The Senate Assembly has issued the following statement in regards to divestment of the University of Michigan from its financial holdings in companies that invest in Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza:
Whereas—according to recent investigation conducted by an Israeli newspaper—the proportion of civilian deaths in Gaza is higher than the average in all other world conflicts of the 20th century; and
Whereas recent reports from the Gaza Ministry of Health suggest that more than 1 out of every 200 people living in Gaza have been killed since 7 October 2023, with most of the dead being women and children; and
Whereas Amnesty International has found that munitions supplied by the United States have been used in at least two documented Israeli air strikes in Gaza, resulting in the deaths of 43 civilians; and
Whereas, in the judgement of Human Rights Watch, the United States risks ‘complicity in war crimes’ by continuing to provide weapons and diplomatic cover for Israeli’s ongoing ‘atrocities’ in Gaza; and
Whereas, in 1983, the Board of Regents at the University of Michigan responded to years of student activism by agreeing to divest 90 percent of its financial holdings from companies that did business with apartheid South Africa; and
Whereas in 2022 the University of Michigan announced that it was responding to Russian aggression in Ukraine by winding up its investments in Russia;
Be it resolved that the Faculty Senate Assembly calls upon the University’s leadership, including the Board of Regents, to divest from its financial holdings in companies that invest in Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza.
Be it further resolved that this Senate Assembly call for divestment is not a request to end support, academically or financially, for any of U-M’s partnerships with Israeli colleges or universities or to otherwise imply ending any
Approved by Senate Assembly: 1/29/24