Surrounded by hopelessness, Whitman Students for Justice in Palestine has always rooted divestment in our radical hope to disconnect our tuition dollars from genocide and inspire a broader movement to free Palestine from the chains of Western imperialism and veiled Manifest Destiny. Aware of our institution’s historical reluctance to divest or renounce legacies of colonialism, we have attempted to appease the Board of Trustees (BOT) and the broader Whitman community to pass even the most minute of our demands. Yet on Oct. 24, 2024, the Board of Trustees alerted us, not through their own channels but hiding behind Whitman’s Chief of Staff, that they would not be forming a committee to discuss the possibility of divestment. The demand to form a committee comprised of students, faculty and trustees represents the bare minimum of the bare minimum. Divestment, while an ethical imperative with significant material and symbolic impact, does not fundamentally reverse the legacies of imperialism or commit the college to decolonial or antiracist work. Divestment is the bare minimum we can do. 

Even as we limited our demand, asking not for divestment from all entities tied to Israel but from military companies and war profiteers more broadly, we were not taken seriously. Even as we avoided naming the violence that sparked this proposal, appealing to the Board’s white fragility, we were not taken seriously. Our proposal and subsequent demands for a committee on divestment were not considered because, unlike the BOT, we don’t understand relations through abstract terms. We refuse to limit our “radical” commitments towards diversity, equity and inclusion to performative acts, to relegate our disavowal of genocide to the bottom of an email or the beginning of a speech. We refuse to stand idly by while the college upholds the colonial legacy it is so desperate to distance itself from. We refuse to wait until this moment is a chapter in a history book to be critiqued in classes at this very school. 

Ultimately, there is something incommensurable governing the dynamics between students and Trustees. For us students, our lives have not so readily depended on the histories of capitalism and colonialism omnipresent at our institution. We are all complicit in genocide, but we will not continue allowing our lives to be tied to colonial and imperial practices. Our aspirations as students are not to rise to the top at the expense of others, but rather to strengthen our communities and challenge the institutions we are forced to act within. We are not interested in selling our souls to Microsoft, Amazon, Starbucks, the Boston Consulting Group, Eli Lilly and Company or any other number of companies complicit in genocide, colonialism, imperialism, corruption or dispossession. Therefore, the BOT does not represent us. Their vision of success makes our vision impossible to understand. Our vision of success renders theirs illegible. Our vision is predicated on community, solidarity and justice, principles incompatible with a narrowly capitalist logic. 

The BOT have consistently presented themselves as leaders fighting for justice and diversity. Yet their actions indicate otherwise. We can no longer allow the BOT to hide behind the values that we actually adhere to. Much like our college education, justice and diversity necessitate a willingness to work against the grain and put oneself in positions of discomfort. Yet the BOT has shown that they have an unwillingness to learn and unlearn even as we try to work with them on their terms. 

Now is the time to name the genocide. Now is the time to expand our demands, not let them slip away. If the Board of Trustees will not cooperate along their own terms, we will pressure them to cooperate under our terms. The BOT encapsulates neutrality in the face of violence and neglect for justice apparent across the world today. It is due time that we challenge the violence and neglect that sits in our own backyard. Incommensurability is our power and we must leverage it for the sake of a better world. 

Elle Palmer ’25, SJP President 

Owen Jakel ’25, SJP Treasurer 

Reagan Bain ’25, SJP Communications 

Ash Barcott ’25, SJP Education

Valentina Garcia-Charles ’27, SJP Secretary 

Mason Hardbarger ’27, SJP Events Manager 

Sophie Schonder ’25, SJP Art

Franko Omair ’25, ASWC Senator

Nadja Goldberg ’25, Kehillat-Shalom Co-President