Christina Lee, Head Photography Editor

For the first time, students advocating for Yale to disclose and divest from military weapons manufacturers met with a member of the Yale Corporation, one of the main demands from the two encampments and mass student protests in the spring 2024 semester.

Three students representing the new pro-divestment Sumud Coalition met with a Yale Corporation trustee on Saturday afternoon. At the meeting, students presented a proposal for the University to disclose a “precise estimate” of the percentage and dollar amount of Yale’s endowment that is invested in military weapons manufacturers and suppliers. Students also requested an explanation of how the estimate was calculated. 

According to Sumud Coalition representatives, the trustee did not commit to the terms of the proposal. 

The meeting happened as trustees convened for their first in-person meeting of the academic year. News was unable to confirm which trustee met with the students. Both a University spokesperson and the student attendees declined to reveal the identity of the trustee.

The meeting was scheduled as a result of ongoing communication between Yale administrators and student organizers that started during the pro-divestment encampments in the spring semester and stretched across the summer, according to the student attendees. 

The Sumud Coalition is composed of members from Yalies4Palestine, Yale Jews for Ceasefire and the Yale Endowment Justice Collective. One member of each group attended Saturday’s meeting as representatives of the coalition.

“What distinguished this opportunity from what was offered last spring is that activists were not required to make concessions before approaching the negotiating table,” Nadine Cubeisy ’25, who attended the meeting on behalf of Yalies4Palestine, stated in a press release from the Sumud Coalition.

During both encampments last semester, University administrators offered protest organizers a meeting with two Corporation trustees on the condition that students decamp. During the second encampment, Yale College Dean Pericles Lewis specified that a potential meeting would include Catharine Bond Hill GRD ’85, then-trustee and former chair of the Corporation Committee on Investor Responsibility, which recommends investment policy to the full Yale Corporation. Encampment organizers rejected the offer both times, and the first encampment concluded with 48 arrests.

The Sumud Coalition is a continuation of pro-Palestine Occupy Beinecke and Occupy Yale, groups that pitched encampments on Yale’s campus in April to demand the University’s disclosure of and divestment from military weapons manufacturing. 

The first encampment began two nights after the University announced that it would not divest from military weapons manufacturers. During Saturday’s meeting, students focused on disclosure in their proposal but vocally re-emphasized divestment as one of their “core demands,” per the Sumud Coalition’s press release.

“Trustees often meet with students as part of their regular meetings and visits to campus. In that spirit, one trustee agreed to meet with some leaders of EJC while in town for a Board meeting,” a University spokesperson wrote in an email to the News. “It was agreed it would be a private meeting.”

When asked by the News, the spokesperson declined to explain why the University only mentioned EJC in its statement even though the student attendees represented three separate groups within the Sumud Coalition.

This weekend, corporation members were in New Haven for their first meeting of the academic year. 

This Corporation meeting was the first for Felicia Norwood LAW ’89, who was victorious in the alumni fellow election this summer. During the election, EJC publicly criticized Norwood’s opponent, David Millstone ’99, over his donations to right-wing politicians, the Tikvah Fund and startup companies that produce drones.

Exiting the meeting, Norwood told the News that it was a “great first meeting” for her in which the trustees discussed “all the things we care about, about Yale.”

The trustee met with the Sumud Coalition on Saturday afternoon, hours after the board’s full meeting that morning and when other trustees had already left New Haven. Michael Cavanagh ’88, Maryana Iskander LAW ’03, Ann Miura-Ko ’98 and Norwood said they were leaving New Haven directly from the meeting.

Within the publicly disclosed 0.3 percent of Yale’s  $40.7 billion endowment, there is evidence that the University invested more than $110,000 in military weapons manufacturers as of February. The News could not determine the full extent of such investments within Yale’s private holdings. 

The University spokesperson and other administrators have previously written to the News that the University does not disclose its investments due to “contractual obligations” that bar disclosure as well as the strategic advantages that non-disclosure offers.

“The Board member expressed interest in a continued dialogue, but they were unwilling to commit to a second meeting to discuss the feasibility of our proposal for disclosure,” Naina Agrawal-Hardin ’25, who represented the EJC at the meeting, stated in the Sumud Coalition’s press release. 

In addition to Cubeisy and Agrawal-Hardin, Adam Nussbaum ’25 represented Jews for Ceasefire at the meeting.

According to the coalition’s press release, the Corporation refused several terms the students suggested, including that the entire board be present, that the meeting be recorded or that notes be made publicly available and that more students including those previously arrested be able to attend. The press release also stated that details such as the identity of the trustee and the specific topic of discussion were provided only hours before the meeting.

The University spokesperson did not comment on any terms the Corporation set for the meeting.

The coalition’s proposal states that “Yale should provide a precise estimate of the % and dollar amount of Yale’s endowment that is invested in military weapons manufacturers and suppliers, with a breakdown of how the calculation was completed (asset manager names can be redacted if legally required).” 

The proposal cites the 2021 precedent: then, the Yale Investments Office estimated that 2.6 percent of the endowment, or roughly $800 million at the time, was invested in fossil fuels. Subsequently, the CCIR implemented investment principles that deemed fossil fuel companies that generate high emissions intensity, such as ExxonMobil and Chevron, ineligible for investment by the Yale endowment. 

Members of the Yale community can request a meeting with the trustees when they are on campus through the Corporation’s website. According to the form, “Trustees are particularly interested in meeting with groups of faculty, students, and staff with whom they do not already have regularly scheduled contact or on issues that do not have well-defined methods of communication.”

The Yale Corporation will meet four more times during the 2024-25 academic year.

Ariela Lopez contributed reporting.