A group of Yale University graduate students is threatening to go on a hunger strike if the university doesn’t end alleged investment in arms manufacturers that are supplying Israel with weapons in its war against Hamas.
“We have sent a letter to our president, Peter Salovey, to demand that Yale Corporation divest from all arms manufacturing, especially in relation to the genocide in Gaza,” said a member of Graduate Students for Palestine, who declined to give her name.
She said the students are also demanding that the corporation, Yale’s board of trustees, discuss divestment at its April 20 meeting and release the minutes of the meeting.
“And if they refuse to do so, or if they refuse to respond, the graduate students will move to (a) hunger strike,” she said.
There have been a number of demonstrations at Yale and other universities in favor of Palestinians since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel and killed more than 1,100 Israelis and foreign nationals and took more than 240 hostages.
Also at Yale, in November 2023, a public space installation featured tables set up for a Shabbat dinner with 240 empty chairs at Cross Campus in New Haven, to symbolize and draw attention to the 240 hostages then still held by Hamas in Gaza
Israel’s military raids into Gaza during the war have killed more than 30,000 Palestinians, many of them children.
During one march, someone stuck a Palestinian flag into a menorah on the New Haven Green, which was quickly removed by another marcher. The action was condemned by city leaders as well as Jewish, Christian and Muslim clergy, politicians and police.
Gayle Slossberg, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven, said at the time that the video of the protester planting the flag on the menorah “is a deeply painful, painful thing to see. It evokes thousands of years of trauma and pain for the Jewish community.”
Thousands of Connecticut Muslims mourn for Gaza as holy month of Ramadan ends
The Yale student said if there were a hunger strike, “graduate students will gather at a place that we will disclose … and we will refuse to take in food, which will again only be a fraction of the famine and devastation that Palestinians are going through. And it will end once we receive a response from the president about divestment.”
She said it would be up to individuals how long they would strike.
“We have relay strikers, but we have also had folks who are going to indefinitely strike,” she said.
The woman claimed Salovey has made no statement against the high number of Palestinian deaths in the war.
“We have been repeatedly demanding a statement since October in various forms, from student protests to organized marches to meetings about Yale’s investment portfolio, etc., town halls, but no response.”
Salovey condemned the Hamas attack on Oct. 10 and also spoke out against acts of hatred toward Jews, Palestinians and other groups.
The Yale Investments Office as an Ethical Investment Policy. The Yale Board of Trustees has, for example, adopted a policy “prohibiting investment in assault weapon retailers. Specifically, Yale will not invest in any retail outlets that market and sell assault weapons to the general public,” according to the Yale office website.
The Yale Daily News has reported that Salovey previously told it that “Yale’s Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility, or ACIR, is reexamining policies and will determine if there are adequate grounds for divestment from weapons manufacturers.”
A spokeswoman for Yale was asked for a comment about the graduate students’ demands.
A different spokesperson later said, in a email, “On April 10, a collective of graduate and undergraduate students announced that they would begin a hunger strike on April 12 unless Yale made a public statement announcing its divestment from weapons manufacturing companies involved in the Hamas-Israel war.
“Yale is steadfastly committed to free expression and the right to peaceful protest, values that are foundational to our academic community. University staff have reached out to student organizers to provide them with resources.
Further, “Staff members will continue to emphasize the importance of student health and well-being during this time. Students participating in a hunger strike are encouraged to consult with clinicians at Yale Health.
“For more than 50 years, the university has employed a rigorous process to ensure the ethical management of its endowment, guided first and foremost by these longstanding principles. The Corporation Committee on Investor Responsibility (CCIR) considers and makes recommendations to the Board of Trustees on policy matters related to ethical investing. It is supported by the work of the Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility (ACIR), whose members include alumni, staff, faculty, and students. You can learn more about the work to date here.
“Late last year, the ACIR was asked in its open meeting to consider a policy of divestment encompassing manufacturers of military weapons. The ACIR has looked into the issue and is preparing to provide an update to the community in the coming weeks.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated with a comment from Yale, which was provided following the deadline for this story.
Ed Stannard can be reached at estannard@courant.com.
