New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Yale students protest investments linked to Gaza campaign
NEW HAVEN — Miguel Monteiro and Lukey Ellsberg, two of the dozen or so pro-Palestinian Yale University students who announced Friday they will begin a hunger strike, don’t know yet how far they’re willing to take it.
But both felt they had to do something.
The students are calling on Yale to divest from companies that produce weapons used by Israel in its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The hunger strike officially begins Saturday if Yale has announced it is divesting and other demands are not met.
The heart of the “demands” appear to be for Yale President Peter Salovey to make a public statement committing to divest from all weapons manufacturing companies contributing to Israel’s campaign in Gaza, as well as to discuss the demands at next Saturday’s Yale Corporation meeting and announce Yale has done so.
“A portion of Yale’s investments are literally resulting in death,” said Monteiro, 34, and a PhD candidate in near-eastern languages. “Yale is profiting off that industry.”
A Yale spokesperson issued a statement in response to the students’ press conference saying the university follows a set procedure on its investments.
“For more than 50 years, the university has employed a rigorous process to ensure the ethical management of its endowment, guided first and foremost by these longstanding principles,” the statement reads. “The Corporation Committee on Investor Responsibility considers and makes recommendations to the Board of Trustees on policy matters related to ethical investing. It is supported by the work of the Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility, whose members include alumni, staff, faculty, and students.”
The ACIR was asked late last year to consider a divestment policy, encompassing manufacturers of military weapons, according to the statement.
“The ACIR has looked into the issue and is preparing to provide an update to the community in the coming weeks,” the spokesman said.
Monteiro, who originally is from Portugal and lived in what he called “occupied Jerusalem” for a year, said he’s taking part in the hunger strike, “because this is an offense against our humanity.”
He said he’s very aware that “we can stop anytime,” but people in Gaza can’t.
“Whatever it is that we’re doing here is nothing compared to what’s actually happening there,” Monteiro said.
The reasons to get involved are deeply held for Ellsberg, of Ossining, N.Y., who is the grandson of the late Daniel Ellsberg, the whistleblower who exposed the extent of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War by leaking the “Pentagon Papers.”
“I am doing this because Yale has inflicted an injury on all members of the Yale community,” said Ellsberg, 29, a Ph.D. candidate in religious studies.
“I personally have made inquiries to the Advisory Committee On Investor Responsibility, who are supposed to advise Yale investors,” Ellsberg said. “I’ve pursued the avenues that I can at Yale to make my voice heard. I might not be able to make them listen, but I can at least keep my own heart from being as hard as theirs are.”
So how far are they willing to take it?
“How far is Yale willing to endanger its students in order to keep investments in genocide,” Monteiro said.
The two men were the only ones at a press conference in front of Yale’s Sterling Memorial Library willing to go on record with their names attached.
Other members, all speaking anonymously, read a press release and statements from a Palestinian student at Yale and members of groups at other North American universities where similar actions are going on.
The statement called out the schools damaged or destroyed in Gaza and the thousands of Palestinians killed or wounded in what it called a genocide. It also highlighted the famine conditions there now for more than a million people.
The group of Yale graduate and undergraduate students, under the umbrella group, Graduate Students for Palestine, said they will continue the hunger strike if demands for Yale to divest from weapons manufacturing companies contributing to Israel’s campaign in Gaza aren’t met.
A letter to Salovey, dated April 10, was posted on a “Yale Hunger Strike” Instagram profile and distributed at the press conference, which organizers said was moved from a nearby Yale building Friday morning after Yale officials told them that press would not be allowed inside. “Yale is steadfastly committed to free expression and the right to peaceful protest, values that are foundational to our academic community,” a Yale spokesperson said in an email. “University staff have reached out to student organizers to provide them with resources.”
The statement continues that any students participating in the hunger strike should consult with clinicians at Yale Health and staff are emphasizing the importance of student health and well-being.
A group of students, who were not identified individually, said hunger strike would begin the day after the press conference to coincide with Bulldog Days, when prospective Yale students would be on campus.
“This will hopefully bring even more attention to the strikers, and to the ongoing genocide being perpetrated by the Israeli military,” the group said.
The letter to the president was also submitted “as a collective of graduate students, undergraduate students and community members,” the letter to Salovey reads.
“We write to you as people with a moral consciences and a dedication, both academic and deeply personal, to the liberation of Palestine,” it reads. “Over the last six months, the world has witnessed the mass death of over 30,000 Palestinians, the displacement of 80 percent of Gaza, the closing of 100 percent of Gaza’s academic institutions and the forcing of a half a million human beings into famine.”
“As people of the Yale community, we are appalled, horrified and enraged by this,” it reads.