The Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Photo by Mel Musto/Bloomberg via Getty Images

By Beth Harpaz April 11, 2024

A pro-Palestine group at Harvard has organized a student referendum proposing that the university divest from institutions connected to Israel. 

The initiative is being organized by the school’s Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee, according to the student-run Harvard Crimson.

“If it passes, it is just a litmus test of the student body and the fact that what Harvard is doing is at odds with what its student body believes,” student organizer Shraddha Joshi told the Crimson. She added that “institutional neutrality does not exist when Harvard’s money is not neutral, and when Harvard’s investments are not neutral.” 

Institutional neutrality is defined by the nonprofit Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression as the idea that colleges and universities should not, as institutions, take positions on social and political issues.

The student referendum will be administered by the Harvard Undergraduate Association’s Election Commission within the next few weeks. It asks undergraduates whether Harvard should divest from institutions that support “Israel’s occupation of Palestine” and the war in Gaza.

The university’s media relations department responded to a request for comment by pointing to an April 5 statement which said Harvard leadership “opposes calls for a policy of boycotting Israel and its academic institutions.” That missive also referenced a statement made in 2022 by Lawrence Bacow, Harvard’s president at the time, who said that “targeting or boycotting a particular group because of disagreements over the policies pursued by their governments is antithetical to what we stand for.”

But Violet T.M. Barron, another PSC student organizer and a Crimson editor, said past campaigns have prompted Harvard to terminate investments in South Africa, the tobacco industry and fossil fuels. “There definitely is precedent for referendums like these and pure grassroots student pressure to translate into actual tangible action,” she told the Crimson.

Harvard’s Law School Student Government and Divinity School Student Association have already passed resolutions calling for the Harvard Management Company to divest in companies with ties to Israel. In 2020, the Crimson reported that Harvard had at least $200 million in such investments. 

At nearly $50 billion, Harvard’s total endowment is the largest of any university in the world. 

Efforts to obtain comment by email from the PSC and HUA were not successful.

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