Jewish Voice for Peace is reporting that the whole student body of Evergreen State College just voted in favor of divesting from companies that profit from the Israeli Occupation.
Evergreen State College is Rachel Corrie's alma mater.
From JVP's website:
What's more remarkable is that the decision was not made by a student council and thus vulnerable to veto by just one person, as we saw in Berkeley. No, it was decided through a campus-wide vote. No one, not the promoters of the divestment policy, not its detractors, knew how the students would vote in complete privacy.
The results? The divestment vote won by a landslide 79.5%! The Caterpillar vote by an equally impressive 71.8%!
The Evergreen College Board of Trustees and Board of Governors actually hold the purse strings of the Evergreen College and the Evergreen Foundation respectively. You can imagine the pressure that will be brought upon them to ignore the student votes.
You can imagine it because the pressure was promised by Jonathan Kessler, leadership development director at AIPAC:
How are we going to beat back the anti-Israel divestment resolution at Berkeley? We’re going to make sure that pro-Israel students take over the student government and reverse the vote. This is how AIPAC operates in our nation’s capital. This is how AIPAC must operate on our nation’s campuses.
JVP is asking people to email the Board of Trustees of Evergreen State College, since it is ultimately the board's decision on whether to divest or not. Ask them to respect the student vote and common decency:
Board of Turstees Direction Carver T. Gayton (tescbot@evergreen.edu)
Foundation Vice President Lee Hoemann (foundation@evergreen.edu)
You can also sign a petition in support of the students at http://tescdivest.org/