“When we fight we win!” End of Encampment
May 15, 2024
The students’ victory is an important step towards divestment from Israel and liberation for Palestine. They have demonstrated how to hold our University accountable to the people who make it run. Yet their victory is bittersweet, as our tax and endowment dollars continue to fund genocide in Gaza.
As students across the country attend commencement ceremonies, Israel has flattened Gaza’s schools and universities, and now attacks a massive, makeshift refugee camp in Rafah. Our universities and government have funded and enabled over 75 years of violent dispossession against the Palestinian people, and we will not stop until Palestine is free.
We honor the bravery of our students, who put themselves at risk to amplify the worldwide call for Palestinian liberation that global leaders have been trying to suppress. We honor our students’ steadfastness in the face of McCarthyite repression. Their acts of civil disobedience have safeguarded our most basic freedoms of speech and association and have reminded us that our liberations are intertwined.
An overwhelming consensus supports divestment at Harvard University and more broadly in American society. Over 250 faculty and staff members have signed the Harvard FSJP statement, supporting divestment from Israel and a plurality of Harvard faculty support divestment. The Harvard Graduate Students Union and the student bodies of Harvard Law School, Harvard Graduate School of Design, and Harvard Divinity School have all passed divestment resolutions. Undergraduates were blocked from holding a referendum on divestment which would surely have won by a landslide.
Over 1200 members of the Harvard community and 25 campus organizations have also called on the University to disclose and divest from Israel. Over 1400 Harvard alumni have pledged to withhold donations until Harvard University divests from Israel. Further, Harvard University’s own sustainable investing objectives, Anti-Genocide Policies, and prior decisions to divest from harmful campaigns like apartheid South Africa, tobacco, and fossil fuels show student demands are grounded in historical precedent and community support.
We, the Harvard Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine, will partner with the students to hold our university accountable. We will ensure that this process results in disclosure and divestment and a future where Palestinians have the opportunity to thrive. Not one step back!