The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/divestment/)
Today, the Cornell Undergraduate Student Body voted by a ratio of 2:1, with 46.77 percent participation, to call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and to divest from the following weapons manufacturers: BAE Systems, Boeing, Elbit Systems, General Dynamics, L3Harris Technologies, Leonardo, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, RTX and ThyssenKrupp.
Undergraduates voted “yes” on the ceasefire and divestment referendum questions by a 2:1 ratio.
Those endorsing divestment from arms manufacturers nobly do so in the name of peace and life. The irony, though, is that all divestment advances is war and death — and the destruction of the free world.
Students opposed to the divestment referendum argued that the questions were not phrased neutrally in Thursday’s Student Assembly meeting.
Cutting ties with weapons manufacturers wouldn’t be a radical departure from University policy but instead would uphold principles that the University has for decades applied to its financial dealings.
The Coalition for Mutual Liberation staged a 24-person occupation at Day Hall, Cornell’s primary administrative building, on Thursday.
Cornell students respond to the implications of the new Interim Expressive Activity Policy.
The Student Assembly rejected Resolution 51, which urged Cornell to divest from companies “committing morally reprehensible actions” in Gaza, with a 16-4 vote.
The divestment campaign began many semesters ago but notably gained momentum starting in the fall of 2019. CJC members reached out to faculty and students from other clubs, gaining support from a wide collection of allies ranging from Mothers Out Front, to Cornell University Sustainable Design, to the Vegan Club. CJC and other clubs held public protests nearly every week during the spring of 2020 until the campus shut down due to COVID-19. The most notable of these was a mock wedding between Cornell and the fossil fuel industry — two puppets modeled after the clocktower and a Monopoly Man-esque fossil fuel executive were paraded around Ho Plaza by students in orange beanies and oil-themed masks.
he Board may choose to maintain a shroud of apoliticism, completely denying student power as well as the moral implications of their own decisions, but the Cornell community has never stood idly by when people’s rights and futures are at stake.