The College’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) participated in the National Student Day of Action for Divestment, which was coordinated by the national SJP organization, on Thursday, Feb. 8. In tandem with the walkout, members of Jews for Ceasefire met the next day with the College’s Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (ACSR). Both actions stem from a joint call for the College’s divestment from weapons manufacturing.
While SJP’s activism aims to highlight violence affecting Palestine, conversation at the walkout extended to war and weaponry more broadly. At the walkout, participants made art and posters, and students were encouraged to sign up to give public comment at the Williamstown Select Board meeting on Feb. 12 in support of a ceasefire resolution.
“We wanted to focus [the walkout] on how weapons affect everyone,” Lauren Ryan ’25, one of the walkout’s organizers, told the Record.
A member of SJP who spoke at the walkout asked the audience to consider the parallels between the current violence in Palestine and the speaker’s family connection to a massacre in South Korea that was supported by United States monies. Ryan seconded this message by labeling the focus of the day as the “horrible” impacts of war. “Our money is going directly to that,” Ryan said. “Why would we just sit in class on this day?”
Since October, students across the country, many in line with the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) movement, have called for institutions of higher education to divest from weapons manufacturing. “SJP is in support of the BDS movement which works to divert funds away from Israel’s occupation of Palestine and particularly their military via boycotts, divestments, and sanctions,” Ryan wrote to the Record.
Many students at the walkout shared concerns about the College’s investment in weapons manufacturing and the potential of those weapons being used against Palestinians, including accounts from a Jews for Ceasefire meeting with President Maud S. Mandel and Chief Investment Officer Abigail Wattley in which the College’s administrators said the College’s investment in weapons manufacturing “is not zero.”
Provost Eiko Maruko Siniawer ’97, a member of ACSR, was unable to comment in time for publication.
“I think it’s important to have students here recognize that we are complicit in genocide,” Deena Iqbal ’26, one organizer, told the Record. On Jan. 26, the United Nations (UN) ordered Israel to “take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts within the scope” of the UN convention on genocide but stopped short of ordering a ceasefire.
“I’m here because I don’t think we should be invested in weapons manufacturing,” said a member of SJP, who requested to remain anonymous. “I think it would be a really powerful political statement and a really important symbolic and literal move to move our money away from that.”
Students said that they wanted to prompt students at the College to act, inspired in part by their meeting with the founder of the College’s SJP chapter, Sumaya Awad ’16, on Claiming Williams Day. “The tendency for Williams students to be apathetic has made me think a lot about my own actions and how we [can] do more to disrupt normal things on this campus so people are forced to reckon with these horrible things happening,” said Ellery McQuilkin ’26, a member of SJP. “I want us to think about the role that Williams plays in that and how important it is to demand a ceasefire and demand that Williams divest.”
The call for divestment has not been exclusive to SJP. On Friday, members of Jews for Ceasefire met with the ACSR after filing a request in the fall to convene the non-standing committee. “We figured out that the only way to gain information, specifically about what the school is actually investing in, is through the ACSR,” Mia Calzolaio ’26, a member of Jews for Ceasefire, opined. “We were drawn to the ACSR because the last report that they published was from 2015, on fossil fuel divestment, and that was the most recent divestment case we learned about.”
According to the committee’s website, “The ACSR stands ready to respond to requests from the College community concerning socially responsible investment of the endowment, and as a result of an evaluation it may decide to recommend action to the Investment Committee.” This description, Calzolaio said, led them and other student organizers to inquire about the College’s investments in weapons manufacturing.
“We were interested in figuring out if they’re investing specifically in weapons manufacturers that are supporting the [Israel Defense Forces] or Israeli police forces,” Calzolaio said. “We also wanted to think about the ethical implications of the College being invested in weapons manufacturers.”
One of Calzolaio’s primary points was on the importance of transparency with students. “Whether that takes the shape of the ACSR becoming a standing committee, or if it’s just that the school is releasing more information about their investment strategy, or asking that their fund managers are more transparent about the investments that they’re making with the school’s money, that’s really important.” Calzolaio said. The student group also hopes that the ACSR will open their subsequent meetings to the public.
The ACSR is now tasked with considering the questions and recommended criteria put forward by Jews for Ceasefire in the meeting on Feb. 9. The groups will reconvene to discuss next steps in the second half of the semester, Calzolaio said.
Calzolaio emphasized that the Jews for Ceasefire and SJP coalition are approaching divestment with past precedent in mind. “The concept of ACSR was originally run by students and faculty interested in the campaign for divestment from South African apartheid,” Calzolaio said. This history spans from 1978 to now, with the strategies of divestment from South African apartheid still relevant today, they added.
A previous version of this article stated that members of Jews for Ceasefire met with the ACSR. This meeting was with Mandel and Wattley. The article was corrected at 2:22 p.m. on April 16, 2023.
