DukeDivest representatives met with President Nan Keohane Monday to present their case as to why the University should divest from companies with military ties to Israel.
Although Keohane maintained her position that divestment is not appropriate in the case of Israel, she agreed to include a DukeDivest-written proposal for the creation of an ethical investments committee in material for an upcoming meeting of the Board of Trustees' executive committee.
"The students who met with me have thought carefully about this issue and presented a number of facts, statistics and arguments in support of their position. Some were new to me, some were more familiar," Keohane wrote in an e-mail after the meeting. "I encouraged them to continue to focus debate on this topic on campus, but my position on divestment on this issue is firm and is unchanged by the discussion."
During the meeting, concerned students presented Keohane a petition with over 165 signatures, outlining both their arguments and several counter arguments made by Keohane in a statement on the issue earlier this month, organizers said.
"I think there is a clear understanding now of what the other party's positions are on this issue," said junior Abigail Langston, "but no conclusions were really reached."
In her Feb. 4 statement, Keohane called the situation between the Israelis and the Palestinians a "complex issue" on a different level from the apartheid of South Africa and argued that the divestment tactic is poorly designed for the circumstances.
She added that she did not feel there was the same level of "moral clarity about questions of responsibility," nor are systems in place to monitor whether the campaign is achieving results, as there was with South Africa in the 1980s.
Divestment campaign organizer Yousuf Al-Bulushi and others disagreed, stating that there is moral clarity in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"There is wrong being done on both sides, but Israel's use of its army forms the brunt of the issue," said Al-Bulushi, a junior.
DukeDivest members said they were optimistic that they will eventually be able to convince the University to divest from American companies such as Caterpillar, which provide military support to Israel, and noted that the possible creation of an ethical investment committee is a step in the right direction.
Keohane said she does not have a settled opinion on whether Duke needs a specific structure in place to handle the increasing number of social issues that are coming to the University in the investment arena.
"There are good arguments to be made on both sides of that question; but I do think this topic should be discussed by those responsible," she wrote. Keohane will pose the question to the Duke University Management Company board and the executive committee of the Board of Trustees, to whom DUMAC reports.
"I... encourage[d] the DukeDivest representatives to write up a paper on what they think such a structure should involve and promised to share it with the executive committee of the Board of Trustees as part of the background materials for their deliberation," she added.
DukeDivest organizers said they are consulting with representatives and documents at universities that have such committees in place, such as Yale, Harvard and Columbia.
They added that they will continue to try to engage the Duke community in a dialogue about the issue of divestment, including a teach-in Feb. 26.
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