Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine Supports the Students Calling for a Yale College Council Referendum on Disclosure, Divestment, and Reinvestment

November 5, 2024, New Haven, CT – Yale Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (YFSJP), a chapter of the national network of Faculty for Justice in Palestine, stands in full support of a YCC referendum vote on whether the university must disclose its investment in weapons manufacturing and military infrastructure, divest from economies of war, and reinvest in education for Palestinian students and scholars who have lost their schools, their homes, their livelihoods, and their very lives.

As members of this community we join these students who refuse to be silent while our infrastructure, research, and teaching is paid for by investments in the military industrial complex. We will not accept a status quo that insists our lights must be powered by blood spilt overseas and that our books must be bought with money gained from the sale of bombs that destroy libraries, schools, and hospitals in Gaza. Over the past year students across this campus and around the country called on our universities to show principled leadership and stewardship of their endowments. In response, universities ordered their arrests, dismissing them as a radical minority. It is time to show university administrators that Yale College students across this campus stand united and will lead where their elders have failed to lead. The referendum vote on disclosure, divestment, and reinvestment is not only the morally correct thing to do, but in-line with previous actions taken by Yale in the wake of unthinkable tragedy and structural violence. Yale has previously chosen to disclose and divest from companies linked to apartheid in South Africa (1978-1994), the genocide in Sudan (2006), and from weapons companies linked to mass shootings in the United States (2024). Why would they refuse to follow such precedent now? It is time for Yale College students to take up the torch, to say no to profits from Palestinian genocide, no to profits from bombings in Lebanon, no to profits from war-making across the region.

For years our students have put our teaching into practice through rigorous research into Yale’s investments in order to understand the structures of power that govern them during their time here and beyond. They have organized among themselves, they have campaigned in the community, and they have worked tirelessly to hold Yale to the standards and commitments set by its own mission statement to “[improve] the world today and for future generations through outstanding research and scholarship, education, preservation and practice.” Their work to move the administration to the right side of history inspires us and we are honored to continue following their lead in this referendum request.

These courageous students offer Yale, yet again, an opportunity to showcase international leadership in a rapidly changing world. We are proud to support the proposed referendum to disclose, divest, and reinvest to make this community and the world a better, more just place. 

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Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine Supports the Rally “All Out for Lebanon”

September 27, 2024, New Haven – Yale Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (YFSJP), a chapter of the national network of Faculty for Justice in Palestine, stands in full support of the students organizing and participating in the "All Out for Lebanon" rally. This gathering today represents the students’ ongoing organizing to fight for life and dignity. We continue to be inspired by your courageous commitment to justice. We reiterate our solidarity with everyone in this community and elsewhere opposing genocide and fighting for life.

Over the last twelve months Israel’s war on Gaza, backed by unwavering support from the United States, has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, shut down news media outlets, and leveled critical health, education, transportation, and communication systems in Gaza. By destroying these critical infrastructures Israel effectively created aid blockades, a famine, and untold physical and psychological damage. The Lancet published a report this summer conservatively estimating that even if an immediate ceasefire had been called in July 2024 the long-term effects of the war could result in more than 186,000 deaths. Since then, in the absence of a ceasefire and following a polio outbreak in Palestine in August 2024, reports of the possible long-term death toll have skyrocketed to over 330,000. We fight alongside our students to save these hundreds of thousands of lives, to end this genocide. We refuse to accept the paradigm of educational institutions investing in and reaping the profits of war.

In recent weeks, Israel has again trained its weapons on the people of Lebanon, carrying out intensive air strikes that have killed hundreds and shut down schools. As a collective of education workers, we are especially alarmed by Israel’s targeted destruction of education infrastructure in Gaza and in Lebanon. Schools, universities, and vital institutions of learning have been systematically targeted, denying entire generations the opportunity to learn, grow, and shape their futures. Education is not only a fundamental human right but also a powerful tool in the fight against occupation, colonialism, and apartheid. The obliteration of these infrastructures is a deliberate attempt to suppress knowledge and undermine the potential for resistance and self-determination.

We recognize the privilege of access to education, and it is this privilege that compels us to act. We, like our students, cannot remain silent while the very foundations of education are under attack in Gaza, Lebanon, and beyond. Our work advocating for divestment and standing against the complicity of our own institutions is deeply connected to the struggles faced by students and community members around the world.

Despite the ongoing horror of this genocide for people throughout Palestine, Lebanon, and their neighbors, and despite the direct impact of this genocide on the global community of higher education, Yale’s administration continues to abdicate their responsibility as a global leader. They reject the University’s mission to seek light and truth and choose instead to hide behind abhorrent and fallacious attempts  to create “neutrality” policies. How many lives could this institution change if it redirected the hours of committee work dedicated to crafting such policies toward finding ways to support Palestinian students unable to complete their degrees because their universities have been destroyed? If it redirected that labor into finding ways to divest from war or rallying its vast resources and global connections to stop this genocide? We implore Yale’s leaders to raise themselves up to the ethical, moral, and intellectual standards set by our students, to follow their example and fight for life beginning with divesting from war and investing in the local New Haven community.

As we start this new semester, the Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine are strengthened by the students’ steadfast commitments to justice, their endless capacity for compassion, and their tireless work to engage with communities across New England and beyond. We stand shoulder to shoulder with students at Yale and globally, as well as with communities under siege in Palestine and Lebanon. We affirm that the call for divestment is a necessary step in dismantling systems of violence and apartheid, and we urge all those who believe in justice to join us in this urgent work. We continue to raise our voices for a future where freedom, dignity, and the right to education are fully realized for all.