The University of Minnesota Board of Regents voted Tuesday to rebuff calls to divest from investments related to Israel, a key demand of last spring’s student protesters.
Instead, the board’s resolution said it would adopt a “position of neutrality” regarding the university’s endowment, and it would consider future divestment requests in rare circumstances where “broad consensus” existed within the university community.
During the same meeting, which Board Chair Janie Mayeron said had been specially called to settle these matters before the start of the school year, President Rebecca Cunningham outlined guidelines for “spontaneous civic engagement.” These guidelines prohibit the use of tents, state that all protests must end by 10 p.m., allow no more than one megaphone, and clarify that gatherings of more than 100 people must have a permit — which would need to be obtained at least two weeks in advance.
“First and foremost, I want to be really clear. We want our students, faculty and staff, to use their voices to help make the world a better place,” Cunningham said. “Second, we have a responsibility to ensure that all members of our university community are safe and feel safe so they can continue their important work without fear or intimidation.”
Cunningham stressed that the rules were not new and had not been altered in response to last spring’s demonstrations. University of Minnesota limits on gathering size without a permit have been in place since 2008, according to the policy history; in 2016, the number of people allowed at a gathering without a permit was increased to 100.
By providing these guidelines, Cunningham said the university was making its existing policies more transparent. The guidelines also outline a tiered plan for how the university intends to respond to violations of policy. The first tier provides an initial warning; the final tier allows for arrests and removal of tents.
But some U professors told Sahan Journal they questioned these rules’ implications for free speech.
The neutrality agreement was adopted with eight votes in favor, one opposed, and three absent. Regent Robyn Gulley voted no, after the board did not adopt her amendment to change the language about “neutrality” and “consensus.” The guidelines on protests were presented as a discussion item, which was not subject to a vote.
Protesters in the room, who were quiet and holding signs during the session, reacted when the resolution passed. They collectively shouted “shame” to the board and chanted before exiting the meeting. After the vote, they held a news conference and a rally outside the building.
Fae Hodges, organizer with the UMN Divest Coalition and member of Students for a Democratic Society, was disappointed but not surprised by the regents’ decision.
“This university has shown it is not willing to stand on their own principles,” Hodges said. “We know that in order to get stuff done — last spring made it clear — that we have to disrupt the function of this university.”
The 21-year-old wildlife conservation biology student hopes this decision will lead to more student engagement, since the matter not only concerns divestment from Israel, but also other social and political issues related to the endowment.
“We have a new president who from the start of her term, has made it really clear that she is going to resurrect a lot of these repressive, protest policies,” Hodges added.
But some welcomed the board of regents’ actions.
Rabbi Yitzi Steiner, the co-director of Chabad, the University of Minnesota’s Rohr Center for Jewish Student Life, said he supported both the civic engagement policy and the anti-divestment resolution.
As Jewish students return to campus, they are hoping for a return to normalcy, not the protests of last year, he said. He recalled watching Jewish students “bawl their faces out, feeling not safe and feeling insecure because there’s mobs of people chanting for the only Jewish homeland in the world to not exist.”
“I think freedom of speech and protesting is what makes this country so great,” he said. “However, that being said, we’ve got to be careful when protesting is borderline threatening to other people.” When he heard lines like “from the river to the sea,” which he said was delegitimizing Israel’s right to exist, “that’s not just protesting,” he said.
The guidelines would help Jewish students feel safe, he said.
“When there are rules and regulations when these protests happen, it enables the students to feel that somebody is monitoring it,” he said.
The University of Minnesota, like many college campuses across the country, has been grappling with pro-Palestine protests as the war in Gaza drags on, with a death toll topping 40,000.
Bias complaints spiked at the University of Minnesota last year, including many reports of both antisemitism and Islamophobia. In January, the U.S. Department of Education opened an investigation into discrimination at the University of Minnesota, following a formal complaint from a former regent and a U law professor about antisemitism.
In June, the U revoked an appointment to Raz Segal, an Israeli scholar, to lead its Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies after pushback from some leaders in the Jewish community about some of Segal’s remarks about Israel. Segal, a Jewish descendant of Holocaust survivors, had identified Israel’s war in Gaza as a “genocide.”
In the spring, University of Minnesota students staged an encampment for nearly 10 days demanding that the university divest from Israel and U.S. defense contractors — a tactic that had become common at college campuses across the country.
Though many encampments ended with heavy police presence — at Columbia University, for example, New York Police Department officers in riot gear stormed the campus and violently ended the demonstration — the University of Minnesota encampment ended when administration officials reached a deal with protesters.
They agreed to consider the protesters’ demands for divestment, financial transparency, and amnesty for nine protesters who had been arrested. The university later disclosed $5 million in investments in companies based in Israel and U.S. defense contractors — about a quarter of a percent of the university’s endowment.
Every time Issraa El-Khatib walks by the Northrop Mall, she remembers the student encampment last spring. El-Khatib, who is pursuing a doctorate in physical therapy, was there when it was announced that an agreement was reached with the university.
“We were celebrating, but deep down inside I knew it’s going to be a long journey,” said El-Khatib, whose family is from Al-Eizariya in the West Bank in Palestine.
As a faculty member, Sima Shakhsari wants to make sure the university adheres to principles of environmentally and socially responsible investments, which the board previously voted to integrate into its investment process.
“More people are seeing behind the claims of neutrality, more people are saying it is not neutral to invest in a state that is killing people, it is not neutral to invest in companies that produce weapons,” said Shakhsari, an associate professor in Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies. “It’s an ethical stance. And, as students have said it very clearly, there is no such a thing as being neutral during a genocide, in the face of injustice.”
The “spontaneous civic engagement” guidelines mentioned during the Board of Regents meeting made some faculty members and protesters wonder whether the university’s response to protests might be different this fall.
“Basically, it’s making it difficult for students to protest,” added Shakhsari, for whom highlighting those existing rules before the fall semester is a form of discrimination against pro-Palestinian movements on campus. “These are attempts to curtail our academic freedom and our freedom of speech.”
Other faculty members also expressed concern about limiting protests.
Sumanth Gopinath, a music professor and president of the U’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, worried that the policy could lead to students being punished over misunderstandings.
“What if over 100 people show up for a demonstration, or someone brings a second megaphone?” he asked. “How are they counting the number of people who are participating?”
He said the policy made him worry about the potential of mass arrests, as happened on other campuses in the spring. He also questioned how the university would respond to more than 100 people showing up to an outdoor band concert, or protests in response to a contested presidential election.
“Ultimately, as long as the protests are not destructive and people are basically exercising their rights to free speech and assembly, protests are a part of campus life,” he said. Engaging in civic action helps students “figure out what they’re thinking,” he said.
Nathaniel Mills, an English professor and a member of Faculty, Librarians, Alumni, Graduate Students and Staff for Justice in Palestine at the University of Minnesota, described the guidelines as “alarming” and said they had rarely been enforced or even alluded to during previous protests.
It’s difficult to know in advance how many people may want to attend a demonstration, he said, especially two weeks ahead of time.
“Adding all of these extra hurdles will have a cumulative effect of discouraging the organization of demonstrations, or at least discouraging the organization of demonstrations according to the letter of the law,” he said.
The regents’ decision set the tone for the coming semester, as classes start next week.
Incoming student Francisco Lara, 29, said as an Indigenous person, campus feels less safe under the new guidelines.
Although the language of university officials appears to be respectful, “In my eyes, it’s another tool of policing, maintaining the order,” he said.
