palestine

Barnard’s Student Government Association has voted to write a letter to the administration in support of a student-wide referendum calling on Barnard to divest from eight companies with ties to Israel.

At its meeting on Monday night, the Representative Council of Barnard’s Student Government Association denounced Barnard College President Sian Beilock’s email from earlier that day addressing a referendum regarding whether SGA should advocate for the college to divest its endowment from eight companies with ties to Israel.

Barnard College will not take action to divest its endowment from eight companies that “profit from or engage in the State of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians” if asked to do so by the Student Government Association, President Sian Beilock announced in an email to the college Monday.

The Barnard Student Government Association’s most recent referendum has been a flash point on Barnard’s campus and beyond; op-eds have been penned by students of Barnard and Columbia, by alumni, and by strangers. Important questions have been raised about why and how SGA chose to hold this referendum—a similar request by student activists was rejected on Columbia’s campus just last year, never reaching a referendum. As SGA’s representative council is preparing to meet this evening to vote on next steps, we, SGA’s executive board, came to the conclusion that students and the broader community needed to hear both an unadorned account of the referendum timeline, and our argument for more referendums moving forward.

Barnard students have voted in favor of a referendum asking the Student Government Association to write a letter to the administration asking them to divest from eight companies that “profit from or engage in the State of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians,” SGA announced in an email to students on Wednesday.

Crucial to ending South African apartheid, divestment through grassroots economic pressure has proven itself a powerful tactic for standing against injustice. For this reason, Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace launched Columbia University Apartheid Divest in 2016 and are now urging Barnard students to vote “Yes” on the current referendum on the Student Government Association elections ballot to divest the college’s endowment from eight multinational companies that directly profit from violations of Palestinian human rights.

Barnard’s Student Government Association has asked students to vote on a referendum regarding whether SGA should ask the administration to divest from eight companies that profit from or engage in business with Israel, but pro-Israel students have criticized the voting process for unfairly excluding those who oppose the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions movement.

Representatives from Aryeh spoke in front of over 100 students at Barnard’s Student Government Association meeting, requesting that SGA refrain from using the word “apartheid” in its upcoming referendum on divestment from Israeli companies.

Columbia-Barnard Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine urged Barnard’s Student Government Association to encourage the Barnard administration to divest from eight companies that profit from or contribute to the subjugation of Palestinian people at an SGA meeting on Monday night.