Re: Verbum Ultimum: Change the Divestment Criteria
While The Dartmouth’s Editorial Board astutely made the case to eliminate criteria three and five, ACIR’s arguments for rejecting the proposal based on criteria two and four are also flawed.
On criterion two, ACIR claims that evidence that the listed companies are not amenable to changing their behavior is “anecdotal.” It’s unclear what ACIR means — the proposal cites well-documented, public efforts to change these companies’ behavior. Nor can anyone reading the proposal reasonably believe that weapons manufacturers would abandon their raison d’être with pressure, unless that pressure is divestment itself.
Regarding criterion four, ACIR asks to ensure that divestment will not “degrade opportunities for dialogue.” Dialogue at Dartmouth is already compromised due to the administration’s arrests and suspensions of pro-Palestinian students and faculty, as well as government suppression of pro-Palestinian speech. Then, ACIR asks organizers to address how divestment may affect federal funding. ACIR apparently expects divestment to satisfy the whims of the current erratic political administration, a standard which no previous divestment process has been held to. ACIR’s implication that Dartmouth’s investments must be Trump-friendly is cause for deep alarm.
ACIR’s rejection on every point of criteria is a transparent attempt to delegitimize calls to divest from ongoing genocide, occupation and apartheid. Most concerning is that ACIR did not agree to review the proposal by a certain date until considerable pressure from student protesters. Protesters should not be punished on principle, but they especially cannot be if their methods are the only way to fold the administration into dialogue.
Raniyan Zaman is a member of the Class of 2022. Letters to the Editor represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.
