Georgetown University must stand up for its students and the values it represents. On April 29, 2025, the Georgetown University Student Association released the results of its democratic divestment referendum, in which nearly 70% of students who voted called on the university to divest from companies with ties to Israel’s military and establish an academic boycott of Israeli universities. The onus was placed on administrators to follow through; however, instead of acting, the university refused to listen to its students, citing Georgetown’s history and values.
Our demands are neither new nor unprecedented: Georgetown has divested before. In 1986, the university divested from South African apartheid following student pressure — although not before the administration arrested dozens of community members protesting for divestment after they established a shanty town. Divestment was effective and ethical, and contributed to the end of apartheid. In 2020, Georgetown began divesting from fossil fuel companies, again in response to student activism. Given this history of divestment, why is the university so adamant to stay invested in what international organizations and scholars know as Israeli apartheid?
The university must follow its investing policy that claims Georgetown centers protecting human life and dignity in its investment practices. This is irreconcilable with investing in genocide. The university chose to adopt this policy and its commitments, yet it is failing to fulfill them.
It is hypocritical for Georgetown to have divested from South Africa but to refuse to do the same in the case of Israel. The university should not pick and choose which state’s atrocities it opposes. For the university’s values to have any meaning, they must apply such values consistently.
Georgetown’s mission is to educate students for the betterment of humanity. The school’s website describes the community as dedicated to social justice. Profiting from the systematic erasure of Palestinians is antithetical to these ideals.
For nearly two years, the world has watched, in graphic detail, as Israel commits a genocide. Every minute is livestreamed to our phones. I wake up every morning to see unimaginable horrors being committed while my university sits idly by as its endowment grows.
As long as the university refuses to act, it remains complicit.
Israel has fought to silence reporters and hide the atrocities committed in Gaza from the world. In under two years, Israel has killed more journalists than have ever died in a war. It baselessly accuses Palestinian journalists of being terrorists in desperate smear campaigns and bans independent international reporters from entering Gaza.
Meanwhile, we don’t even know the true extent of Georgetown’s connection to these crimes, as the university refuses to disclose its investments. We do, however, know the university has over $55 million invested in Alphabet and Amazon. These companies are developing technology for the Israeli military and its genocidal campaign. Profiting from this is obscene.
Collaborating with institutions that aid in these crimes is horrific. Israeli universities develop weapons and doctrines used in its genocide and have a documented history of discrimination. While these universities facilitate Israel’s rampage, the Israeli military destroys Palestinian schools and universities in its scholasticide. Israel has attacked over 90% of Palestinian schools in its rampage. It has destroyed every university in Gaza. Israel’s relentless strikes have forced hundreds of thousands of children to go without school for nearly two years.
This summer, I watched Interim University President Robert M. Groves testify before Congress that Georgetown rejected the referendum, seeming to boast as if he were proud to ignore his students. He announced new rules that may amount to a mask ban, recklessly endangering his own students and faculty. He claimed these actions will get Georgetown credit from the Anti-Defamation League, a group supposedly dedicated to fighting antisemitism; however, its racist conflation of anti-Zionism and antisemitism is detrimental to genuine concerns of antisemitism. Rather than stand up for his own students and faculty, Groves brushed us aside.
The university may believe that refusing to divest will shield Georgetown from attacks by the federal government and President Donald Trump, but capitulation only incentivizes further assaults on our schools and our freedoms. The only way to defend Georgetown and all academic institutions in the United States is to show courage, defend academic freedom, champion free speech and denounce these repressive attacks. As federal agents roam our streets and our campus seeking to intimidate us, we must be clear that the students and faculty of Georgetown will not yield.
The students made their voices clear. We demand transparency in Georgetown’s investments. We demand an academic boycott of Israeli universities. We demand total divestment from Israel’s war crimes — and we demand immediate action.
Georgetown, please be true to your mission. Honor your policies and your students. Israel’s devastating attacks on Palestine have only accelerated since the divestment vote last spring. I want to take pride in my school for having the courage to stand up, do the right thing and cut any connection to this violence. I want Palestinians to live freely in their homeland with their rights protected.
I want you to do what you can to save lives.
Jackson Schnabel is a junior in the School of Foreign Service.
