Hudson Warm, Contributing Photographer

At noon on Friday, Dec. 1, students gathered to protest Yale’s alleged investments tied to weapons manufacturers that have profited from the war in Israel and Gaza.

Organized by a group of students and advertised by the student organization Yalies4Palestine and the Instagram account @yalepalestineaction, the event stretched across the intersection of Grove Street and College Street. Students chanted through megaphones and held signs denouncing University President Peter Salovey, the Yale Corporation and Yale trustees for being “complicit” in “war crimes [and] genocide.” 

“Our goal, our demand is that Yale Corporation withdraws from these investments and puts their money towards life and not death,” one protestor, who chose to remain anonymous due to safety concerns and fear of doxxing, told the News.

The Yale Corporation — the University’s 16-member board of trustees — met on campus this weekend, which was a motivator of the rally, according to organizers. Students demanded that Yale reevaluate their investments and entirely withdraw their stakes in the weapons industry. The morning of the rally, a group of students unfurled a banner outside of Woodbridge Hall that listed the names of Palestinians killed in Gaza during the war.

President Salovey previously told the News that Yale’s Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility, or ACIR, is reexamining policies and will determine if there are adequate grounds for divestment from weapons manufacturers.

Yale’s Ethical Investment Policy is the framework under which the University purports to decide its investment strategies. However, policies have often changed over the years following  global events and student action. In 2018, Yale released a statement of divestment from retail outlets that sell assault weapons to the public. 

A petition demanding complete weapons divestment, sponsored by the Endowment Justice Coalition and advertised on Yalies4Palestine’s Instagram account, garnered over 1,600 signatures as of Sunday evening. It cites Yale’s financial ties to Lockheed Martin — a weapon supplier to Israel, the United States, Saudi Arabia and several other nations. The University has more than $600,000 in shares of an exchange-traded fund with holdings in Lockheed Martin, according to SEC filings.

The petition speculates that Yale’s other investments and shell companies — more than 99 percent of which are private — could potentially be tied to weapon production, though the investments are not transparent.

The rally took place nearly two months after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing at least 1,200 people and taking 240 as hostages, according to Israel’s Foreign Ministry. In its military response against Gaza, Israel has killed more than 15,500 Palestinians, the Associated Press reported on Dec. 3. The Associated Press called the December estimates from the Gazan Health Ministry a “sharp jump” from the previous Nov. 20 count of over 13,300 killed, noting in November that officials in the Hamas-controlled region have only been able to sporadically update the count since Nov. 11 and fear thousands more might be dead. 

The Friday rally also came just as a seven-day pause in fighting came to a close. The temporary ceasefire began on Nov. 24 and was initiated to allow for the release of some of Hamas-held hostages and to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza, according to the Associated Press. That pause ended early on Dec. 1. Israel resumed airstrikes on Gaza after claiming that Hamas had fired toward Israeli territory and thus violated the ceasefire’s terms in its final hours.

Sarah Sotomayor ’24 came to the rally to show support for Palestine.

“We very much believe in Indigenous people reclaiming their land and not being driven from the places that they were born,” she said. “Not to mention, being a Yale student, I want to do what I can to not be complicit.”

Students displayed posters and signs with pro-Palestine sentiments, including “Viva Palestine,” “Health Workers 4 Palestine” and “Ceasefire Now.”

One poster presented a photo of Salovey’s face and the words, “Salovey, Salovey, you can’t hide. You sign off on genocide.” Other posters bore images of Yale Corporation members, accompanied by the text, “You are funding genocide.” One displayed a blood-splattered image of Benjamin Franklin and read, “Money talks, Yale’s screams bloody murder.”

Protester Will Salaverry ’24, a Jewish student whose great-grandparents escaped Ukrainian pogroms, expressed frustration with Israel’s actions.

“Israel has turned around and done the exact same thing to people, in many ways, that was done to us, and to my great-grandmother, and has called it Judaism and what we’re about,” he told the News. “And I don’t agree with that. I don’t feel that that’s in line with who we are as Jews.”

The rally began at noon on the intersection’s sidewalks and later headed into the street, blocking traffic. Protesters formed a circle around a group of leaders, who led chants from the center.

The chants included, “Israel bombs, Yale Corp pays, how many kids have you killed today?” and “The people, united, will never be defeated.”

“President Salovey has made clear that antisemitism, Islamophobia and hatred toward Palestinians and Israelis are emphatically against our values and principles at Yale,” a University spokesperson wrote to the News. The spokesperson added that Yale seeks to cultivate and maintain a welcoming space for all with initiatives such as Belonging at Yale and increased security.

On Friday, Dec. 1, after students put up the banner outside Woodbridge Hall, Yale’s spokesperson referred the News to the University’s 2018 policy mandating that Yale divest from retail outlets that publicly market and sell assault weapons. The spokesperson reiterated those comments to the News for this story.  

“The Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility is studying whether there are grounds to revisit the policy under the university’s ethical investment framework,” the University told the News on Friday.

Yale established the ACIR during the 1972-1973 academic year, prompted by the publication of “The Ethical Investor: Universities and Corporate Responsibility” by Yale University Press in 1972.

Correction, Dec. 4: This article has been updated to include a more current estimate of Palestinians killed, reflecting Dec. 3 reporting from the Associated Press.