When Jumana Fakhreddine took part in last week’s anti-war protests at the University of Texas at Austin, she said organizers had set up a peaceful teach-in with speakers and pizza. Their purpose was to pressure the university’s leadership to divest in entities tied to the Israeli war effort in Gaza, she said.were arrested by riot-gear clad state and local police officers who used force to quell the demonstration and stop students from venting their frustrations.
“What you see through these protests is students … asking for the university and their endowments to stop investing in companies that either do business directly with Israel, or do business with companies in Israel, or that invest in companies that are domiciled in Israel,” he said. “So, it's a broad request for the UT endowment or some of these campuses.”
Calls for divestment aren’t a new strategy. They actually date back to at least the 1960s, when colleges and universities were in the grips of protests calling for an end to the war in Vietnam. Those were followed by calls for divestment in protest of South Africanthe anti-fossil fuel movement didn’t make a significant difference. And it’s unclear whether the current campaign will yield results the protest movement deems significant.
"Our demand is for divestment. Our demand is for our university to end its complicity in the genocide," said Fatima Tulkarem, a member of Students for Justice in Palestine at UTD.
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