Before dawn on Nov. 6, the presidential race was called for Donald Trump, a billionaire who pledges to advance elite interests and expand corporate power in government. All day, the mood on campus was notably different than the day before. I saw numbness and despair among my peers, who worried about what the next four years would mean for our democracy. These reactions are understandable. They are human. But we cannot let them be permanent.  

I realized this later that day when I joined over 200 Yalies on Beinecke Plaza to rally in defense of democratic principles — not in Washington, but in New Haven. At the rally, the Sumud Coalition — formed this summer by Yalies4Palestine, Yale Jews for Ceasefire, the Endowment Justice Coalition and unaffiliated students — launched an undergraduate-wide referendum on disclosure of Yale’s investments in military weapons manufacturers and suppliers, divestment from those holdings and reinvestment in Palestinian studies and scholars amidst the scholasticide in Gaza. As we came together, we highlighted the lack of democracy in our own community. Sixteen Yale trustees obstinately stand in the way of implementing immensely popular student demands: for Yale to divest from war and genocide and instead fulfill its commitment to support global education. 

This dynamic is not new. In recent years, calls to democratize Yale’s board from students, faculty and alumni have intensified as successive student protest movements have made clear that the trustees are perilously out of touch with the community they purport to serve. It took nine years after Yale students voted overwhelmingly for divestment from fossil fuels for the board to implement “principles” guiding their fossil fuel investments. After alumni petitioned to put a climate expert on the board, the trustees scrapped the entire alumni petition process and refused to commit to any alternative democratic reforms –– even after Yale students voted overwhelmingly to democratize its selection process. Over sweeping broad dissent from students and faculty, the Corporation has continued to shield itself from a shred of accountability through protest crackdown policies and speech-stifling “institutional restraint.”

As the country braces for intensified attacks on democracy and repression of dissent, this referendum presents an opportunity to fight back against undemocratic and authoritarian trends on campus. Yale’s Board of Trustees and this country’s authoritarian politicians operate from the same playbook: they allow economic elites to direct our resources toward exploitation at home and abroad and then quash dissent when people speak out. The issues plaguing our university and our country are cut from the same cloth. Our billionaire-backed leaders are not representative of our interests, and we cannot let them win. We want our university to be a university — an institution guided by the cultivation of education and preservation of life, not the interests of Wall Street or partisan politicians.

Today, Yale only publicly discloses 0.3 percent of its $41 billion endowment, choosing instead to opaquely funnel its billions through large hedge funds and private equity firms. Yale’s favorite Wall Street firms prop up the military-industrial complex: long-time investment partner Farallon Capital owns nearly $200 million in Howmet Aerospace, which produces the “backbone” of Israeli F-35 fighter jets; and Insight Partners funds startups like Shift 5, a military venture that promotes their technology as able to “enhance lethality.” These investments have allowed the Israeli military to kill more than an estimated 186,000 Palestinians through direct and indirect deaths — including 11,500 students, 750 teachers and 75 university professors — and destroy 80 percent of schools and every single university in Gaza. Our ask to Yale has always been straightforward: commit to your motto of light and truth and your mission to “improve the world today and for future generations.” Disclose your investments in war, divest from death and reinvest in life. 

There is precedent for such an action. Nationally, politicians, CEOs and most public universities and organizations with a fraction of Yale’s endowment are legally required to disclose their investments. We should hold an institution that possesses more wealth than the GDP of 82 countries to the same standard, especially one that evades taxation by its community. In Yale’s history, as a response to student organizing like this referendum, the University divested from South African apartheid, many fossil fuel companies and assault-weapons retailers. However, in response to our requests for disclosure, divestment and reinvestment, Yale has operated in darkness, shutting its doors to discourse and arresting students for asking the University to abide by its own principles.  

Presidents on both Hillhouse and Pennsylvania avenues work to align institutions with the profit-minded values of the few. Every day, corporate polluters poison our environment, investors turn our universities into their hedge funds and small groups of powerful leaders put profits over people. But there is real, collective strength in our numbers. We can fight for a better future, fueled by everything we feel right now. We must unite against the darkness and fight for light and truth — in New Haven, Washington and all across America. Let us tell those in power: we will not go down without a fight. Democracy is not just at stake in federal elections. It is something we must practice each and every day. If 16 trustees cannot be responsible stewards of Yale’s mission, then we will hold them accountable and make clear that Yale must stop financing genocide. It is not radical to demand that our university choose books over bombs. 

Your vote in this referendum is not dependent on your race, class, religion, political affiliation or any identity you hold. Instead, I believe your vote is about the kind of world you want to create. It is about making sure our institutions, locally and nationally, are accountable to the will of the people. It is about investing in and practicing the principles of democracy at every level. It is a simple message to Yale’s 16 trustees: students want Yale to be a source of life, not a contributor to death. 

Learn more about the referendum and Yalies4Palestine’s Scholasticide campaign. Join our movement.

It is our Yale, and we refuse to let them be our bombs. 

JIMMY O’CONNELL is a first year in Timothy Dwight College. He can be reached at jimmy.oconnell@yale.edu.