Open Letter to Whitman College: No Donations until Divestment
Written by our alumni coalition as a response to Sarah Bolton's May 5th statement on student protests.
In light of Sarah Bolton and the Whitman Trustees’ tepid response to the SJP’s demands for divestment from genocide, we alumni feel the need to be more vocal in our support for student activists, as well as communicate in the bluntest possible terms our disappointment in our alma mater. We stand in solidarity with the Whitman Students for Justice in Palestine (WSJP), and the Student Action Coalition (SAC), and echo their demand that Whitman College divest from weapons manufacturers and companies complicit in genocide, ethnic cleansing, and colonial oppression. We support the BDS movement and believe that a commitment to divestment is the bare minimum standard to which Whitman must be held.
It is the epitome of white supremacy and privilege to expect our lives to continue uninterrupted while tens of thousands of Palestinians are murdered. It is with this understanding that we recognize President Bolton’s May 5th statement to be wholly unsatisfactory. We urge the board to acknowledge that the “rights of others to learn in a safe and equitable space” extends to students in Palestine whose universities have been completely demolished by Israel. If the admin truly aims to prioritize the right to education, divestment is the only way forward. Thus far however it seems like the administration and trustees are more concerned with hiding behind the illusion that their silence makes Whitman students safe, or that equity is in any way compatible with genocide.
It is clear that the college “strongly supports freedom of inquiry and expression as a crucial part of learning”, but only so far as that inquiry and expression does not require structural change or a moral backbone.
We thank the trustees for taking the time to read over the students' divestment proposal back in November, but we wholeheartedly reject their conclusions.
Several ideas have been raised that we would like to address.
We understand that “the endowment does not come from tuition dollars or any dollars from current students. It is made up of gifts from alumni and others over generations.” So, in the past month we have gathered over 500 and counting alumni signatures, all pledging to make no further donations to Whitman until the college has fully divested from Israel.
Without even the bare minimum of full financial transparency, how are we to interpret the contradictory claims that exposure to these stocks is “very minimal” and “indirect,” and at the same time reducing that exposure could represent a “meaningful risk”? If the fiduciary duty is cited, the case must be made explicitly how keeping these investments minimize the financial risk to Whitman, yet absent from Bolton’s response is a justification for maintaining the risk associated with these investments. Other institutions consider investment in Israel as itself a financial risk. In November of 2023, Norges Bank Investment Management withdrew over half a billion in investments in Israel Bonds, citing “uncertainty in the market” (1). Concern for the stability of the Israeli economy has also led Moody’s to downgrade Israel’s credit rating, stating that the prospect of future downgrades looms and “the risks remain skewed to the downside” (2). Not only is Whitman financially tied to Israel, its decision not to divest is wagering the college’s finances on the failure of the BDS movement, the future stability of Israel, and the success of their genocide.
The ethnic cleansing of Palestinians did not begin on October 7th, and Whitman’s failure to take a stand before the death toll became too great to ignore is not an excuse for inaction now. We would like to stress the point that this is not simply a war, or an “activity we disagree with”; this is a genocide. You are either for genocide or against it, and the college’s reluctance to take a stand that would only affect 2% of the endowment (according to President Bolton) demonstrates either moral cowardice or administrative incompetence. If the current administration is unable to get this done, we suggest finding more qualified administrators.
As alumni, we are not only concerned with how our donations/tuition dollars are spent in Israel, we are concerned about the implications of supporting Whitman itself as an institution unwilling to do the bare minimum to support the BDS movement during the genocide of Palestinians. Whitman does not have the right to exist in a bubble, or to hide away from the global implications of its actions (or lack thereof). We are not just fighting for divestment, but also for the soul of our school.
If, as Bolton says, “any movement of funds would take years,” we suggest starting now. As an alumni group we will continue to push for divestment, for years if need be.
We are doing this because our Whitman professors and mentors taught us to think independently and critically, and we believe it is morally consistent with the standards and best interest of Whitman College to divest from corporations enabling genocide. As alumni, we feel it is our responsibility to remind Whitman of its self-professed values, because we believe that Whitman has no future as an institution and as a community if it refuses to be held to a high ethical standard. The school's reputation will be tied to its ability to change.