Last December, in solidarity with Palestinians suffering under the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza, students at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, occupied a number of administration buildings. They demanded three things: that Cornell divest its $10 billion endowment from companies complicit in the genocide, terminate any partnerships with said companies, and ban weapons research at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute, the university’s joint venture with the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, at Cornell Tech in New York City.
According to The Cornell Daily Sun, the occupation ended after three days, when the university agreed to set up a meeting between the group of students, known as the Coalition for Mutual Liberation (CML), and the university’s chief financial officer, Christopher Cowen.
Despite those assurances, none of CML’s demands have been met. Instead, Cornell finds itself among the many other colleges and universities across the United States where students’ demands for justice are being ignored or dismissed.
“Students have historically demanded material change through divestment,” a CML representative, who chose to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal, tells The Progressive. “We refuse to let our tuition contribute to the genocide, apartheid, or human rights abuses that have been recorded across Occupied Palestine.”
Significantly, CML’s demands are based on Cornell’s own guide for divestment, which the university’s board of trustees adopted in 2016. This new standard and process for divestment was formulated in response to climate change—and led to the university effectively divesting from fossil fuels in 2020, according to The Cornell Daily Sun—but it also explicitly endorses divestment in “morally reprehensible” cases, including “apartheid” and “genocide,” both of which Israel has been charged with by the United Nations and International Court of Justice, respectively.
Cornell finds itself among the many other colleges and universities across the United States where students’ demands for justice are being ignored or dismissed.
CML has identified ten weapons manufacturers (BAE Systems, Boeing, Elbit Systems, General Dynamics, L3Harris Technologies, Leonardo, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, RTX, ThyssenKrupp) that students demand the university cut ties with due to their relationship with the Israeli military.
Cornell’s Office of Investments does not detail the specifics of the university’s endowment, but its most recent report lists funds managed by BNY Mellon and Barclays, which have both been recently targeted by demonstrators due to their connections to weapons manufacturers supplying the Israeli military. BNY Mellon owns more than $13 million in shares of Elbit Systems (as well as managing the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces fund), according to The Stranger. Similarly, The Canary reports that Barclays holds more than £1 billion ($1.25 billion) in shares in weapons manufacturers connected to the Israeli military and underwrites £3 billion ($3.76 billion) more in loans to the same.
Cornell’s partnerships with weapons manufacturers are much more public. The university openly advertises its online education partnerships with BAE Systems, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin. One of its laboratories was previously purchased by General Dynamics. It conducts research sponsored by Northrop Grumman. The list goes on.
But Cornell’s relationship with the Israeli military is most evident in its partnership with Technion: the Jacobs-Technion Institute at Cornell Tech, which is a graduate and research campus on Roosevelt Island in New York City. Technion students and faculty in Israel are both currently serving in the Israeli military, contributing to genocide in Gaza; its students are developing artificial intelligence bots to spread pro-Israel propaganda; and the school’s president praises alumni who “have shouldered the security” of Israel.
While CML’s argument for divestment appears in line with Cornell’s policy, it remains unclear if the university will follow through. According to CML, students have yet to receive any acknowledgment of their most recent demands. In this, Cornell joins the ranks of colleges and universities across the United States, where students have been inspired by the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, which advocates economic opposition to Israel’s occupation of Palestine, but administrations remain unmoved. While thousands of students and faculty have endorsed the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, their schools have yet to divest, and many face anti-divestment state laws.
Nevertheless, students like those of CML remain committed. “The global community once again stands at an ethical crossroads, as it did during movements for divestment from the Sudanese genocide, South African apartheid and the fossil fuel industry,” says the CML representative. “Cornell may either choose to remain complicit in unconditional US support for the genocide of the Palestinian people, or to establish itself as a leader among elite educational institutions by being the first to materially recognize the Palestinian right to life and dignity.”