College and University Monitor

Columbia College Student Council voted in favor of holding a campus-wide referendum over divesting from Israeli companies.

Elected student representatives voted on Sunday evening by secret ballot by a vote of 25 to 12 to hold the referendum on whether the university should divest “from companies that profit from or engage in the State of Israel’s inhumane acts against Palestinians,” the campus student newspaper the Columbia Spectator reported.

The vote will be scheduled in the coming months.

It is the third time that the student council has voted on whether to hold such a referendum, in initiatives spearheaded by the camps organization Columbia University Apartheid Divest. Some 34 campus organizations supported the initiative, according to the Spectator.

The council said at Sunday night’s meeting, which heard students speaking on both sides of the issue, that the vote would be gauging students’ perspective on the issue, not taking a position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict....