Michigan State University trustees temporarily evacuated their meeting in Flint after a protest calling for the university to divest funds erupted.
MSU President Kevin Guskiewicz said university officials left the meeting in order to continue the meeting in a timely manner, not for safety reasons.
"We clearly want to allow people in the room to express themselves freely, but there's a time limit by which we needed to get our work completed," Guskiewicz said. "We decided, after talking with the group, that they were willing to allow us to proceed in a civil way, in a respectful way, so I was pleased that they did that."
Students with the Hurriya Coalition started chanting as trustee Sandy Pierce, who chairs the finance committee, began discussion of the committee’s highly-anticipated review of the university’s financial portfolio.
"The board is satisfied with the portfolio and it aligns with our policies,” Pierce said.
After beginning to read a prewritten statement addressing concerns over investments activists say is funding the Israel-Hamas war, a dozen attendees stood up.
“The Board of Trustees is out of line with their own policies,” shouted student organizer Jesse Estrada White.
Over a dozen attended repeated after him, some holding signs and banners.
As Estrada White read a portion of a university policy that states investments should “exhibit social conscience,” trustees and university officials began to file out of the room into an undisclosed location.
Trustees Rema Vassar, Dennis Denno and Kelly Tebay remained, saying they expected the meeting to continue.
The protesters continued chanting in a nearby hallway, leaving on their own accord to the hallway. The sound was muted for those on Zoom when the protest began and the camera in the Board meeting was cut and replaced with a sign stating "The MSU Board of Trustees meeting will begin momentarily."
The Zoom chat had a message from MSU IT, stating "there is crowd noise" and that they would "unmute when approved" by board secretary Stefan Fletcher.
After some talk of potentially continuing the meeting virtually, trustees eventually returned to the room after a 15-minute break and resumed the meeting without interruption.
“We recognize the pain and the loss and trauma that people on all sides have experienced,” Pierce said when they returned, referring to the Israel-Hamas war. She said the university tried to be cognizant of differing viewpoints and committed to another meeting with student activists.
As of June 30, 2023, MSU has $218.1 million invested in three BlackRock funds: BlackRock Emerging Companies, BlackRock Strategic and BlackRock Systematic China Absolute Return, according to the MSU list of investments.
Advocates for divestment argue that those investments, alongside an additional $363.8 million invested in BNY Mellon, are funding weapons manufacturers involved in the Israel-Hamas war.
Additionally, MSU has $236,114 invested in Israeli aid as well as $479,006 invested in weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin.
MSU spokesperson Mark Bullion said that while MSU does own U.S. treasury bonds that were issued to fund Israeli aid, "the university purchased these bonds in March 2023, well before the current conflict."
But even if MSU did decide to pull out of the Israeli bond, doing so would be "chaotic," Assistant Vice President of Financial Management Jeff Rayis told The State News in February.
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"There's a lot of misunderstanding about investments," President Kevin Guskiewicz told reporters after the meeting.
Financial experts say the complex web of outside asset managers and contractually-bound investments put the university in a bind — without much control over its own endowment.
Guskiewicz said he'd promised to hold another meeting with students to discuss their concerns, and stressed that activism is important.
The board said in April that trustees would not consider divestment. Guskiewicz said at the time the university is "doing everything to protect the endowment and our financial investments from any political influence."
Both the undergraduate and graduate student governments have passed resolutions calling for divestment in recent months. In April, 90 faculty members signed an open letter calling for divestment and criticizing an earlier Faculty Senate decision not to pass a divestment resolution.
Activists continued their calls for divestment during public comment at the end of the meeting, with nearly a dozen community members addressing the board on the subject.
A Palestinian woman, who did not identify herself, told the board about her experience fleeing Gaza. Student activist Saba Saed translated from Arabic to English.
The woman said that her 14 year old daughter had been killed in Israel's bombardment of the region. Another daughter had been shot in the arm.
The family got treatment at Gaza's Al-Shifa hospital, which was being continually raided by Israeli forces and has since been destroyed, the woman said. They had to treat her daughter's wounds without anesthesia due to limited supplies. They eventually made it to Egypt, then traveled to the United States.
The woman said they received better medical treatment in the United States, which she felt was ironic.
"But I often ask myself, how is it that the same country that's bombing us is the same that's treating us?" Saed translated.
Guskiewicz and board chair Dan Kelly told reporters after the meeting they found the woman's story powerful.
"I think we've heard similar stories on the news, coming out of Gaza, and to see it in person makes it a little bit more dramatic," Kelly said. "It's terrible, what's going on there."
