Students address University of Minnesota Board of Regents
Updated: 4:22 p.m.
After protests and press conferences over the past few weeks, University of Minnesota students shared their concerns directly with the U’s Board of Regents at its monthly meeting on Friday.
That included members of the UMN Divest Coalition, which has been pushing for the university to cut financial and other ties with companies and institutions linked to the Israeli military, amid the ongoing war in Gaza. A meeting with the regents was part of an agreement between protesters and the university to end an encampment on the Twin Cities campus last week.
Also addressing regents at Friday’s meeting were Jewish students with Minnesota Hillel, who have raised concerns about antisemitism on campus, and about the agreement reached between the U and pro-Palestinian protesters.
The various speakers, and their supporters, filled the meeting room at McNamara Alumni Center on the U of M Twin Cities campus. There was a significant security presence at the entrance to the building before the meeting started.
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Supporters of divestment
Ahead of scheduled presentations to the regents, some supporters of divestment addressed the board during a public forum at the start of Friday’s meeting. Palestinian student Donia Abu said 12 of her family members have been killed in the war.
“Thousands of my tuition dollars and other students’ tuition dollars are invested in companies that build the bombs and machinery that are being used to kill my family,” she said.
She called on the Board of Regents to divest, as it previously did from Sudan and South Africa.
Jasper Nordin, a senior at the U, was one of nine people arrested in April at a protest encampment; those trespassing charges were later dropped. Nordin also spoke to regents on Friday.
“I don’t believe it’s terribly radical or idealistic or, frankly, demanding to say that it is reprehensible to have our tuition money used to support arms manufacturers and weapons companies,” Nordin said.
In its formal presentation to regents, four members of the UMN Divest Coalition called on regents to vote to divest the university’s endowment from “all companies that consistently, knowingly and directly facilitate and enable human rights violations, war crimes and violation of international law,” with the process to be completed within two years.
The students also called for the university to hold regularly scheduled meetings with groups calling for divestment, to give updates.
Regents did not ask or answer questions after the presentation, but Regent Robyn Gulley thanked the students “for being brave and courageous and here to talk about something that really matters.” Several of the regents did speak with students outside the meeting room.
As part of its agreement with protesters, the University of Minnesota began disclosing its investments into publicly traded companies based in or doing business with Israel — including defense contractors.
A document from U of M officials stated that the university’s investments into Israel-based companies and U.S. defense companies represent only a sliver — less than 1 percent — of the university’s $2.27 billion endowment.
Hillel presentation
After the presentation by students supporting divestment from Israel, student representatives from campus Jewish organization Hillel spoke against the proposal. They said they’ve been more worried about antisemitism on campus since the increased protests for divestment.
Charlie Maloney is the incoming student president of Minnesota Hillel.
“It is not too late to teach the University of Minnesota community that you believe that peace is possible, that Zionism isn’t a dirty word, that investing in Israelis and Palestinians can be more potent than divesting,” he told regents.
Interim University President Jeff Ettinger and other university leaders met with Jewish student groups last week, on the same day they met and reached agreement with protesters calling for divestment.
He briefly summarized those meetings for regents at Friday’s meeting.
“The bottom line — antisemitism has no place on our campus, nor does Islamophobia,” Ettinger told the regents.
Ettinger’s interim tenure will end July 1 — but his successor, incoming President Rebecca Cunningham, was in attendance at Friday’s meeting.
Building renaming recommendation
Also at Friday’s meeting, the regents reviewed a recommendation by Ettinger to rename Nicholson Hall on the Twin Cities campus.
Nicholson Hall is named for Edward Nicholson (1873-1949), who was a chemistry instructor at the U and then dean of student affairs from 1917 to 1941. There was a previous, unsuccessful push to rename the building in 2019.
A new recommendation from a university committee to remove Nicholson’s name from the building states that he “deliberately subverted the University’s mission and guiding principles.”
“Nicholson repeatedly controlled and often suppressed the open exchange of ideas on campus that as Dean of Student Affairs he was obligated to protect,” the committee wrote, and “created a secret political surveillance system at the University and covertly shared information about students and faculty.”
Four present and former directors of the university’s Center for Jewish Studies — which is housed in Nicholson Hall — wrote that Nicholson’s “performance as the Dean of Student Affairs was distressingly interwoven during his tenure in the web of antisemitism and anti-democratic political repression in Minnesota and nationally. He brings no honor to the University of Minnesota.”
After reviewing Ettinger’s renaming recommendation on Friday, the regents are set to vote on it at their meeting in June. Several regents indicated they support the proposal.