Coalition Condemns UMass Foundation’s Refusal to Divest from War in Gaza

The UMass Divest Coalition announced on Thursday, November 8, that the UMass Foundation has failed to be transparent or democratic regarding its refusal to divest in Israel and the war in Gaza.

Despite the UN Commission of Inquiry’s finding that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and that countries and businesses must immediately cease all material support for Israel’s military assault on Gaza and the West Bank, the University of Massachusetts continues to invest much of its $1.5 billion endowment in corporations and banks profiting off the genocide.

In April 2025, a coalition of faculty from across the UMass System submitted a “Request for Review” to the “Socially Responsible Investment Advisory Committee” (SRIAC) of the UMass Foundation, the private entity managing UMass’s endowment. The Request provided three pages of evidence documenting UMass investments in corporations that support and profit off the Israeli genocide, and are complicit in the crushing of dissent here at home. Although SRIAC requires only 20 signatures to trigger an investigation, nearly 300 faculty, staff, and students from all four UMass campuses quickly signed the request, demonstrating strong agreement across the UMass community.

SRIAC responded to this show of concern with a brief, formulaic email stating that the committee had decided to “respectfully deny” the request. After UMass community members requested more information about this decision, the SRIAC representative repeatedly refused to share specifics about the process the committee undertook in performing its “investigation.” It seems that even as cities and towns across Massachusetts are working to untangle their investments in Israeli war crimes, the UMass Foundation refuses to even consider divestment. Its refusal implicates every member of the UMass community in violating international human rights law.

The coalition responded to the denial with the following statement.

“The University of Massachusetts’ Mission Statement pledges to “conduct groundbreaking research that improves our world,” and to “create social and economic impact that shapes and energizes communities. We are aghast and ashamed that University investments directly sabotage this mission and betray these promises. Genocide does not improve the world; war crimes do not energize communities. We decry the anti-democratic processes of the UMass Foundation and of SRIAC, and we call on everyone in the UMass community to join the struggle to seize shared governance of our institution (and its enormous resources) from the hands of the boards, chancellors, bankers, and corporations who currently control it, and to continue to fight for our University to divest from genocide and to respect the human rights of all.

The UMass Divest Coalition is a group of faculty, staff, and students from across the UMass System who are working to divest university holdings from Israel’s genocide of Palestine, and to demand a democratic investment and budgeting process for the UMass community. The Coalition can be contacted at umassdivest@proton.me

Read More:

The UMass Foundation is Complicit in Genocide (Massachusetts Daily Collegian)