As classroom disruptions and building takeovers in the name of protesting Israel’s war in Gaza have roiled college campuses since the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks, universities have also seen a renewed focus on a quieter form of anti-Israel activity — students urging the university to divest from companies that operate in the Jewish state. 

Even schools that have traditionally been seen as politically unengaged in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have faced student referendums and calls to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel in recent months. While these initiatives often generate headlines and a divisive campus climate for pro-Israel students, it’s extremely rare for a university to adopt the policies of the BDS movement — only two schools, Evergreen State and Union Theological Seminary, have done so. 

But this month, the University of San Francisco became the latest school to do so.  

The school’s endowment fund will sell off its direct investments in Palantir, L3Harris, GE Aerospace and RTX Corporation by June 1, the university confirmed. The four companies, which all are U.S.-based and provide weapons technologies and military intelligence tools to Israel, had been specifically targeted by anti-Israel student protesters. 

The decision came following negotiations between the university and student protesters last spring in an effort to disband a nearly monthlong encampment of more than 100 tents, where the administration agreed to “establish a new socially responsible advisory investment task force” focused on “alignment of the investments with the university’s mission and values.” 

But the university insists the move is unrelated to student protests. USF’s investments in the four companies account for less than 0.5% of its total portfolio, a university spokesperson told Jewish Insider, emphasizing that the school is not changing its policies to support divestment, but rather is moving stocks. “The only change is the shift of two separately managed accounts to mutual funds/index funds with similar investment strategies,” the spokesperson said. 

Local Jewish leaders — both on and off campus — responded with varying levels of concern over the impact that divestment will have on Jewish students. 

“The economic side is negligible but the performative side that BDS folks are celebrating has a damaging impact on the Jewish campus community, even if it is not substantive,” Tye Gregory, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area, told JI. “That’s really where our concerns lie, not on the economic impact that these companies may or may not feel.” 

But on a campus where Students for Justice in Palestine demonstrators recently occupied the university’s library and “staged aggressive protests outside, which resulted in a Jewish student being assaulted,” according to Sophia Solomon, a fourth-year finance major who is the president and co-founder of the Students for Israel Association on campus, the damage goes beyond just divestment. (Campus sources confirmed to JI that outside of the library protest, a demonstrator struck a Jewish student displaying an Israeli flag at a counter-protest on the face with a closed fist.)

“Over the last year and a half, the antisemitism that has permeated nearly every aspect of life on campus at USF has been on full display, while the university has moved at a glacial pace to address it,” Solomon told JI. “Jewish students are tired of the climate of fear on campus, and of an administration that continues to delay meaningful action, failing to recognize and address the severity of the antisemitism crisis unfolding at USF.”

“Over a week [after the library takeover], the administration has yet to publicly condemn the violence which took place against Jewish students,” Solomon said. 

In a statement to JI, a university spokesperson said that, “although the public announcement about the [divestment] decision occurred in the same general time frame as a small campus protest last Tuesday, the timing was largely coincidental.” 

Roger Feigelson, executive director of USF Hillel, said he does not view the move as the university taking a stand against Israel, noting that other demands student protesters made were largely rejected, including calls for the university to change its Investment Policy Statement. The policy currently states that the fund cannot “be used as a tool to promote a political agenda.” 

“As with many universities, there’s a move to be more socially responsible and not invest in weapons manufacturers, regardless of specific events or regions,” Feigelson said. 

He doesn’t see “any impact on the climate for Jewish students.” 

The bigger concern, according to Feigelson, “remains how other students and some faculty treat Jewish students.” 

Still, it troubles Gregory that the stocks being sold have ties to Israel. 

He continued, “What we’re waiting for is a public statement from them reaffirming their commitment to Jewish and Israeli inclusion on campus.”