This week, I attended two completely different lectures about divestment. I’m not a finance guy. I don’t really know anything about investment or divestment; indeed, I have never invested a dime of my money in anything (unless you include donations to radical organizations or contributions made to Kickstarter projects). But, as I learned this week, many of the organizations, corporations, and institutions we interact with—and sometimes even identify with, and sometimes put our own money into—invest. And it behooves us to “follow the money,” so to speak, and to seek greater participation in determining exactly how and where our money is spent. Continue reading
Tag Archives: academic freedom
A Tale of Two Divestment Campaigns
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Tagged academic freedom, climate change, divestment, environment, Israel, Palestine, racism
The “State” of Higher Education
Here in New York, we are in the midst of a heated debate over “academic freedom.” The Brooklyn College Students for Justice in Palestine, a student club, has organized an event for Thursday, Feb. 7, to discuss the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. BDS is a non-violent movement against the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
In recent weeks, numerous ideologues and politicians in and outside of our city have come out in opposition to this event. Specifically, what many oppose is the “sponsorship” of the event by the college’s Political Science department. Others contend that even just by providing space for this event without providing equal space to those with opposing viewpoints—a spurious charge easily refuted by college officials and faculty who have rolled off their tongues the names of pro-Israel speakers invited to speak at the college—that the college administration itself, even the college president, are guilty of “endorsing” the views of the BDS movement.
The Free University of NYC has not formally weighed in on this debate. What I’d like to point out here, then, is the diversity of views that many of us hold regarding one central actor in this debate: the state. Continue reading
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Tagged academic freedom, public education, the state
