Despite pro-BDS student vote, UVA official says school will not divest from Israel

Despite students and faculty demanding that it pull investments from companies that support Israel, the University of Virginia (UVA) announced it will not do so.

At a Board of Visitors meeting last week, Kristina Alimard, the chief operating officer of the UVA Investment Management Company, declared: “We are not divesting from any investments in response to the student referendum that was passed earlier this year.”

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“Our primary objective is to generate strong adjusted returns for the University of Virginia,” Alimard clarified. “We do not utilize divestment or negative screens for non-financial reasons.”

In response to a faculty representative’s objection to not divesting, CEO Robert Durden stated: “We do not like using our investment strategy as a means of expressing a moral, political opinion.”

As noted by The Daily Progress, over 8,000 students voted earlier this year on a measure concerning whether the university should divest funding from Israel, with more than two-thirds voting in the affirmative. The referendum accused the Jewish state of “systemic and violent practices that have led to the diminution of the rights of Palestinian people.”

[RELATED: Pro-Hamas student group sues U of Vermont over alleged free speech violations] 

On March 1, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares urged the Board of Visitors to reject students’ calls for divestment from the Jewish state, especially after Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attacks on Israel.

“The UVA referendum in question urges the University of Virginia and the University of Virginia Investment Management Company to participate in the international Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign,” Miyares wrote. “It is well-documented that the leaders and founders of the international BDS campaign believe in the destruction of Israel.”

“I await the same organizers at UVA who pushed the BDS referendum to place as much effort to condemn the rape, sexual assault of innocent Jewish women, and the murder of the innocent,” he continued. “Just like direct attacks from Hamas, BDS poses an existential threat to the Jewish state.”

Miyares concluded his letter by expressing his “earnest desire ... for the Board of Visitors to explicitly reject and definitively repudiate the misguided attempt by the UVA student body to undermine the legitimacy of Israel.”

While anti-Israel activists have blamed the university for supporting the Jewish state, others have taken issue with the school’s recent handling of campus anti-Semitism.

In May, a Jewish UVA student sued the university for failing to protect him from anti-Semitic discrimination, while noting that “pro-Hamas faculty members have offered extra credit and boosts in grades to students who attend anti-Israeli, antisemitic rallies.”

Campus Reform has contacted UVA for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.