Calls to Divest From Israel Put Students and Donors on Collision Course
To get protesters off campus lawns, Brown University and others have agreed to consider ending investments linked to Israel. But how?
Santul Nerkar, Rob Copeland and
Business reporters Santul Nerkar, Rob Copeland and Maureen Farrell spoke to students and major university donors for this article.
Desperate to stem protests that have convulsed campuses across the country, a small number of universities have agreed to reconsider their investments in companies that do business with Israel.
The deals, which have eased tension on campuses with only a few days left before students break for the summer, would have been unthinkable even a week ago. And they’re a gamble, potentially putting universities on a collision course with influential donors, politicians and students who support Israel.
The schools are still far from pulling money: Brown University, the liberal Ivy League institution, agreed this week only to hold a board vote this fall on whether its $6.6 billion endowment should divest from any Israeli-connected holdings. In exchange, the pro-Palestinian encampment on the campus's main lawn was dismantled.
Northwestern University and the University of Minnesota have also struck deals with student protesters to clear camps in exchange for a commitment to discuss the schools’ investment policies around Israel. The moves could add pressure on administrators at Columbia University, the University of Michigan and the University of North Carolina, among others, where protesters have made divestment from Israel a central rallying cry.
The issue of financial divestment from Israel has long been an untouchable one, both in American politics and among the Wall Street titans who manage university endowments and make up a large source of donations. Taking sides now is a surefire way to inflame at least one faction in a conflict that has divided campuses, split the Democratic Party and handed Republican lawmakers a cudgel with which to attack the institutions.
Even the renewed talk of divestment has raised alarms among the well-heeled donors whom few universities dare cross, and who have exerted influence over the debate on college campuses since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the subsequent invasion of Gaza. Billionaires, including the fund manager William A. Ackman and Marc Rowan, a private-equity chieftain, mounted campaigns to remove the presidents of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania over their handling of antisemitism on their campuses.
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