Students voted to approve a referendum calling on Georgetown to divest from companies connected to the Israeli military, the GUSA Election Commission announced in the evening on Tuesday, April 29.
Of those who voted, 67.9% of students voted in favor of the referendum, while about 32.1% voted against it.
2,132 students voted, comprising 29.5% of the student body, according to the Election Commission’s announcement. To pass, all GUSA referendums require at least 25% of students to vote, with the majority voting in favor.
Georgetown is not required to take action based on the results of the referendum.
“Any student referendum provides a sense of the student body’s views on an issue. Student referendums do not create university policy and are not binding on the university,” a university spokesperson wrote the Voice earlier this month.
The referendum calls for Georgetown to disclose its investments in companies that support the Israeli military, and to divest from said companies. This includes Alphabet and Amazon, two companies in which Georgetown holds over $55 million in investments combined. Both Alphabet and Amazon help develop technology for the Israeli government through Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion cloud computing deal.
In addition to divestment, the referendum calls for Georgetown to end partnerships with Tel Aviv University and other Israeli institutions with “direct involvement in the occupation and genocide.”
The referendum was first introduced in a GUSA Senate meeting on April 6. Voting for the referendum was originally scheduled to take place with the Senate elections from April 14–16. While the Senate elections continued as planned, the referendum was delayed to this week to avoid overlapping with Passover, a major Jewish holiday.
In the leadup to the referendum voting period, student groups campaigned both for and against the measure.
Georgetown’s divestment referendum came after a number of similar initiatives at universities around the country. In the last year, students at universities including Stanford University, Cornell University, Yale University, and the University of Maryland have voted in favor of divestment.
Update 9:19 p.m.: University will not implement the referendum’s demands
In an email from Interim President Robert M. Groves just half an hour after referendum results came out, the university announced it will not follow the demands of the divestment referendum.
“Georgetown will not implement this referendum, based on our institutional values and history and existing university resources and processes that address our investments,” Groves wrote.
Groves wrote that Georgetown has a “longstanding position” opposed to academic boycotts, citing a quote from former university president John DeGioia in 2013:
“A boycott of Israeli universities undermines the academic freedom that is essential to the mission of the Academy,” DeGioia said, as quoted in the email. “As an academic institution, it is Georgetown’s responsibility to deepen engagement and foster dialogue between scholars and societies to enhance the entire global academic community.”
Groves reiterated the university’s Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) Policy, which states that Georgetown “is committed to exercising ethical management of the University’s endowment in the course of seeking to generate the highest level of returns commensurate with the goal of ensuring intergenerational equity.”
Groves ended his message by emphasizing Georgetown’s commitment to free speech.
“I recognize there is a wide range of opinions on the conflict in the Middle East within our community,” Groves wrote. “We have numerous events to present different perspectives on the conflict. Guided by the University’s Policy on Speech and Expression, we will continue to protect the right of members of our community to freely express their views.”
