Board of Trustees Unanimously Votes Not to Divest

The Amherst College Board of Trustees unanimously voted not to divest the endowment’s holdings in companies supplying military equipment to the Israeli government, President Michael Elliott, Board of Trustees Chair Andrew Nussbaum, and Board of Trustees Chair-elect Chantal Kordula wrote in a joint email on Monday, June 24. Additionally, the Board promised to continue discussion about a potential Socially Responsible Investment Committee (SRIC) devoted to socially responsible oversight of investment decisions.

The decision follows the passing of two resolutions by the Association of Amherst Students (AAS) and the Amherst College faculty, on April 25 and May 3 respectively, calling for the Board to divest. The AAS resolution also included a proposal, presented by Amherst College Jews for Ceasefire (JFC), in support of an SRIC, which would establish standardized policy and criteria for endowment investments. Additionally, there was organizing for Palestine throughout the semester by students, faculty, and alumni, as well as a series of speakers invited by the administration. On May 10, members of the Board of Trustees and the college administration met with a coalition of student representatives from Amherst for Palestine (AFP), JFC, the Muslim Student Association, and the Black Student Union, who presented a list of demands that were later revised on May 24. While the Board and administration denied the request for the conversation to be officially minuted, two of the students in attendance took notes throughout the meeting.

During the meeting, the Board raised concerns about the feasibility of divestment, which they also cited in their June 24 email.

“The Board believes that the proposed endowment action would amount to the College endorsing the moral and political position of some members of our community and rejecting the moral and political position of other members of the Amherst community,” Elliott, Nussbaum, and Kordula wrote. “Such action would directly violate our principled responsibility to foster a forum for a broad range of positions.”

The Board has previously voted to divest from international conflicts, such as the genocide in Sudan and the apartheid in South Africa. It differentiated between these actions and the one under consideration by saying that, in prior cases, “there was clear agreement in our community, supported by a consensus of the federal government and international organizations,” while the current effort to divest from companies supplying military equipment to Israel had a “significant minority” opposed to it.

The email also stated that such changes would hurt the endowment, which “directly supports 56% of the College’s annual operating budget.”

“It would be unrealistic for us to seek to compel our current outside investment managers to remove these companies from their funds,” Elliott, Nussbaum, and Kordula wrote. “We would, therefore, need to liquidate holdings at potentially poor valuations and either move our endowment capital to other managers whose current investments do not include these companies or directly manage the capital, which would not align with responsible practices for institutional investment.”

Elliott, Nussbaum, and Kordula wrote that though the Board voted not to divest, it remained committed to continuing conversations around the issue.

“We fully support continued colloquy and learning around issues and conflicts in the Middle East and the many other difficult domestic and global issues we as a society face. We expect that this particular dialogue will take the form of continued activism and protest, and the College will continue to protect that criticism, so long as it does not cross the line into harassment or hate and does not directly interfere with core instructional and administrative functions of the College,” they wrote.

The Student reached out to groups that have been involved in activism on campus for their reactions to the Board’s decision.

“We understand the Trustees’ current position as an indication that we as supporters of justice for Palestinians have yet to disrupt Amherst College’s operations to the extent that will be necessary to make [the college’s] continued investment in this genocide untenable,” AFP and Amherst Alumni for Palestine wrote to The Student. “We take the Trustees’ statement as an invitation to renew our commitment to the hard work of building the power necessary to force Amherst College to end its complicity in genocide against Palestinians and in all other forms of racism and oppression.”

JFC issued its own response to the Board’s email on June 25: “We want to reiterate that [an SRIC] is not, and never has been, a substitute for divestment … Based on the contents of [the June 24] email alone, the implementation of an SRIC is at odds with the Board’s current assessment of the role of our endowment. We remain cautious and committed to executing the committee we envision, not a bureaucratic show pony for the College’s flaunting.”

The Student also reached out to Hillel’s e-board — which published an op-ed in The Student on May 8 expressing concerns about antisemitic speech at Amherst and feeling unrepresented by campus discourse on Palestine-Israel — for comment on the divestment decision but has not received a response at the time of publication.