A student government-facilitated referendum vote saw over 60 percent of participating students calling on the university to divest from “weapons manufacturers arming Israel.”
A University of Pittsburgh student vote facilitated Tuesday by the Student Government Board (SGB) saw over 60 percent of votes calling for divestment from connections to Israel.
When asked by referendum if the university should “divest all financial holdings, if any, from weapons manufacturers arming Israel,” 61 percent of participating Pitt students responded “yes,” while about 6.5 percent voted “no” and 22.5 percent skipped the question. Notably, only 3,702 of Pitt’s approximately 30,000 students took part in the vote.
In a statement regarding the vote, Pitt reinforced the SGB’s independence as a student organization with no binding authority over the university.
“The university provides advising and guidance but does not direct the actions or statements of the Student Government Board,” the statement explains. “Any actions or decisions by SGB are independent of the university and should not be interpreted as an endorsement by the university.”
Calls from anti-Israel student activists to divest from all associations with Israel have grown increasingly common as the nation’s conflict with Hamas has escalated. In September of 2024, an aggressive group of student protestors organized under the name “Pitt Apartheid Divest” interrupted Pitt Chancellor Joan Gabel during a private speaking engagement to push for divestment.
Yesterday, student activists at the University of Pittsburgh interrupted a private event where Pitt Chancellor Joan Gabel was speaking to pressure Gabel to divest from Israel.
"Pitt Apartheid Divest calls on all faculty, students, alumni and community members to pressure Joan… pic.twitter.com/WO63u1hxgL
— Stu (@thestustustudio) September 20, 2024
Likewise, in an April 2024 statement, SGB wrote, “We condemn University investment into genocide and any association with entities furthering Israel’s endless abuse and murder of Palestinians. Be it further that we denounce the Zionist entity and firmly stand behind the divestment mission among all the university encampments.”
In recent years, college campuses have developed notoriety as hotbeds of pro-Hamas political violence – and Pitt is no exception. While at least three Jewish students experienced physical violence last year, an additional untold number have experienced prejudice both inside and outside the classroom.
“Last semester, I took a peek at the encampments because I’m a big believer of, like, go on the ground, see it yourself,” recounted one Jewish student in an interview with the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle. “And I watched kids scream into my friends’ faces, ‘Go back to Poland.” The student added that the “normalization of Jew hatred is horrifying.”
Instances of antisemitism on campuses across the country have led to the newly inaugurated Trump administration launching almost immediate efforts to hold school administrations accountable.
President Trump’s Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism has already made headlines for canceling $400 million in federal grants to Columbia University in response to the school’s failure to address antisemitism on campus. An additional 59 colleges and universities are under review by the Department of Education for similar failures.
“To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you,” promised President Trump in a January fact sheet on planned efforts to combat antisemitism. “I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before.”
