Northwestern University student group narrowly passes Israel divestment measure
24 people voted in favor of resolution, 22 voted against and three people abstained.
By JPOST.COM STAFFNorthwestern University's student union and library buildings(photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Northwestern University's Associated Student Government Senate narrowly passed a measure to divest from Israeli companies on Thursday. It urges the university to divest from Boeing, Caterpillar, Elbit Systems, Hewlett-Packard, G4S and Lockheed Martin, according to the school's paper The Daily Northwestern.In the vote, 24 people were in favor of the resolution sponsored by the BDS group Northwest Divest, with 22 people voting against the measure and three people abstaining.The resolution serves as a recommendation to the school and does not hold sway regarding actual university policy, which maintains close ties with Tel Aviv University as a sister university.Furthermore, it is unknown if the university actually deals with the targeted corporations, as the school does not release such information.On Tuesday, the student senate at California's prestigious Stanford University approved a resolution to support divestment from corporations identified as complicit in human rights abuses in Israel and Palestine, The Stanford Daily reported.The same resolution had failed to pass in a vote last week, garnering only 64 percent approval from the senators, less than the required 66 percent approval.The resolution was proposed by the Stanford Out of Occupied Palestine campus organization in the wake of last summer’s conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Stanford's revote was passed with ten in favor of the bill, four against and one abstention.
