Read our statements of endorsement
The call for divestment has gotten a wide range of support from groups and individuals in the US and around the world. We've taken excerpts from the full letters, which you can read by clicking on the links below.
The Right to Education Campaign - Birzeit University:
"As students prone to the violation of our human rights on a daily basis, we grant our unconditional support for SOOP’s call for divestment in Stanford University. Such a call will increase pressure on the Israeli occupation to halt its prejudiced and inhumane treatment of Palestinians. This will inevitably aid Palestinians in their struggle for justice on the basis of international human rights and dignity for all persons regardless of race, ethnicity, or creed. For Israel to end its criminal violations of human rights, divestment from companies that perpetuate its occupation and explicit abuse of human rights abuses should materialize.This call emphasizes the importance of human rights and basic liberties that people all over the world should be able to exercise, and a prized academic institution like Stanford should do its best to partake in this call."
The Palestinian Youth Movement - US Chapter:
"On Tuesday evening, your campus will take a historic vote to decide whether you stand with justice and against occupation. The divestment resolution calls for an end to institutional investments in companies that are profiting from and/or contributing to the Israeli occupation in Palestine and continued dispossession of the Palestinian people. This resolution offers your campus community an opportunity to join countless other civil society actors, unions, and institutions around the world in proactively supporting the Palestinian right to dignity, freedom and selfdetermination. We, the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), strongly support the divestment resolution brought forth at Stanford University and commend all the student efforts which have brought us to this historic juncture...We invite you to join the growing effort to make history, produce transformative change and end your own profit and complicity in the occupation and suffering of another people."
Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors:
"I offer my wholehearted support to students at Stanford University as you vote to divest from multinational corporations that profit from the Occupation of Palestine. This is incredibly important work not only for the liberation of Palestinians, but towards justice for oppressed people around the world who have suffered similar histories of dispossession, discrimination, and dehumanization. Divestment is an action that everyday people of conscience around the world can take to show that we have not abandoned Palestinians, and that cannot ignore their condition regardless of how much the global power structures that represent us have. It as a tactic that we can use - and have used throughout history - as people committed to struggling against injustice. Today Stanford has the opportunity to shift away from an oppressive status quo and I urge you to follow through with your historical imperative."
Boycott from Within!:
"We are citizens of Israel, who oppose our government's policies of racism, occupation and apartheid against the Palestinian people. We express our support for all efforts to divest from the Israeli occupation, for all the reasons mentioned therein, and for the travesties of justice we witness with our own eyes on a daily basis, as local activists.We ask that Stanford University students, faculty and administration support the resolution to divestment from companies complicit in the severe violation of Palestinian human rights."
Friends of Sabeel - North America:
"Friends of Sabeel North America, a Christian ecumenical organization seeking justice and peace in the Holy Land through nonviolence and education, applauds the efforts of Stanford Out of Occupied Palestine (SOOP) for calling on The Undergraduate Senate of the Associated Students of Stanford University to urge Stanford to divest from holdings in companies that profit from Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. Stanford University Trustees, faculty and students should be proud of its history of ethical divestment from companies that have participated in oppression, apartheid, or harm to the environment, as outlined on [SOOP's] website."
Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions:
"As the head of an Israeli peace and human rights organization, The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), I would like to add our voice in support of your efforts at Stanford University to divest from companies that profit from the Israeli Occupation and facilitate human rights violations in Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territories...After almost a half century of diplomatic and grassroots efforts aimed at inducing Israel to end its Occupation while watching it grow ever stronger, more permanent and increasingly violent and repressive, we believe the time is long overdue for people the world over to tell Israel in no uncertain terms that it cannot be expect to be a part of the international community as long as it violates human rights, international law and dozens of UN resolutions with impunity."
Jewish Voice for Peace (National):
"Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) supports the coalition of Stanford Out of Occupied Palestine in their campaign for divestment of university funds from multinational corporations perpetrating human rights violations in Israel and Palestine and globally...Complicity in human rights violations tarnishes Stanford University's good name, and the student body and administration has an obligation to stand up both on local issues and global ones. Divestment creates a safer environment for Palestinian students, and strives towards social justice and peace in Israel and Palestine."
Jewish Voice for Peace - UCLA:
"Voting for divestment is neither an attack on a particular community, nor an endorsement of a particular political solution. Rather, removing the university’s financial support from companies that profit from and help sustain the Occupation of Palestinian Territory allows Stanford to hold a more neutral position. As students, how can we allow ourselves to profit off of the oppression of the communities of our fellow classmates? We call on Stanford to join UCLA in passing the divestment resolution and sending a message to the university that students should not have to choose between going to school and funding companies that abuse their communities back home."
Tarabut-Hithabrut -The Arab-Jewish Movement for Social & Political Change:
"As Israeli citizens, we are well aware of the involvement of companies such as Combined Tactical Systems, G4S, and Lockheed Martin in the occupation: we have inhaled tear gas used by the IDF to disperse non-violent protests, we have been detained at the army’s checkpoints, and we have witnessed and protested the destruction caused by the repeated use of missiles against civilian targets. American citizens must end their complicity with these human rights violations."
Robin D. G. Kelley - Gary B. Nash Professor of American History, UCLA:
"I know something about the value of divestment as a non-violent strategy for social justice. Thirty years ago, as a graduate student, president of UCLA’s African Activist Association, and chair of the Los Angeles Ad Hoc Committee to Keep South Africa Out of the Olympics, I added my voice to the movement calling on the University of California to divest its holdings from apartheid South Africa. This was my generation’s “Boycott, Sanctions, Divestment” moment, and many of us put our bodies on the line building makeshift shanty towns on campus and sitting in at the South African Consulate in Beverly Hills. The movement was not popular at first, but we educated our community, built momentum, and by the summer of 1986 succeeded in persuading the U.C. Regents to divest its $3.1 billion worth of holdings from South Africa and Namibia...The South African experience proves that peace and reconciliation is possible, but will remain elusive without justice, nor will it be achieved as long as we continue to financially support a regime that violates international law with impunity. The occupation is illegal, it perpetuates more than a half century of dispossession, it does not serve the interests of the majority of Israeli citizens, and it is costing American citizens some three billion dollars a year. Stanford University, a world leader in higher education, should not profit from occupation and dispossession. Divest Now!"
"As students prone to the violation of our human rights on a daily basis, we grant our unconditional support for SOOP’s call for divestment in Stanford University. Such a call will increase pressure on the Israeli occupation to halt its prejudiced and inhumane treatment of Palestinians. This will inevitably aid Palestinians in their struggle for justice on the basis of international human rights and dignity for all persons regardless of race, ethnicity, or creed. For Israel to end its criminal violations of human rights, divestment from companies that perpetuate its occupation and explicit abuse of human rights abuses should materialize.This call emphasizes the importance of human rights and basic liberties that people all over the world should be able to exercise, and a prized academic institution like Stanford should do its best to partake in this call."
The Palestinian Youth Movement - US Chapter:
"On Tuesday evening, your campus will take a historic vote to decide whether you stand with justice and against occupation. The divestment resolution calls for an end to institutional investments in companies that are profiting from and/or contributing to the Israeli occupation in Palestine and continued dispossession of the Palestinian people. This resolution offers your campus community an opportunity to join countless other civil society actors, unions, and institutions around the world in proactively supporting the Palestinian right to dignity, freedom and selfdetermination. We, the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), strongly support the divestment resolution brought forth at Stanford University and commend all the student efforts which have brought us to this historic juncture...We invite you to join the growing effort to make history, produce transformative change and end your own profit and complicity in the occupation and suffering of another people."
Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors:
"I offer my wholehearted support to students at Stanford University as you vote to divest from multinational corporations that profit from the Occupation of Palestine. This is incredibly important work not only for the liberation of Palestinians, but towards justice for oppressed people around the world who have suffered similar histories of dispossession, discrimination, and dehumanization. Divestment is an action that everyday people of conscience around the world can take to show that we have not abandoned Palestinians, and that cannot ignore their condition regardless of how much the global power structures that represent us have. It as a tactic that we can use - and have used throughout history - as people committed to struggling against injustice. Today Stanford has the opportunity to shift away from an oppressive status quo and I urge you to follow through with your historical imperative."
Boycott from Within!:
"We are citizens of Israel, who oppose our government's policies of racism, occupation and apartheid against the Palestinian people. We express our support for all efforts to divest from the Israeli occupation, for all the reasons mentioned therein, and for the travesties of justice we witness with our own eyes on a daily basis, as local activists.We ask that Stanford University students, faculty and administration support the resolution to divestment from companies complicit in the severe violation of Palestinian human rights."
Friends of Sabeel - North America:
"Friends of Sabeel North America, a Christian ecumenical organization seeking justice and peace in the Holy Land through nonviolence and education, applauds the efforts of Stanford Out of Occupied Palestine (SOOP) for calling on The Undergraduate Senate of the Associated Students of Stanford University to urge Stanford to divest from holdings in companies that profit from Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. Stanford University Trustees, faculty and students should be proud of its history of ethical divestment from companies that have participated in oppression, apartheid, or harm to the environment, as outlined on [SOOP's] website."
Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions:
"As the head of an Israeli peace and human rights organization, The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), I would like to add our voice in support of your efforts at Stanford University to divest from companies that profit from the Israeli Occupation and facilitate human rights violations in Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territories...After almost a half century of diplomatic and grassroots efforts aimed at inducing Israel to end its Occupation while watching it grow ever stronger, more permanent and increasingly violent and repressive, we believe the time is long overdue for people the world over to tell Israel in no uncertain terms that it cannot be expect to be a part of the international community as long as it violates human rights, international law and dozens of UN resolutions with impunity."
Jewish Voice for Peace (National):
"Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) supports the coalition of Stanford Out of Occupied Palestine in their campaign for divestment of university funds from multinational corporations perpetrating human rights violations in Israel and Palestine and globally...Complicity in human rights violations tarnishes Stanford University's good name, and the student body and administration has an obligation to stand up both on local issues and global ones. Divestment creates a safer environment for Palestinian students, and strives towards social justice and peace in Israel and Palestine."
Jewish Voice for Peace - UCLA:
"Voting for divestment is neither an attack on a particular community, nor an endorsement of a particular political solution. Rather, removing the university’s financial support from companies that profit from and help sustain the Occupation of Palestinian Territory allows Stanford to hold a more neutral position. As students, how can we allow ourselves to profit off of the oppression of the communities of our fellow classmates? We call on Stanford to join UCLA in passing the divestment resolution and sending a message to the university that students should not have to choose between going to school and funding companies that abuse their communities back home."
Tarabut-Hithabrut -The Arab-Jewish Movement for Social & Political Change:
"As Israeli citizens, we are well aware of the involvement of companies such as Combined Tactical Systems, G4S, and Lockheed Martin in the occupation: we have inhaled tear gas used by the IDF to disperse non-violent protests, we have been detained at the army’s checkpoints, and we have witnessed and protested the destruction caused by the repeated use of missiles against civilian targets. American citizens must end their complicity with these human rights violations."
Robin D. G. Kelley - Gary B. Nash Professor of American History, UCLA:
"I know something about the value of divestment as a non-violent strategy for social justice. Thirty years ago, as a graduate student, president of UCLA’s African Activist Association, and chair of the Los Angeles Ad Hoc Committee to Keep South Africa Out of the Olympics, I added my voice to the movement calling on the University of California to divest its holdings from apartheid South Africa. This was my generation’s “Boycott, Sanctions, Divestment” moment, and many of us put our bodies on the line building makeshift shanty towns on campus and sitting in at the South African Consulate in Beverly Hills. The movement was not popular at first, but we educated our community, built momentum, and by the summer of 1986 succeeded in persuading the U.C. Regents to divest its $3.1 billion worth of holdings from South Africa and Namibia...The South African experience proves that peace and reconciliation is possible, but will remain elusive without justice, nor will it be achieved as long as we continue to financially support a regime that violates international law with impunity. The occupation is illegal, it perpetuates more than a half century of dispossession, it does not serve the interests of the majority of Israeli citizens, and it is costing American citizens some three billion dollars a year. Stanford University, a world leader in higher education, should not profit from occupation and dispossession. Divest Now!"