Updated: Sunday, October 27, 2024
Five students were arrested Friday night on trespassing charges after a pro-Palestinian protest at Michigan State University's Hannah Administration building. Following the Board of Trustees meeting, some forty people staged a sit in an area outside MSU President Kevin Guskiewicz's and refused to leave after the building closed.
Holding signs and chanting for the university to discontinue working with companies doing business with Israel protestors opted to stay inside the building after being told by school administrators the police would be called if they stayed.
"How the university decides to respond is ultimately up to them because they are the ones that have control over the police, they are the ones that have our futures in their hands," said student group leader Ateeyah Abdulwasi before the arrest.
More than ten MSU Police officers responded to the protest, issuing three dispersal orders to the group before arresting the five remaining students in the building.
Several MSU faculty were present when the orders were given but they were told they needed to leave unless they wanted to face arrest.
"We are not actually participating in the protest, but we are here to observe the sit in and to ensure the safety and well being of our students," MSU Anthropology Professor Jennifer Goett told WKAR before the police arrived.
Goett is a member of a faculty group that's been looking into MSU's investments. She says the university owns a number of corporate bonds tied to major defense contractors supplying weapons to Israel.
"So we've identified a number of funds basically, that are traded on the public market that we feel the university should divest from, and we think that it is absolutely possible, because there are similar types of funds that have better ratings in terms of being invested in weapons manufacturers and defense contractors," she added.
Goett is referring to here to a number of publicly traded funds that have high percentages of defense investments like iShares and BNY.
MSU's investments also include Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, totaling around $3 million. The university's Boeing bond, valued at over $1 million, matured in February of this year and has since stopped paying interest.
The five MSU students are all members of The Hurriya Coalition, a collective of more than twenty MSU student groups who for months have been urging administrators to rethink how they are investing the school's $4 billion endowment.
The student group says it’s also asking the university to create a Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) and Arab institute for students across campus.
MSU officials had previously said they are not planning to divest any part of the school’s investment related to Israel.
According to student group leader, Issa Tillotson, president Guskiewicz reached out to the group earlier this week to set up a meeting to discuss their concerns but Tillotson says they are not interested unless divestment is on the table.
"That's not something that we are going to stand for and continue to do, if we aren't even going to be at a table with people who are willing to negotiate with us in good faith. Where there's a will, there's a way, if they wanted to divest, they would," Tillotson reiterated.
Back in 1978, following months of protests, the MSU Board of Trustees agreed to divest stocks in companies operating in apartheid South Africa like General Motors, Dow Chemical and Kellogg.
MSU administrators have argued there is less consensus now about how the world should react to Israel and Gaza than there was then about South Africa.
MSU spokesperson Emily Guerrant told WKAR the five students were arrested peacefully for trespassing and were taken to MSU Department of Police and Public Safety and issued citations.
All students were released that same night with fines.
