Calls to halt California university investments in Israel continue. How would that work?
SACRAMENTO — Calls for universities to divest from Israel have become the chorus of protesters on California campuses, but is it even possible?
It's one of the demands by student protesters at Sacramento State.
"The universities that are complicit are investing and not just universities but businesses and so on, it's a terrible business decision", Cair spokesperson Omar Altamimi said.
California's UC and CSU systems both have issued statements reading they do not intend to alter existing investment policies related to Israel or the Israel-Hamas conflict.
The UC system has $23 billion and the Cal State system has $2.5 billion in its endowment fund investments.
Their portfolios are publicly available, and many assets in mutual funds with investments split into smaller individual stocks make it difficult to determine what portion of their investments do business in Israel.
Caleb Silver is the CEO of Investopedia. He pointed out that California's public universities and school retirement systems have elected to divest from economic areas in the recent past.
"We're talking about massive investments that have been going on for years and years," Silver said. "It makes a symbolic gesture for sure but it also removed your voice from the conversation as a shareholder."
In 2020, the UC system divested from fossil fuels. In 2007, CalPers and CalSters divested from Iran over its ties to funding terrorism. In 2006, the UC system divested from Sudan over the Darfur genocide.
Dillon Hosier works for the Israeli-American Civic Action Network. He said divestment by a public university would likely lead to swift lawsuits.
"Even if under the most unlikely of circumstances, if the state of California, that means the legislature and the Governor were to agree to that, it would be pre-empted by federal law, so it's really they're telling into the wind on this one," Hosier said.
Hosier points out that the federal government must grant states the right to prohibit state funds from investing in specific foreign countries.
Congress did that with Iran and Sudan. It has not granted the right to Israel.
