San Francisco State Divests From Weapons Makers After Working With Student Activists

San Francisco State University has pulled its investments from four companies tied to weapons manufacturing or Israel’s war in Gaza, a move that was celebrated by student activists whose protests last year brought campus administrators to the negotiating table.

Pro-Palestinian student organizers rallied at the university’s central Malcolm X Plaza on Thursday, a day after they first announced that they had worked with university administrators to identify four companies for divestment: weapons manufacturers Lockheed Martin and Leonardo, data analysis company and military contractor Palantir, and construction equipment maker Caterpillar, whose bulldozers have been armored and in some cases weaponized by the Israel Defense Forces.

The group worked over the summer to draft new policies against investments in weapons manufacturers and companies involved in violations of human rights and international law. The draft still requires a final vote by the board of the San Francisco State University Foundation, scheduled for December.

Representatives for the foundation, which handles the fundraising of private donations and how they’re invested, confirmed to Edsource that its stocks and bonds in Lockheed Martin, Leonardo and Palantir had already been sold according to the proposed revisions — and that Caterpillar was screened out under a pre-existing policy against fossil fuel investments.

“I want to thank all the work group participants who dedicated time this summer to the creation of this plan, including the representatives from Students for Gaza and members of our Investment Committee,” foundation president and university vice president Jeff Jackanicz said.

The announcement fulfills one of the terms university president Lynn Mahoney agreed to in May after student organizers camped on campus for nearly three weeks. Mahoney’s meeting with protesters to discuss their demands was believed to be the first of its kind amid last spring’s wave of student demonstrations.

Rama Ali Kased, an associate professor of race and resistance studies and a faculty advisor for Students for Gaza at SF State, said the working groups that arose out of that agreement were collaborative.

“We worked with the university this summer to ensure that our investment policy was aligned with the values of our university, a university that upholds social justice, economic justice and racial justice as part of the mission of the university,” Kased said.

Student organizers’ campus rally on Thursday to celebrate the news was planned in coordination with students from other campuses, including UC Berkeley, the University of San Francisco and San José State University, they said.

The coordinated action is consistent with recent statements by student activists, some of whom have said they want to prioritize more cross-campus organizing as this school year gets underway.

“Many students will be returning back to campus from their summer breaks,” said Zaid Yousef, a member of Students for Justice in Palestine at UC Berkeley. “Yet there was no such thing as a ‘summer break’ for the people of Gaza. There are no more universities left in Gaza.”