On Aug. 14, the Oberlin Board of Trustees put out a statement in Campus Digest formally denying the proposal to divest from Israel. The proposal, which garnered support from students, faculty and staff, alumni, and parents, was submitted in April of this year by students urging Oberlin to divest from and refuse complicity in Israel’s occupation of Palestine and genocidal campaign against Palestinians.
In the explanation written by the Board and President Carmen Twillie Ambar presenting the reasoning behind their inhumane decision, they stated that “many in our community support divestment, and many oppose it.” This amorphous evocation of community sentiment is not an unfamiliar talking point for the Board, as demonstrated by their usage of similar language in 2015 when they denied the previous proposal for divestment from Israel. We must interrogate the Board’s metric of community support. Alongside the proposal for divestment were submissions of endorsement of divestment, including a letter from alumni with 1,200 signatures, an open letter from Oberlin’s Jewish students with 160 signatures, testimony and letters from faculty from a range of departments, an open letter from Oberlin’s Black students and alumni, letters from parents, and a referendum conducted by Students for a Free Palestine in which 94 percent of 1,630 students respondents supported divestment. If that does not exhibit community support for divestment, what does?
Community is a word the College profits off of, not a group of people they answer to. The College’s disregard for community sentiment in its divestment vote — and the shirking of Oberlin’s accountability to a larger global community — is emblematic of a greater pattern of prioritizing fiduciary responsibilities over all else. This is evident in Oberlin College’s track record over just the past few years, including its move to outsource 108 dining and custodial workers at the start of the pandemic, the Board’s decision to overturn the Finney Compact and disenfranchise Oberlin’s professors and faculty, the College’s antagonism towards the Oberlin Student Cooperative Association, and their devaluing and targeting of town residents.
An example of the latter is the Trespass Policy, a no trespass list kept by the College. Although the details are murky, this list prohibits certain members of the town who “pose a safety risk, including but not limited to having committed or committing a violation of Oberlin College policy or of local, state, or federal law” from stepping foot on College grounds — a large portion of the town. This is on top of the College’s continued buying of town property, such as residential homes for Village Housing, to expand its scope, and the College’s exemption from paying City property taxes, which prevents that money from going back into the community. Oberlin College is the largest employer in the City of Oberlin. The administration has strategically established a financial and social monopoly on the Oberlin community.
The Board’s modus operandi of sowing division among our community was further exemplified in its weaponization of financial aid in its decision not to divest. Divestment and financial accessibility for low-income students is not a zero-sum game, and we see through the Board’s attempts to conflate decisive action against the genocide in Gaza with a call to reduce the availability of financial aid.
We acknowledge that these issues are not unique to Oberlin. Private colleges and universities across the country operate against the interests of the students who pay them hundreds of thousands of dollars to be there. These institutions negatively affect their towns’ economies and rely on models that put profit over people. However, more than many of these other schools, Oberlin has worked overtime to veil these motives by citing its radical history and publicly fawning over the student activism that they privately suppress.
Furthermore, the Board of Trustees and administration have a warped view of what it means to “critically engage” with something, whether it be its own community or its responsibility to condemn injustice. In the Board’s explanation of the vote, they expressed that accepting the divestment proposal would lead to “disengagement” from and “restricting [of] critical discourse.” President Ambar and Board of Trustees Chair Chris Canavan, OC ’84, have long since disengaged with Oberlin’s now empty progressive mission. What is engagement and critical discourse if it does not lead to action? Is Oberlin’s performance of engagement more important than human life?
Regardless, we should not be looking to a hedge fund manager and someone who earns upwards of $500,000 a year as beacons of progressivism.
At Oberlin, we learn from each other — not because of, but in spite of Oberlin’s administration. In our classrooms and conversations with one another, we gain knowledge that equips and deepens our commitment to justice and decolonization, in Palestine and beyond. At the People’s College in Wilder Bowl last spring, we shared expertise and skills through dozens of teach-ins that strengthened our community and advocacy. We thank our wonderful professors who stay here to teach us, despite the College’s mistreatment. We thank our beloved professors who have had to leave Oberlin for that reason, and for all they shared with us when they were here.
We are no longer interested in “dialogue” with an administration and Board that has shown us time and time again that they do not value our humanity. We are not interested in “critical discourse” with rooms of people who do not value the humanity of Palestinians enough to say the word “Palestine.” We are not interested in concepts of engagement and disengagement which necessitate complacency in the face of injustice. We are not blind to the contradiction between the Board stressing community consent in their divestment decision and their history of prioritizing profit over the people of our community. We refuse to align ourselves with a chair of the Board and president who can openly acknowledge the extent of the violence in Gaza, and in the same breath, deny their responsibility to do anything about it.
