Ryan Moore, News Editor
Featured image courtesy of Ryan Moore
The York University Faculty Association passed a motion to endorse the YU Divest campaign, which is the campus coalition calling on York’s Board of Governors to prohibit York’s endowment fund from investing in weapons manufacturers.
YU Divest has been endorsed by 76 campus groups, including the York Federation of Students. The vote took place on March 4 at the Stewards’ Council.
The initiative has been opposed by some Jewish and Israeli groups who claim the campaign is rooted in, and supportive of, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which is designed to economically isolate Israel.
“In its deliberations, members of Stewards’ Council carefully considered the issue and found that the motion stands on its own merits as a general and principled weapons divestment proposal applying to all states,” says Richard Wellen, YUFA president.
“Support from YUFA should not be withheld simply because one or more of the groups involved adhere to other causes that some may find controversial.”
YUFA as an organization has not taken a position on causes like BDS, nor taken sides in any way on the Israeli Palestinian conflict, according to the YUFA press release.
“YUFA’s endorsement is a huge win for students who don’t want their school to be invested in weapons of war,” says Ghada Sasa, YU Divest spokesperson.
“It shows that both students and faculty, the two largest constituencies on campus, are now in agreement about the necessity for the York University Board of Governors to stop making investments that harm students and their families around the world, including York students.”
YU Divest secured the endorsement of three more college councils and the Faculty of Environmental Studies Faculty Council last week, according to Sasa.
Avi Benlolo, CEO and president of Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies, was featured on the front page of the Toronto Sun this week, calling York a “toxic” environment of anti-Semitism.
Many community members are not convinced YU Divest is not another tactics of BDS activists.
Carl S. Ehrlich, professor of Hebrew bible in the department of humanities, says when Amnesty International at York approached the YUFA Executive about endorsing the campaign in early January, many YUFA members expressed significant reservations about the “main to the quite obvious links between this campaign and the so-called BDS movement.” Ehrlich maintains that this is a significant development.
“In spite of YUFA’s protestations that this endorsement does not imply support for the BDS movement, early media reports on the endorsement do indeed link support for YU Divest with BDS.”
From the perspective of those opposed to YUFA’s endorsement of YU Divest, the issue is not one of support or lack of support for weapons production, he adds.
Rather, the issue is whether his union’s leadership is empowered to take controversial political positions not only without the mandate of its membership but against the wishes of a significant portion of its membership.
“From the perspective of many, this is an overstepping of YUFA’s executive powers that silences and ignores the legitimate concerns of much of its constituency,” says Ehrlich.
“No matter what the individual political perspectives of YUFA members, their leadership is elected to negotiate labour relations, not to link membership with specific political causes, no matter how worthy they may appear to be.”
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