“We Hope to Be a Model”: Students & Faculty at The New School Secure Divestment Vote

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

We turn now to New York, where The New School Gaza solidarity encampment has announced it’s reached a deal with the university’s Board of Trustees to hold a vote on divesting from Israel by June 14th. The agreement comes after months of campus protests by students and faculty demanding The New School divest its endowment from companies arming and supporting Israeli forces in Gaza and the West Bank. The agreement also granted amnesty to those involved in the peaceful protests. The New School’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter has said the university currently has ties to several companies that are, quote, “actively involved in, and benefiting from, the genocide in Palestine,” unquote, including Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Google and Caterpillar. The New School has been home to the country’s first faculty encampment.

For more, we’re joined by two guests. Alexandra Chasin is professor of literary [studies] at Lang College at The New School. Professor Chasin was part of the faculty encampment and the negotiating team that led the Board of Trustees to agree on divestment. And Natasha Lennard joins us, a columnist for The Intercept. Her most recent piece is “University Professors Are Losing Their Jobs Over ‘New McCarthyism’ on Gaza.” She’s also associate director of The New School’s creative publishing and critical journalism master’s program.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Let’s begin with Professor Chasin. You were part of the negotiating team. What happened? What did you agree to? It’s fascinating to go down 5th Avenue. On one side, you have the faculty encampment inside The New School. Diagonally across is Parsons. And straight across is the student encampment that was reestablished inside the school there.

ALEXANDRA CHASIN: So, I’d like to begin by just establishing that this was a faculty-student collaborative effort. There were undergraduate students, graduate students, alumni, part-time faculty and full-time faculty in both encampments and negotiating teams. That’s very important to us, because faculty really wanted to stand in solidarity with students, so that collaboration is meaningful to us.

I want to also say, of course, what this is not is an end to war or famine or occupation, and so we’re keeping our eyes on the bigger picture, which is Palestine. We still have a lot of work to do. This isn’t even divestment. It’s a commitment by the investment committee to vote on divestment two-zero — and that’s an important point — on some language that I hope I’ll be able to read to you in a moment. It’s significant also because this represents movement on the part of the investment committee, movement in response to campus activism and to the expressed will of the representative bodies at the university, faculty and student Senates, divisional bodies, unions, and the local AAUP chapter. And the language, again, which I hope you’ll let me read to you, we hope to be a model, or at least to help organizers at other universities, as well.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Professor, how does what’s occurred at The New School differ, for instance, from the conciliation efforts at some other universities, like Brown and Northwestern, the few — the handful of university administrators that have actually attempted to negotiate with their faculty and students over divestment?

ALEXANDRA CHASIN: Yeah, well, we have achieved an actual commitment to vote, as Amy said, by or on June 14th, which is unusual. And this is what the investment committee will be voting on specifically. It’s a “call for complete divestment from industries implicated in military and police violence in Gaza and the West Bank, and all global militarized conflict such as companies or subsidiaries involved in weapons manufacturing, military supplies and equipment, military communication, and public surveillance technology.” And we believe that’s really a step forward and, again, hope that it helps folks organize at other universities.

And moreover, in exchange for this commitment to vote, in fact, for a public statement of the commitment to vote, we got, as was also mentioned, legal, professional and academic amnesty for all participants. And we agreed to disband peacefully, which we think is important. And moreover, if the committee votes negatively, we get a written statement of their rationale, which we also think will be a useful organizing tool.

AMY GOODMAN: And just the significance of the president of The New School, is Donna Shalala — 

ALEXANDRA CHASIN: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: — a well-known name. She was the head of HHS, Health and Human Services, under President Clinton, a Cabinet member. She was the president of Hunter. She was the president of University of Wisconsin, the chancellor, president of the University of Miami. Her role in this?

ALEXANDRA CHASIN: Well, it’s been a journey, as they say. What she did on Sunday that was significant was that she turned over, she deputized a dean at NSSR to negotiate on her behalf, and put that dean in direct contact with members of the investment committee. And that was a significant move.