Ellie Park, Multimedia Managing Editor

Voting on the Yale College Council’s divestment referendum begins today at 8 a.m. Students will have 96 hours to vote — until 8 a.m. on Sunday, Dec. 8. YCC leaders told the News that they plan to release the referendum results Sunday afternoon.

The referendum ballot includes three separate questions written by the pro-Palestine Sumud Coalition. The first two ask whether Yale should disclose and divest from its holdings in military weapons manufacturers, “including those arming Israel,” and the third asks whether Yale should “act on its commitment to education by investing in Palestinian scholars and students.”

For the referendum to pass, 50 percent or more of respondents must vote “yes,” and the total number of respondents who vote “yes” must amount to at least one third of the undergraduate student body or around 2,250 students. If the referendum passes, the YCC will send an official letter to University President Maurie McInnis “expressing the sentiments of the student body” and requesting a formal response.

The referendum also includes statements for and against the ballot measures. Students had the opportunity to submit arguments for either side, and the YCC created the official statements using these student submissions.

The “for” statement was authored entirely by the Sumud Coalition. Per YCC President Mimi Papathanasopoulos ’26 and Vice President Esha Garg ’26, the Sumud Coalition’s statement was the sole “for” statement submitted to the YCC.

YCC used an AI tool to synthesize student submissions against the referendum. Papathanasopoulos and Garg said that the author of each “against” submission had the opportunity to suggest revisions to the AI-generated statement.

The YCC chose not to fact-check claims made in the “for” or “against” statements.

The News explained the referendum measures and the two statements.

I. Disclosure

Currently, $3.5 million — or 0.008 percent — of Yale’s $41.4 billion endowment is publicly available through its quarterly SEC Form 13F filings. This amount can fluctuate each quarter based on what investments the University holds at a given time.

The rest of Yale’s endowment — just over 99.992 percent — is held in private companies and related organizations viewable through yearly IRS Form 990, Schedule R filings. Through these filings, Yale’s endowment money can be attributed to shares in private investment managers, but it is difficult to trace Yale’s dollars beyond this point.

Last spring, the University held shares in exchange-traded funds — or ETFs — that showed that at least $110,000 of the endowment’s money went to military weapons manufacturers. 

Per the University’s most recent SEC filings and an amendment filing to correct a reporting error, Yale still holds $812,008 in one of these ETFs, iShares Core S&P Total U.S. Stock Market ETF. According to Morningstar, 3.25 percent of the ETF’s portfolio is invested in military contracting. This means about $26,400 of Yale’s publicly available holdings is currently exposed to military weapons manufacturers. 

The News was unable to independently verify whether Morningstar’s definition of military contracting includes companies other than weapons manufacturers.

While part of Yale’s holdings are indirectly held in military weapons manufacturers, the University’s SEC filings show that Yale does not hold direct shares in these manufacturers.The “for” statement argues that “students deserve to know how much our education is funded by investments that kill.” The “against” statement says that “transparency demands must be balanced with maintaining competitive investment strategies.”

The University spokesperson previously explained that Yale does not disclose its investments for a variety of reasons, including contractual obligations and strategic benefits to nondisclosure.

“Yale’s investment partners are among the best in the world, and sharing those relationships would likely increase competition for access to those managers,” the spokesperson wrote to the News. “This would ultimately impact the Endowment’s ability to support our financial aid, extraordinary teaching, and state of the art research.”

In the ballot question on disclosure, the Sumud Coalition also pointed to Yale’s 2021 disclosure of a dollar estimate of its total investments in fossil fuel companies as precedent. This disclosure came as part of the University’s implementation of a new set of fossil fuel investment principles.

However, Marcella Rooney, head of business affairs and administration at the Yale Investments Office, previously wrote to the News that this disclosure is not standard practice for the office.

“The fossil fuels estimate was an exception to our long-held policy not to disclose endowment investments given Yale’s broader efforts on climate change,” Rooney wrote.

II. Divestment 

A. International law

In its “for” statement, the Sumud Coalition argued that “the Israeli government has violated international law and committed human rights offenses” and that Yale should divest from companies “who make weapons used for war crimes.”

On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200. In retaliation, Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza that has since killed over 44,000 Palestinians. In the past year, international bodies such as the United Nations have said Israel’s actions in Gaza are “consistent with genocide” and constitute war crimes. The Israeli government has denied these accusations.

B. Arming foreign states

The “against” statement argued that military weapons are “essential for the defense of democracies under threat,” listing Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel as examples of states that are reliant on U.S. defense manufacturers in their efforts to resist authoritarianism. The statement argued that Yale has a “role in preserving global democratic stability” and should remain invested in military weapons manufacturers. 

In spring 2024, Yale held shares of two ETFs that exposed its money to companies such as Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Bharat Electronics, among others. As of June, Yale no longer holds shares in one of these ETFs, Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets.

Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel all use weapons produced by Boeing, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. 

Some of the military weapons manufacturers in which Yale formerly held indirect investments do not contract solely with democratic states. For example, Boeing has provided fighter jets and other military defense products to the authoritarian Saudi Arabian government since 1978.

In another instance, the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund excluded Bharat Electronics from its portfolio due to the “unacceptable risk” that the company was selling weapons to the military dictatorship in Myanmar, which the fund said breached international law.

C. Assault weapons precedent

The “for” statement also pointed to Yale’s previous divestment from assault weapons retailers, arguing that just as “‘good guys with guns’ do not make the mass sale of AR-15s acceptable,” so too do military weapons manufacturers arming ‘good states’ “not excuse persistent sales to states violating international law.”

In 2018, the Yale Corporation Committee on Investor Responsibility adopted a policy prohibiting investment in assault weapons retailers. In a statement announcing the policy, the CCIR wrote that these retailers “cause grave social injury,” thus meeting Yale’s standard for divestment in its ethical investment framework. The statement also highlighted that divestment from assault weapons was “of particular relevance to Yale as an institution of higher education” due to the large number of school shootings that occur.

In April, Yale expanded this policy to disqualify assault weapons manufacturers that retail to the general public. The CCIR drew a distinction between assault weapons manufacturers and military weapons manufacturers, concluding that the latter group “supports socially necessary uses, such as law enforcement and national security” and does not meet the threshold of grave social injury.

D. Legal risks

The “against” statement also argued that divestment from military weapons manufacturers “carries significant legal and financial risks,” pointing to anti-boycott laws that may lead to state governments “cutting off hundreds of millions of dollars in funding and jeopardizing state-university partnerships.” The statement also said that “past instances of similar proposals were legally contested” but did not offer examples.

Currently, 38 U.S. states have adopted laws prohibiting government actors from contracting with or investing in entities that boycott Israel. Connecticut does not have similar anti-boycott legislation. 

In August, ahead of a vote by the Corporation of Brown University on whether to divest from 10 companies with ties to Israel, 24 Republican state attorneys general wrote a letter to Brown University officials threatening to enforce these anti-boycott laws and prevent their respective states from doing business with Brown.

The YCC divestment referendum differs from the Brown student divestment proposal in that divestment from military weapons manufacturers would not apply solely to those that contract with Israel. It is unclear if Yale’s divestment from these manufacturers would trigger similar legal threats. 

Yale has signed institutional agreements with some public universities such as Morgan State University and North Carolina A&T State University, both of which are located in states with anti-boycott legislation relating to Israel. It is not immediately clear how these partnerships could be affected by divestment. 

E. Endowment risks

Both the “for” and “against” statements made arguments in relation to the endowment and Yale’s ability to carry out its mission. The “for” statement posits that divestment and disclosure “will not undermine Yale’s ability to educate or provide financial aid” and that “previous divestment decisions have never troubled Yale’s revenue or budget.” The “against” statement argues that divestment would have a “negative impact on Yale’s ability to fulfill its mission.”

It is unclear whether divestment and disclosure have a quantifiable impact on Yale’s endowment size or yearly returns. 

Yale’s endowment has increased in size every year since 2008, including in years when the University divested from companies such as assault weapons retailers and fossil fuel producers. The endowment’s return rates have fluctuated from year to year.

Following Yale’s 2018 divestment from assault weapons retailers and private prisons, the endowment grew to a total value of $29.4 billion, with a return rate of 12.3 percent, up from the year before. The endowment return rate that year placed Yale fourth in the Ivy League, with Princeton University placing first at a return of 14.2 percent and Columbia University placing last with a 9 percent return. Neither Princeton nor Columbia adopted divestment policies in 2018. 

In 2021, after the University implemented a new set of fossil fuel investment principles and accordingly divested from dozens of companies that violated these principles, the endowment increased in value to $42.3 billion, with a record return rate of 40.2 percent. The return placed Yale sixth in the Ivy League, with Brown University leading at 52 percent and Columbia trailing at 32 percent.

III. Investment in Palestinian studies

The “for” statement points out that Yale has “neither a Palestinian studies program nor relationships with Palestinian universities,” arguing that Yale should invest in Palestinian “stories, histories and scholarship.”

While Yale offers classes in Modern Middle East Studies, the University does not have a specific program on Palestinian studies. 

Recently, Yalies4Palestine launched a campaign for Yale to invest in Palestine studies initiatives and relationships with Palestinian universities and scholars. University Provost Scott Strobel has previously stated that initiatives similar to some of the campaign’s proposals are already “being carried out across the campus.” 

He pointed to examples such as Yale’s Scholars at Risk program accepting two scholars from Gaza last spring and Yale’s founding role in Research4Life, which provides academic resources to scholars in conflict regions. 

The Sumud Coalition’s statement says that it calls for “reinvestment” because “Yale’s stated mission is improving the world through education and preservation.”

The “against” statement does not reference the third ballot question on Palestinian scholarship and only focuses on disclosure and divestment.

The YCC was established in 1972.

Correction, Dec. 4: This article has been corrected to reflect the total amount of Yale’s investments that are publicly traceable through both SEC filings and corrections to these filings. A previous version of the article only counted investments listed in a filing correction, which excluded Yale’s investments in an ETF that exposed its money to military weapons manufacturing.