We write to you in a climate that demands urgency. On October 31, 2024, President Maurie McInnis published a statement accepting the Committee on Institutional Voice’s recommendations that university leaders “should refrain from issuing statements concerning matters of public, social, or political significance, except in rare cases.” Last Tuesday, November 5, 2024, former President Donald Trump was reelected, a result that has projected a frightening future for our national and university community. In line with the newly adopted policy of institutional neutrality, Yale University has not yet spoken on the election results. As we continue to move forward, we think about the privileges of political disappointment, when the horrors of genocide continue in Gaza, Lebanon, and beyond.
As stewards of this publication, we are tasked to reckon with these national and global realities that challenge us to think deeply about the commitments we make to our campus community. We feel obligated both to write for the possibility that things can be different and to take action that points our community in the direction of justice. In a refusal to accept the status quo, the Yale Herald endorses the Sumud Coalition’s “Books, Not Bombs” referendum, an initiative grounded in the goals of Yale Corporation’s disclosure and divestment from the ongoing genocide in Gaza and a reinvestment of these resources into local scholarship from New Haven to Palestine. Alongside over 35 student groups, the Herald stands in solidarity with the demands of the Books, Not Bombs campaign.
On November 5, 2024, the Sumud Coalition released a three-question referendum that calls on Yale students to consider our university’s investments, particularly in companies that produce and supply military weapons. If the referendum petition gathers signatures from at least 10% of Yale undergraduates within two months, it will proceed to a simple majority vote by the Yale College Council senators to determine if the referendum will be held. However, if the YCC rejects the petition, but organizers secure signatures from at least 20% of the student body—including the original 10%—the decision can be overridden, granting the petition the right to a referendum.
The Books Not Bombs referendum does not come without precedent. In 2021, Yale took a meaningful step by disclosing its holdings in fossil fuel companies, recognizing the global climate emergency and the urgency of financial transparency. Yale has also previously divested from companies linked to apartheid in South Africa, genocide in Sudan, and mass shootings in the United States. The Books, not Bombs referendum, through its three central questions, now asks us to consider a similar demand regarding our investments in military contractors, especially those connected to ongoing humanitarian crises.
Question 1: Should Yale disclose its investments in military weapons manufacturers and suppliers, including those arming Israel? challenges us to demand greater transparency around Yale’s investments in military weapons manufacturers, including companies supplying arms. Disclosure is an essential step in understanding the breadth of our involvement and influence as an institution in the ongoing genocide. Yale’s mission statement demands Lux et Veritas, light and truth, but without disclosure, the university’s commitments to truth ring hollow.
Question 2: Should Yale divest from military weapons manufacturers and suppliers, including those arming Israel? builds upon our institutional history of divestment from investments that uphold systems of destruction. Yale has, in the past, chosen divestment as a means of protest against structures that perpetuate apartheid, genocide, and violence. This question asks if it is time to extend that principle to our military investments, ensuring that Yale’s financial actions are aligned with institutional values committing us to justice and ethical responsibility. As Yale continues to adopt a policy of institutional neutrality, we urge the university towards divestment from their investments in weapons manufacturing—investments that are anything but neutral.
Question 3: Given the widespread destruction of schools and universities in Gaza, should Yale act on its commitment to education by investing in Palestinian scholars and students? encourages reinvestment. In the wake of widespread destruction in Gaza and the erasure of educational institutions in conflict zones, this question calls on Yale to support Palestinian scholars and students. Sustaining our scholars in regions devastated by conflict is not only an investment in global scholarship but in a lineage of knowledge that will live alongside future generations.
As Editors, we endorse this referendum as a chance for our university to reflect deeply on where it continues to align itself in these times of global crisis. The Sumud Coalition’s “Books, Not Bombs” referendum not only offers a tactical path forward for our university to adhere to its founding principles, but more importantly, to divest from harm and invest in life. We are disappointed in the climate that we are writing in but choose to reorient ourselves toward the future.
We hold the words of Sara Marcus, who asks in her seminal text Political Disappointment to reconceive political disappointment as untimely desire: “a longing for fundamental change that outlasts a historical moment when it might have been fulfilled.” Marcus concludes, “To keep longing for a lost future is evidence of survival.” We urge the Yale community to engage with this referendum, consider its implications, and, ultimately, cast a vote in support of the creation of a different future.
Written by,
Connor Arakaki and Madelyn Dawson
