Columbia University investment committee rejects demands to divest from Israel

NEW YORK — A Columbia University investment committee on Friday rejected demands to divest from Israel, a focus of the anti-Israel protests that rocked the campus after the October 2023 Hamas invasion of Israel.

The campus coalition of anti-Israel activist groups, Columbia University Apartheid Divest, had repeatedly called on the university to divest its massive endowment from Israel, similar to demands from protesters at other US universities.

“Full financial divestment from Zionist occupation, apartheid and genocide,” the group listed as its first demand in a missive earlier this year. Protesters regularly chanted “Disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest,” at rallies on and around the Manhattan campus.

Following up on those demands, activists filed three proposals calling on Columbia to divest last year.

The proposals called on the university to divest from entities that violate human rights; to demand that companies the university has a stake in “cease any activities that are complicit in human rights violations against Palestinians”; and to divest from Israel and all entities connected to “violations of human rights and international law in Palestine.”

The university’s Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investing (ACSRI), a group that advises the university on ethical and social issues related to endowment investments, rejected the proposals, according to documents posted on the university website on Friday.

The committee said it had three criteria for evaluating the proposals — a broad consensus in the university community, that the “merits of the dispute must lie clearly on one side,” and that divestment is more viable than engaging with management of the targeted companies.

For the first demand — divesting from companies that violate human rights — ACSRI said the first two criteria had been met, but that the demand was too vague.

“The proposal would imply no end to the list of companies that could be categorized as violating human rights,” the committee said. “The proposal could potentially encompass much of the stock market, making any investment activity difficult.”

For the second and third proposals, focused on divesting from Israel, the committee said there was not adequate consensus.

The consensus is a “high bar,” requiring broad agreement from the university’s hundreds of thousands of students, faculty and alumni. The test for the consensus is whether there is “strong opposition” to the measure, the committee said.

The committee said that there was opposition to divestment from both Jewish and pro-Israel students, faculty and alumni, citing pro-Israel protests and letters to the Columbia community.

The demands were also not financially viable, the committee said.

The proposals had demanded the university divest from major companies, including Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Caterpillar, General Dynamics, Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon, due to their links to Israel.

Further complicating divestment, the companies, making up a major portion of the US stock market, are included in exchange-traded funds and other investment vehicles that bundle stocks together.

A university spokesperson declined to comment.

Columbia’s endowment is managed by the Columbia Investment Management Company, a subsidiary of the university that is overseen by a board from the university’s trustees and other university officials.

ACSRI’s decisions are non-binding, meaning the committee does not have the final say in investments, but its rulings influence decisions related to socially responsible investing, so it is unlikely that the university will make any divestments based on the proposals.

The university’s endowment was $15.9 billion as of June 2025.