Wayne State University
Student Council votes to divest from Israel
By Cheryl Labash
Detroit
The Wayne State University Student Council has
demanded that the university divest all funds from and prohibit
any transactions with companies that do business in Israel. The
9 to 7 vote resulted from a campaign by the Students Movement
for Justice (SMJ), which was kicked off last fall at the
beginning of the academic year. The WSU Student Council action
appears to be the first time that a resolution proposed by this
new movement in solidarity with the Palestinian people has been
enacted.
UAW Local 2322 at the University of Massachusetts has passed
a resolution supporting divestment and active campaigns to end
the illegal Israeli military occupation of Pales tin ian land
are growing on many campuses, including the state universities
of North Carolina, Massa chu setts, Florida, Michigan,
Illinois, Ohio, California, Minnesota, Penn syl vania and
Virginia, as well as Col umbia/Barnard, Rutgers, Prince ton,
Tufts and Yale.
The WSU resolution points out that "Israel was a long-time,
close ally" of the racist apartheid regime in South Africa
overthrown by the African National Congress. It states,
"African Archbishop Desmond Tutu has urged us all to divest
from Israel due to its violent and humiliating apartheid
policies."
In addition to the divest from Israel campaign, the SMJ has
led many on-campus demonstrations against the U.S. war on Iraq.
Wayne State Uni ver sity has investments in military profiteers
like General Electric, Boeing, United Techno logies, Gen eral
Motors and Dow Chemical, as well as the hated symbols of
globalization, McDonald's and Coca-Cola.
Reprinted from the May 1, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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