Gaza Solidarity Encampment Negotiations Update

Sunday, April 28th - Bulletin Release

Dear Columbia community, the people of Harlem, and our supporters around the world:

Welcome to the first dispatch of our Gaza Solidarity Encampment negotiation updates. We are writing to you because you deserve to know more about what happens in negotiating sessions about the investments Columbia makes using your tuition and labor. In the last ten days, we have created a new model of learning: a People’s university, with transparent funding, democratic governance, and revenue streams that do not require the bloody enforcement of settler-colonialism to turn a profit. This is the first of our regular updates in service of those goals.

What’s in this email

1. Negotiations updates

2. Columbia’s threats to our safety

3. What comes next

Negotiation Updates: Comparing our Proposals

We have three core demands: (1) divestment, (2) financial transparency, and (3) amnesty for all students and faculty disciplined in the movement for Palestinian liberation.

Divestment

• Divestment from financial holdings: The University has offered to allow us to submit three proposals to the Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investing (ACSRI) advocating for, among other things, divestment from companies that are complicit in violating international law or international treaties recognized by the US Government, as well as divestment from companies that manufacture certain categories of weapons. 

• Why this is unacceptable: Proposals made to ACSRI are non-binding. This offer amounts to a mere suggestion to the Board of Trustees, which they are authorized to ignore. Any proposal for non-binding language that could be reversed at any time is a non-starter, and cannot be a precondition for ending the encampment. 

• Our proposal: The Board of Trustees will issue a commitment for Columbia to divest from weapons manufacturing and from all companies complicit in violations of international law. In this statement, The Board will then direct ACSRI to review the student proposals on shareholders, divestment from weapons manufacturers, and divestments from companies complicit in violations of international law. Columbia will  review the proposals within three months of the date of any agreement.
  

• Divestment from the Tel-Aviv Global Center: The TAGC is a new project announced just last year whose funding is contingent on the forced displacement of brown and Black people from Harlem as part of Columbia’s “Manhattanville” expansion. Due to Israel's apartheid policies, Palestinian students and faculty would be barred from the Tel Aviv campus, as would known critics of Israel. In terms of ceasing development of the Tel-Aviv Global Center, the University offered to review student and faculty access to all global centers within one year to ensure consistency with university values. 

• Why this is unacceptable: It is CUAD’s position that no Global Center or dual degree program operating in an apartheid state conducting a genocide could ever be consistent with university values. 

• Our proposal: We demand that the University at least freeze the opening or construction of any Global Center in Tel Aviv until the proposed access reviews are completed.  We also demand that the university will review access to all Dual Degree programs within two years to ensure they are consistent with the university's policies and international law.

Financial Transparency

• Financial transparency: The University offered to publish a process for students to access a list of “direct holdings” made available biannually. 

• Why this is unacceptable: According to the University’s publicly available filings, Columbia’s indirect investments make up a majority of its holdings. These include mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), hedge funds, private equity funds, asset managers, and more. Indirect holdings must be accounted for in any good-faith offer of financial transparency. 

• Our proposal: The University will publish a process for students to access Columbia’s list of direct and indirect holdings. Concerns about access shall be sent to the Ombuds Office.

Amnesty

• Amnesty: The University stated that all students involved in the April 17 encampment can receive amnesty through an attestation process and will receive probation until Dec. 31, 2024. The University has openly admitted to surveilling students involved in the current encampment, and has stated that they would face a disciplinary process if they fail to identify themselves. Furthermore, the University still withholds the right to punish students who do identify themselves for any actions it deems a “violation of policies.” Finally, the University’s offer is contingent on the camp being dismantled without noise and the ejection of non-affiliates. 

• Why this is unacceptable: CUAD refuses to abandon anybody who stands in solidarity with us. We won’t allow members who have already been disciplined for actions as simple as distributing a flyer with the names of trustees on it to receive punishment while we walk free. And no member of the encampment should be forced to live under increased surveillance while on probation for occupying space open to us as workers and paying students. 

• Our proposal: We demand full amnesty for all, without self-identification – nothing less. As a simple logistical matter, CUAD maintains that the above requirements for the dismantling of the camp are outside our control. We are a decentralized coalition, and the “enforcement” of any entrance to campus is not our responsibility. We value our community members, and have not, nor will we ever, make efforts to identify them and eject them. If students’ demands are met, there will be no need for an encampment. Any decision to end the encampment will be made democratically. 
  

Columbia’s Threats to our Safety

Over the past week, the Office of the President sent numerous emails identifying us as a safety threat. But let’s look at the facts. The University has arrested and evicted over 100 of its own students. At the negotiating table, they threatened to call in the National Guard, echoing one of the darkest days in the history of American higher education. University admin further endangered students with their decision to close campus gates, limiting access and supplies and throwing our campus into turmoil. In the last week, open white supremacists like Gavin McInneis have been admitted onto campus while students arrested in peaceful protest have been banned. 

Yesterday, CUAD learned that the administration was hours from announcing a mass lockdown that would evict students in dorms weeks early without notice, leaving students from low-income backgrounds who cannot afford last-minute tickets home to fend for themselves without food or housing. This information was verified by multiple credible sources, including several professors with direct knowledge who independently contacted us. It was only after we alerted the public that the University backed down. By barring students from campus access, Columbia’s administration seeks to employ collective punishment against peaceful protestors. They are pursuing a divide and conquer tactic under the guise of security, jeopardizing the safety of all students.

Last night, Columbia informed us that it will start distributing flyers with disciplinary information at the encampment this morning. This is nothing to be alarmed by and is merely another scare tactic. Any disciplinary flyer handed to you for being on the lawn is unenforceable if you remain masked. Receiving a flyer is not itself a charge — CSSI must send you an email formally charging you, which also requires them to identify your name and UNI. Basic masking precautions can prevent this. Furthermore, the University’s protest policy has a three strikes rule, which means being charged with a conduct violation has no impact whatsoever on you at this time unless the University has already charged you, by email, at least two other times.

What Comes Next

The University has undermined the negotiation process by threatening its political opponents with soldiers, mass eviction, and at times, the restriction of basic needs. Though the administration claims to be reasonable, they have violated every norm of good faith negotiations and their own standards of the so-called liberal university. Columbia must stay true to its word and recommit not to threaten us with militarized police, soldiers, or mass evictions.

Like most members of our community, we want to engage in conversation to reach mutual understanding. The University’s threats make this impossible. We have asked the University for open negotiations because we believe they have been able to stall negotiations through misleading proposals and violent threats they work overtime to keep quiet. They refused this request. 

If Columbia wishes to return to business as usual on campus, it must first come to terms with its complicity in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. If the University does not come forward with real, concrete proposals that address our demands, we will have no choice but to escalate the intensity of protest on campus.

Free Palestine,

Columbia University Apartheid Divest