Media

New York–A group of Columbia students today announced the formation of a new campaign to organize the campus community to support the rights of Palestinians to education and self-determination.   The Columbia Palestine Forum will campaign for the University to take steps to support academic freedom and the educational rights of Palestinians and to divest from companies that profit directly from the Israeli occupation.  Building on years of campus activism, including a “Stand With Gaza” series of public events in February that protested the recent Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip, the new coalition released a public statement of its demands today and is planning a teach-in and rally this week.

“We’re working to raise awareness about the devastating impact of the Israeli occupation on Palestinian students” said Kaet Heupel, a doctoral student in Archaeology.  “In addition to bombing schools and university buildings in Gaza, Israel has made it difficult for Palestinians to freely attend local schools or to come abroad for education.  We want Columbia to pressure the Israeli authorities to stop refusing visas and travel permits to Palestinian students.”  The group has called on Columbia’s administration to issue scholarships to Palestinians and advocate for the right of Palestinian students and academics to travel abroad freely.

The students are also demanding that Columbia take steps to ensure that the university’s own financial holdings are not used to support Israel’s occupation and military actions.  “We know that the university holds shares in Northrup Grumman, which makes the weapons systems Israel has used to bomb Gaza, and in recent years has also held shares in Caterpillar, whose bulldozers are used to destroy Palestinian homes,” said Barnard student Olivia Rosane.  “We want Columbia to make its investments fully public, so we can make sure that our tuition money isn’t being used to violate people’s human rights.”  Columbia students and faculty have campaigned for decades to promote ethical investment policies and pressure the university to divest from regimes that violate human rights.  In the 1970s, students successfully advocated for divestment from apartheid South Africa, and in 2002 more than a hundred faculty members signed a petition calling on the university to divest from companies that sell arms to Israel.

The new campaign follows recent moves by Hampshire College and the University of Rochester to divest from some of the companies that profit from the occupation. Students in more than twenty universities in the United Kingdom have also initiated campaigns for divestment from the occupation and academic aid to Palestinians, and the Columbia Palestine Forum will work in collaboration with the global student movement to stop Israel’s violations of human rights and international law.