In a time when students most need clear communication, Queen’s continues its pattern of sweeping important matters under the rug.
After a nine-month review from the Principal’s Responsible Investing Committee, the University announced its decision on March 13 to rule against divesting funds from companies operating with or in the State of Israel.
The University owes it to students to bring attention to impactful decisions, given the gravity they have on students and the volume of student advocacy leading up to them. Queen’s failed to deliver.
To announce the conclusions reached by the Board of Trustees, the University released a single report in The Gazette, leaving all other channels of communication, such as the Queen’s Instagram, e-mail, and the school newsletter, empty of this decision.
With the term coming to an end and the PSAC 901 strike upending operations across faculties, classrooms, and students’ lives, dialogue about the divestment ruling was bound to get lost. This isn’t coincidental timing—it’s a strategic move that reflects cowardice.
Issues surrounding divestment on university campuses are known to evoke polarization between the student body and higher istrative bodies of their institutions. While it’s difficult to address contended decisions without receiving backlash from students, it’s necessary and something students deserve to be informed about.
Demands for universities to divest from controversial entities have Apartheid era. Now, in the wake of the war in Gaza, students have urged for Queen’s to cut financial ties with companies associated with Israel.
We can’t ignore the time they released the report. Queen’s doesn’t do anyone justice by letting the divestment report slip under the radar.
By failing to properly address its ruling and announcing it in the midst of a historical strike on campus, Queen’s continues a trend of evading all transparency and communication when it comes to crucial changes.
Transparency and communication from high-level istration isn’t dwindling—it’s gone out the window and replaced by performative efforts to appear in solidarity with students. Meanwhile, already marginalized groups facing food insecurity, homelessness, and racialized attacks are left without genuine .
Students won’t stop holding Queen’s able, through their voices and collective advocacy. But these efforts will likely take on far more radical approaches to earn even an ounce of a response from the University.
When universities have the resources, platforms, and responsibility to conduct inclusive conversations about difficult topics on campus, it’s a shame when they purposefully choose to hide away from this duty and instead, create an uncomfortable environment for all. It cheats the students of their trust, especially those who invested in Queen’s pledge of protection and inclusivity.
The University’s allowed to make mistakes and disappoint students. There’ll always be division among institutions and their . It’s a fact of the university ecosystem. But what it can’t afford to lose is the healthy dialogue needed to address these differences—and this time, Queen’s missed a valuable opportunity to have an important conversation with its students.
—Journal Editorial Board
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Richard
Glad that this antisemitic motion failed and I can go on exchange in Israel and see family.
Sam
Criticism of the policies of the state of Israel is not antisemitism. I think Queen’s could benefit from divesting from the weapons manufacturers at least. No need for tuition dollars to be funding death and destruction anywhere in the world.
Matthew
The article makes a fair point; but in this world of cancel culture from the fringes, I too wouldn’t want to publicly announce that I am not giving in to the demands of an antisemitically-charged hate group that gets its funding from Iran, brainwashed the world through social media to hate Israel and Jewish people, and insists that Israel should be annihilated when it really s Hamas, proxy of Iran, whose sole objective is to destroy Israel and America.
Art
If they refuse to divest in war they are funding a genocide being committed. Don’t Hamas one bit. But there are real aid being systematically blocked from people who have been caught between these two forces of Hamas and the IOF
Richard
Sorry but there’s not a genocide — using your own people as human shields and storing weapons in mosques schools and hospitals is genocide (looking at Hamas). Genocide requires intention. Listen to the Palestinian people who protest Hamas and get killed for it!
Flynn
I don’t understand why a University is permitted to invest in companies which are making weapons of war that are being used to commit war crimes (ex: Lockheed Martin/Elbeit Systems/etc). They divested during South African apartheid, and should divest during this apartheid. There are other companies that they could invest in which aren’t being used to violate international laws.