Chapman University trustee: ‘We have a fiduciary responsibility to preserve and grow the endowment, which directly supports the mission of the university.’
American universities are largely rejecting demands to divest from Israel and entities at all linked to the Jewish state, delivering further blows to the pro-Hamas protest movement, which students and faculty pushed with dozens of illegal demonstrations to coerce officials into enacting the policy.
“We have a fiduciary responsibility to preserve and grow the endowment, which directly supports the mission of the university,” Chapman University trustee Jim Burra said in a statement issued on Wednesday. “It is important that we make financial decisions based on risk and return.”
Late last month, the University of Minnesota provided similar reasons for not divesting from Israel, citing “fiduciary duty” and the extent to which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict polarizes the campus community. However, the university adopted a new policy for its investments, a so-called “position of neutrality” which insulates official business from the daily caprices of political opinion.
