arms manufacturing and delivery", not Israel
Arguments for YES:
Students advocating for divestment from Israel are treating this as a win
Clearly the divestment from arms manufacturers is in the context of their indirect support of Israel
Their "divestment" also includes stopping their global study program in Israel (along with a ton of other countries though).
@DanMan314 Yeah the context would need to be sufficient to indicate it was about I/P, and also the explore/reccommend process would have to be considered equivalent to what was discussed in below comments. A crucial question being, if there is any out for the college to break their agreement, can it still be a Yes? I certainly think so, since there are so many outs imaginable and this market is about a divestment deal announcement.
No specific divestments committed to, just a "taskforce" to "explore"
It’s this one for me. The students are happy bc they’re on the taskforce, but this won’t Resolve until the taskforce recommends financial divestment and the school accepts.
@mattyb Is this an example of judging intentions, or do you think it actually does need to be more specific? Because this is much more than an offhand comment.
@Panfilo I’d also appreciate clarity on how this isn’t the kind of committee in this other post you liked:
@DanMan314 oh fucking joy, another word policing. i keep writing these markets that i think are clear, and it just turns into these unfun situations. i’m really not vibing here anymore. anyways
this committee is writing a report in a year, it’s not coming til december. in my eyes, this is the university punting the football to a time when the temperature is lower before saying NO.
i understand that the literal letter as written sounds optimistic here, but the subtext is clear: the goal is “to produce a report for the Board by winter ‘24.” The board added a layer of indirection here, in both only forming a task force and agreeing to read a report on the subject of the student’s demands. This is one degree away from a plan to divest. It’s a plan to review a plan to divest.
@mattyb I'm not mad/frustrated at all! I think you're running a fine market and whatever you decide is fine with me. I understand my trades were at my own risk.
That's a completely fair set of criteria, and I appreciate the work to clarify your thoughts!
@DanMan314 forming a task force is a well-known way of pretending to care about a problem while you are in fact burying it in bureaucratic irrelevance with no intention to act upon the findings, whatever they may be
@AlQuinn Again I'm not arguing the efficacy/"goodness" of any particular action, just looking for clarification on the object level of whether it qualifies for this market.
I think I'm more sympathetic to the protestors than the average user on this website, but I'd much rather that focus on higher impact targets that divesting the .001% of their university's endowment that's tangentially relevant to the conflict.
@DanMan314 well, I don't have a dog in the fight for this market, but forming a task force to "explore" pursuing this objective is not the same thing as a clear declaration that any such action will be carried out. (and the protesters are not serious people, as Nate Silver points out)
@mattyb My earlier questions were precisely to preempt this convo as much as humanly possible based on likely scenarios. Imagine how I feel!
@AlQuinn Yea I mean I really don't think it's a fight. I'm happy with the clarification matty offered.
The Silver article is true but vacuous in the way he applies it. The statement "most of the people affiliated with this belief/movement are just signaling/bandwagoning/etc" is fully general, and if you offer it to discredit a particular belief/movement it becomes a fully general counterargument.
Finding random college students who say dumb things is a time-honored tradition to propagandize your position. It's one of the purest forms of nutpicking. That's why I distinguish between criticizing the stated goals made by the leaders of the movement, which I think is completely fair (and correct), and doing what Silver does, which is literally talking about "what’s happening around the periphery of the protests: among students who are participating in the protests but not organizing them", then finding a random dumb quote from a random protestor to drive his point home.