Editor’s Note: This article was updated to more accurately capture the messages of all the graffiti.
Early morning on May 1, many locations on north campus were vandalized with spray paint. Non-residential buildings (including Parrish Hall), along with trees, walkways, and fences, were graffitied with messages and symbols used in the pro-Palestine movement, as well as language protesting Swarthmore’s Board of Managers, and more. The Board is currently visiting campus for their quarterly meeting.
The vandalism took place in a 30-minute window around 3:30 a.m. on Friday, according to Vice President for Communications and Marketing Andy Hirsch. The Delco Times reported that the Swarthmore Police Department had been notified about the incidents and officers were on campus that morning.
Some of the graffiti included, “Divest Now,” “Genocide,” “Board of Butchers,” “Gaza,” “Fuck Israel,” “BOM You Can’t Hide,” “Drop Cisco,” and inverted red triangles, a symbol that originated in Hamas combat videos marking Israel Defense Forces targets before attack. Interpretations of the triangle are varied — the symbol has been adopted by activists in support of Palestinian resistance; however, following its use by Hamas, it’s widely criticized as a symbol of violence.
In a message to the campus community, President Val Smith said there were “hundreds of acts of vandalism.”
Graffiti of inverted triangles and the phrases “Drop Cisco” and “BOM [Board of Managers] u can’t hide” on the porch of Parrish Hall. Phoenix Photo/James Shelton Graffiti on the wall of the tunnel through the middle of Kohlberg Hall reads, “Student Intifada.” Phoenix Photo/James Shelton Graffiti on the now removed mesh coverings for chain-link fences surrounding construction on Parrish Beach reads, “Genocide.” Phoenix Photo/James Shelton Graffiti on the walkway towards the main entrance of the Science Center reads, “fuck israel.” Phoenix Photo/James Shelton Graffiti on the east side of Beardsley Hall reads, from left to right, “Free Palestine” and “Free Gaza.” Phoenix Photo/James Shelton Graffiti on the now removed mesh coverings for chain-link fences surrounding construction on Parrish Beach reads, “Gaza.” Phoenix Photo/James Shelton Graffiti under the archway on the north side of Parrish Hall reads, “Drop Cisco.” Phoenix Photo/James Shelton Graffiti on a wooden table on Singer Porch is of an upside-down red triangle that signifies opposition to the Israeli military. Phoenix Photo/James Shelton Graffiti on the east wall of Kohlberg Hall reads, “Divest.” Phoenix Photo/James Shelton Graffiti sprayed onto the south side of Kohlberg Hall reads, “Board of Butchers.” Phoenix Photo/James Shelton
According to several staff members who spoke to The Phoenix Friday morning, the graffiti required significant work on the part of Facilities, Grounds, and Environmental Services (EVS) to remove the spray-paint from different parts of campus. Some of these workers were called in as early as 4:30 a.m., according to Hirsch.
Throughout the morning, students made their way as the sounds of pressure washers carried on; pathways were repainted; staff members and community members volunteering for Work Box scrubbed at trees to remove the red paint. Many workers expressed frustration about the paint not coming off easily and the hours that they had been out cleaning.
In email correspondence with The Phoenix, Hirsch said that some of the buildings and trees require special attention, and outside contractors will have to remove the paint. He also said that he did not know how long the entire removal process would take.
A community volunteer helps remove graffiti from a tree by scrubbing the bark with a brush. Phoenix Photo/James Shelton 
A staff member power washes the words “free Gaza” off a pillar outside the Science Center. Phoenix Photo/Devin Gibson 
A staff member scrubs the words “free Palestine” off the retaining wall outside of the Science Center. Phoenix Photo/Devin Gibson A staff member power washes the words “Break the Board” off the main entrance of LPAC. Phoenix Photo/Devin Gibson A grounds crew member power washes graffiti off a pillar next to the southwest tower of Kohlberg Hall. Phoenix Photo/James Shelton
In her community message, Smith condemned the vandalism and the individuals responsible.
“I am as disappointed as I am angry at these criminal acts of cowardice. These six or so individuals, who made their way across campus in the dead of night while fully disguised, chose to violate not just our policies and the law, but our sense of community.”
Smith wrote that the college does not yet know whether these individuals were students. If they are, she said, they will face “immediate disciplinary action, including interim suspension.”
At 5:03 a.m., The Phoenix received an email with the subject line “WAKE UP AND LOOK AROUND,” from an external email address sarcastically posing as Board of Managers Chair Koof Kalkstein. “The Board of Butchers are not welcome on campus. Get out early to see the art we left them,” the email said.
The Phoenix wrote to the email address asking for comment about the graffiti, the work effort it resulted in, and Smith’s message, and received no response.
Friday morning’s events resemble a similar protest campaign against the Board this past December, when the Swarthmore Inn was spray painted with “Board of Butchers.” The college, in collaboration with the Swarthmore Borough Police Department, were investigating the incident. Hirsch did not answer a question about whether they had identified the individual(s) involved in the December event.
Phoenix photographers captured the graffiti before and during cleaning, and after most staff had left.
This is really helping the people in Gaza.
Thank goodness SJP is taking a stand against the perpetrators of the Gaza genocide (swarthmore college facilities staff). This is really gonna hurt the board’s feelings (if someone lets them know this happened). surely after this the board will divest from israel. especially since this thoughtful organizing will convince more people to support pro-pal organizing. long live the student spraypaintifada
The student spraypaintifada truly moved the needle with this one
What a terrible headline for this terrible story. How is hatred that calls for the killing of Jews “pro” anything?
Where did the graffiti call for the killing of Jews?
There was nothing proPalestinian about the grafitti nor its messages. Looks like some very misled demonstrators somehow thought this was a ‘good way’ to promote their cause. IF there cause was for justice, it misses the mark by miles. Better to work on focusing on actually doing some real work to rein in the military support for Israel (is that what they are wanting??)… One does that engaging with legislators in language that is clear and shows some interest in engaging civilly.
Is the Swarthmore Phoenix now an official mouthpiece for Hamas?
This rag doesn’t even pretend to have journalistic standards
And who are you to have an opinion on the Phoenix’s journalism when you don’t have the courage to not comment anonymously? I’d like to see you manage a full time Swarthmore course load while also consistently pushing out quality journalism on a weekly basis.
Kudos to the staff for their work on the cleanup – I’m sorry you had to do it. I also wanted to shout out the people who volunteered to help clean up, including several faculty members – these folks did it quietly and not for recognition, and their efforts represent what is great about Swarthmore.
The Board of Managers raises money to keep this great college operating: scholarship money, the building and renovating of facilities, staffing, hiring amazing professors, etc. The endowment of the college is of course invested.
I challenge the protesting students, rather than defacing the beautiful campus buildings, to make a divestment proposal. Which companies should the college divest from, and why? If this divestment ends up lowering the value of the endowment, is that a sacrifice that is justified by the perceived moral gain?
Investment decisions can certainly carry moral weight, and I’m glad students are considering the ramifications of the endowment’s investment. And student activism has a distinguished history, at Swarthmore and nationwide. Middle-of-the-night defacement, however, strikes me as an ignoble act, one that doesn’t advance the students’ cause.
Perhaps the Board (or the students) could propose an open house to discuss the college’s endowment, to educate the students in how higher education is funded, and to allow students to raise their concerns. Are we really at a point where defacing the college is the only protest option available?
Sometimes you think you are hurting “the man” but you are actually hurting yourself and your friends and colleagues. Also, vandalism is the opposite of reasoned discourse, and reasoned discourse is supposed to be what college students are learning to engage in.
This is all well and great. But this has happened many times, over a long period. But, by and large, this subset of students has never been interested in the efficacy of their activism, or in actually solving problems. It’s a very Trumpian focus on “winning,” however they define it.
Reality is, it’s been explained ad nauseam that the endowment is not an in-house hedge fund that directs investment decisions, the way Harvard’s and Yale’s are (and if you need evidence of that, go check out, for instance, who their highest paid employees are; they’re all endowment managers who make 7 figure salaries, an order of magnitude more than anyone at Swarthmore). Rather, Swarthmore invests with external managers, who charge fees. Those managers can customize their investments for certain accounts, but that comes with additional fees (in the same way you pay more for a tailored suit than an off the rack one). And then you have to consider, after paying those extra fees to money managers, what the impact is on fossil fuel companies. And the answer is… none. These are publicly traded companies. More Exxon-Mobil shares change hands every day than Swarthmore has in its endowment, period. So it’s really not a difficult decision not to hand money managers extra cash, but in return getting… less funds for financial aid. Fact is, the college has considered activism, and sometimes taken steps in response. When I was on campus, for instance, the College removed Coke from campus in response to the Kick Coke campaign. Was it effective? I don’t know, perhaps. It certainly came with some cost (albeit orders of magnitude less than divestment would cost), but it puts the lie to this idea that no one listens or considers activists’ views.
In light of that, it’s perhaps not surprising that a similar subset of students decided that their next course of action would be to vandalize college buildings with, among other things, symbols calling for murder of Jews. On the one hand, you can harass some Jewish people. On the other hand, you can force facilities workers to spend a few days removing this vandalism. So, all around, lots of winners here, and making a great case for taking these very thoughtful kids seriously. One can only hope they grow up to be just a bit smarter and more compassionate.
This would be a great idea and I hope the Board will do it.
I believe that the Board does not disclose the investments, but I would love it if they would.
I also believe that the Board adopted a policy against making decisions on any basis other than profit. A core Quaker value is considering morality in investments. Modern Quaker organizations do not invest in companies that make weapons. We spend a lot of time talking about other considerations like should we invest in fossil fuels?
I don’t want to donate to a college that is essentially a black box for its investments. The Board should change this policy.
And I agree with you that graffiti that offends or frightens people is not the way to convince them to change this. Now the discussion is about the graffiti instead of the student who is facing criminal trespass charges for being part of a protest encampment on the lawn.
I know the students are frustrated because of the ways that normal protest has been shut down on campus. In the past student held sit ins and were not suspended and made to leave campus.
We need new rules and we need deep discussions to bring people back together.
They do disclose how they invest. But they park the funds with third-party managers. Those managers generally don’t disclose their holdings to investors. Sometimes, managers will adjust their holdings for specific accounts. But that comes at a cost– if your holdings are customized by investor, they’ll charge substantially more to customize the portfolio. And most top managers won’t even bother with that– it’s not worth the hassle.
So “divesting,” in practice, means either pulling funds out of managers that invest in certain categories you don’t like, or getting them to create separate accounts that customize the portfolio. That amounts to redistributing from the endowment to the manager, because you’re paying the manager significant fees to do that. Or you could change the investment philosophy entirely and decide to manage based on some set of guidelines you make up. But that means giving up endowment returns, which fund college programs. You can find someone who will tell you that, actually, you don’t have to give up returns by managing your own accounts. That’s motivated reasoning, identical to the fossil fuel companies that tell you that, actually, burning oil doesn’t cause the climate to change.
Now, if the college could make some substantial difference in someone’s behavior via divestment, you could make the case that it would be worth it. But you can’t. The college, big picture, has a small pile of capital, a tiny portion of which is invested in “fossil fuel companies,” and an even tinier portion of which is invested in “Israel” (and if you actually want to be morally consistent and ward off the not entirely unfounded perception that your decision is motivated by antisemitic double standards, you should probably extend that divestment to companies that do business with the PRC, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Venezuela, etc. etc.). Selling off those holdings isn’t even a pinprick; it’s unnoticed. It doesn’t even deny those companies capital; public company shares are just secondary ownership claims; they don’t care if you or I or the Swarthmore College endowment holds their shares.
So it’s really a good idea to move beyond this fixation over the college’s endowment, which is entirely about some students’ self-righteousness and has nothing at all to do with things like very real climate change and Palestinians’ very real suffering. And, if anything, covering the campus with antisemitic graffiti, if anything, is a good way to take out some narcissistic students’ self-righteousness on… facilities staff who have to clean it up.
Third-party managers such as Highland Capital Partners, of which one of the Board members is a general manager. You want to pretend divestment is some sort of complicated process, when it is in fact simple, especially for the general manager of a fund, and what is going on here is corruption.
Divesting from oil would, as it happens, result in divesting from a lot of companies that do business with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Venezuela. And divesting from arms manufacturing would, too, seeing as how Saudi Arabia and the UAE both buy even more weapons from the US than Israel does. So there is no moral inconsistency here, and that’s a truly ignorant argument to make.
It’s even more absurd to suggest these companies do not care about divestment. Were that the case, why do all the Senators and other politicians said companies lobby (bribe) and whose campaigns they finance (bribe) oppose divestment, even going as far as to legislate against divestment? Collectively, US college endowments have nearly $1 trillion invested, and these industries are savvy enough to know that once the dominoes start to fall, they stand to lose a lot of investment.
The bottom line is you do not even believe Israel is committing a genocide in Palestine and thus you do not care about this issue. You talk a lot of jibber-jabber to try to obfuscate this, but that’s what’s at the root of your position.
See, you keep throwing out these accusations where you demonstrate very clearly only that you don’t have the first clue about how this industry works. In light of that, again, it’s a good idea to not have strong feelings about things you don’t begin to grasp. First, I’d be willing to bet my house that the endowment is not parked with a VC fund in which a Board member holds an executive position. That’s an egregious conflict of interest, and they’ll be aware of that.
Second, again, it is in fact, an expensive process to customize an account. That’s not debatable; it’s just a basic fact about how the industry works. Getting up on a soap box and declaring that buying a custom suit isn’t going to cost you more than getting one off the rack is foolish. You’re doing exactly that here.
Third, you don’t grasp the point of the other countries. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Venezuela, the PRC, etc. have human rights records substantially worse than Israel’s. Your ilk isn’t clamoring to divest from those countries. We all know why.
Fourth, you don’t grasp what “investment” means or how it works. That’s quite a big problem for someone who has very strong feelings about this. So let me put it in very basic terms. The endowment isn’t parked in foreign private companies; to the extent it holds stock, it’s in public companies. And public company shares have already been issued. The company has gotten capital for those shares. If Exxon Mobil’s stock falls to half of its current value tomorrow by random chance, the immediate impact would be non-existent (of course, the real impact would be that buyers would swoop in to buy an undervalued stock). The channel in which that would impact investment would be if Exxon Mobil needed cash, and it went out to get cash by issuing primary equity, which would be more expensive if their stock was cheaper. But companies like Exxon Mobil don’t do primary share issuances; quite the opposite, they’ve been doing stock buybacks to return capital to shareholders. So no, they don’t stand to lose any investment.
So what we’ve established here (again) is that at root, you just have less than no grasp of how this works. It has nothing to do with Israel’s behavior (which, yes, has been quite abhorrent in many ways). It has to do with the fact that this activism is about feeling self-righteous and getting your way. It has nothing at all to do with the actual social issues. If it did, the focus would be on efficacy, and not on harassing institution to punish their students, while also painting hate speech all over the place.
Amen
LOL “abhorrent in many ways.” Mainly two specific ways: genocide and apartheid, terms you still cannot find the courage to use.
Your analysis is complete nonsense. Swarthmore could very easily divest from Exxon, Cisco, or whatever other company they want to divest from. They literally did this before, in response to protest against South African apartheid.
It’s also counterfactual to say it’s expensive to “customize an account.” No it isn’t. You just sell your position in funds and companies whose actions are not in keeping with your stated Quaker values and invest those monies elsewhere. Given that these funds are already actively managed and people connected to the Board are already getting paid for said management (corruption), it isn’t even an additional expense.
I literally just said we would divest from companies that support and work with UAE and Saudi Arabia by divesting from arms manufacturing and those two plus Venezuela by divesting from oil. I’m perfectly fine with that, and in fact, of the two of us concerned with human rights (allegedly, in your case), I’m the only one here proposing active divestment from companies that enable the human rights abuses committed by Israel, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia. You are defending NOT divesting, so not only are you a genocide denier in the case of Israel, but you’re perfectly OK with investing in companies that enable the UAE and Saudi Arabia’s human rights abuses.
We’re both consistent. I’m consistent that the endowment should not be invested in companies and industries whose practices are at odds with Swarthmore’s stated values, and you are consistent in simply not caring about Quaker values. That’s fine and all, but it’s also why we’ll never agree on this issue. I am anti-genocide and pro-human rights. You are not.
“We all know why” – no we don’t. By all means, please enlighten us. Say what you mean.
Israel’s actions in Gaza arguably constitute a genocide. Its actions in the West Bank inarguably constitute apartheid. Now that we’ve got that out of the way…
Again, you don’t grasp very basically how this works. Like it’s just completely factually wrong on every count. First, for literally the 10th time. Swarthmore does not own shares in Exxon, Cisco, or whomever directly. You seem to imagine that it has like a Charles Schwab account labeled “Swarthmore endowment” that sells shares.
Instead, Swarthmore invests in external managers. Those managers aren’t investing solely for Swarthmore. They have tens, often hundreds, of investors. Swarthmore owns a pro rata share of the fund in which they invest. If Swarthmore wants a manager to avoid investing in certain specific categories of companies, it no longer owns a pro rata share of the fund– it owns an account customized for itself. And the money manager charges extra fees to do that. In the same way that getting a suit tailored costs you more than getting a suit off the rack. That’s not a “counterfactual”; it’s, in a very basic way, how the industry works. The fact that you don’t grasp this is a good reason for you not to have strong feelings– all you do is make a fool of yourself.
And no, the Board is not “getting paid” for this management. Again, the Board is not parking the endowment with Board members’ companies. You, again, have no grasp of this.
So no, the difference here is not that you are holier than everyone and care more about Palestinian lives or whatever– you stand out in that you’re exceptionally ignorant, have no interest in learning about the thing you purport to critique, and have spectacular delusions of grandeur. Your purported moral clarity is just consistent ignorance on literally every count.
At this point, Alex, you are just denying basic facts.
First of all, “arguably?” How about just say Israel is an apartheid state and Israel is committing genocide if you really want to “get that out of the way.”
Secondly, there absolutely is a member of the Board who is also a manager at Highland Capital Partners. You can go look it up yourself. It’s bananas to say Board members and their colleagues are not benefiting from Swarthmore’s endowment when they’re directing endowment investments to their own funds and funds or companies from which they benefit. Maybe that doesn’t qualified as “getting paid” to you, but it sure does to me.
You are, yet again, eliding the truth with obscurantist appeals to technocratic management. And yet again, I’m not buying what you’re selling. Because it’s a lie. Whether Swarthmore invests indirectly or directly in Exxon is inconsequential. Swarthmore can divest either way. Swarthmore has divested from apartheid in the past. It could do it again. Nothing has changed. Other institutions around the world have divested from genocide. Swarthmore could do that.
It’s a sick joke to absolve people who are complicit in funding genocide from any responsibility and infantilize not only them (“it’s beyond their power to do anything!”) and us (“you don’t understand how complex this stuff is!”) in the process.
And just so it’s clear to everyone: if you don’t want to invest in Exxon, you don’t have to. If you want to divest from Exxon, you can. It’s that simple. That goes for individuals investing for retirement as well as endowment managers.
Literacy is… not your strong suit. Nowhere did I say that Swarthmore “couldn’t” divest. I didn’t come close to saying that. Of course Swarthmore “could” divest. In the same way that Swarthmore “could” take some cash out of its institutional bank account, set it on fire, and call it a day. The point is that divesting is expensive. It’s expensive because the very very basic way that the money management industry works (and you might have figured this out if you’d, say, graduated from middle school) is that, like any other business, the industry provides its customers with a good or a service (in this case, money management services). The customer pays the industry a fee. Because it’s a competitive industry, some do it better than others, some charge higher fees than others, and requesting certain services costs more money than others (like, say, customizing an investment portfolio according to certain guidelines rather than buying a share in a broader portfolio). And what you want the Board to do comes with higher fees. Because, as we’ve established, literacy is not your strong suit, I don’t think this will break through on the 10th try, but, just in case, try reading it 5 times slowly and blinking your eyes a few times.
And yes, some Board members work in finance. That’s quite useful in a job where a core component is… stewarding the finances of the institution to further its mission. But you don’t grasp the first thing about how that industry actually works. To wit, you’re claiming that the Board refusing to take actions that would result in bigger fees paid to money managers is evidence of them being… in the pockets of money managers. Perhaps you can understand why this is a foolish claim. Or probably not.
But lastly, no, you seem to imagine that you’re pushing for divestment because you have more moral integrity than Board members. This is wrong. The difference between you is (i) your narcissism; and (ii) your foolishness. Because the endowment is used to fund lots of things that students need. Things like allowing kids whose parents cannot afford to shell out $80,000 per year in tuition to attend the institution. Setting endowment funds on fire for “Palestine” is not a high holy moral stance; it’s narcissistic self-indulgence. It doesn’t do anything to harm Israel. But it does quite a bit to harm students. But you, of course, couldn’t care less about students. If you did, perhaps you’d go volunteer for politicians who are skeptical of Israel’s actions (there are plenty of them; Swarthmore alum Chris Van Hollen is a good one). You could write letters and phone bank. You could signal boost/subscribe to investigative outlets that document Israeli abuses. But no, the “sacrifice” you’re willing to make is to make it harder for other people’s low income kids to go to Swarthmore. How morally clear of you.
You have descended entirely to making personal attacks about my literacy and making attacks on my motives. It seems your “arguments” are out of gas, as those are both entirely fallacious lines of attack.
In summary:
1. Swarthmore can divest. It may cost money, short term, to do so (though you have in no way proved that it will lead to less financial aid). But ethics sometimes require that we consider things besides pure short-term gain in our investing.
2. We have different views on things such as genocide and apartheid and whether it is ethical to invest in those practices. I oppose supporting genocide and apartheid, and I believe my position is in keeping with Quaker values. You, on the other hand, cannot even bring yourself to say that Israel is an apartheid state and that it is carrying out a genocide in Gaza. I won’t attack your motives for that, but whatever they are, they certainly prohibit us from ever seeing eye-to-eye on this.
3. The Board is disproportionately connected to finance, and for whatever reason, you cannot even concede that one Board member is a general partner at Highland Capital Partners. These are basic facts, Alex. Are you capable of agreeing with those basic facts? It should be easy.
Ben, your inability to grasp basic facts is not an insult. It’s an observation. It’s not an insult either to point out that you continue not to grasp very basic things, despite me keying them out in ways my elementary schooler can understand.
1. You continue to double down on your basic ignorance of how money management works. The trade off is not “short term vs. long term”; it’s paying money managers additional fees or not paying them. Thats, again, not debatable. It’s a basic fact about how this business works.
2. Words have meanings. What Israel did in Gaza is perhaps genocide. But what you call it doesn’t matter. Same with apartheid. Israel is either occupying the West Bank (in which case it has an obligation to leave) or it has annexed tha territory, in which case, yes, it’s engaged in apartheid. The way it treats Arab Israelis is not apartheid. It’s not what anyone would call equitable, but if you call it apartheid, you should be demanding that the college divest from 75% of the world. But that’s, again, neither here nor there. Now, when you claim you “can’t support” this, well, you’re demanding that the college use its endowment to signal your approval or disapproval of what governments do. And that’s not the purpose of the endowment. Its purpose is to support student programs. And what gets lots of Jewish people’s goat is that left wing activists apply this standard solely to Israel. And we Jews know why that is. Like if you were sitting out and demanding that Swarthmore divest its endowment from China and Saudi Arabia and the UAE, I’d oppose it’s stupid, but it only ever happens to one state. You and I both know why. And it’s not its human rights record.
3. Yes, many members of the Board are in finance. You seem to imagine that this is some kind of smoking gun. But this is where your complete lack of even a basic grasp of finance again shows. You’re declaring that there are lots of money managers on the Board. And that explains why they refuse to… pay more fees to money managers to make some foolish adolescents feel powerful. If the Board was really out there trying to somehow backdoor the college’s funds to money managers, well, they’d do exactly what you’re demanding they do.
So all of this boils down to the basic fact that you have a nonexistent grasp of this topic. Which is fine on its own. I don’t speak Mandarin. Yet I don’t throw myself head first into arguments about Mandarin literature with Mandarin speakers. But I can tell you that I have a far better grasp of Mandarin than you have of any of this.
So… just do yourself a favor. Stop. No one benefits from you spewing nonsense. And you’re not gonna fake it not being nonsense because… anyone with a passing grasp of the subject knows it. And so do you.
You already said, yourself, that it’s a smoking gun if one of the Board members is a general partner at Highland Capital Partners, and expressed how you simply could not believe such a conflict of interest would be permitted on the Board. Well, it is. You walking that back now?
You never did answer the other commenter here who raised the point, ““We all know why” – no we don’t. By all means, please enlighten us. Say what you mean.” You ever going to say what you mean about that? I also don’t know why. What is it we’re supposed to “all know why”?
There are no facts in anything you say, just your opinions about things such as my literacy or motives. I have been correct this entire time across multiple comments sections, and slowly but surely you are conceding every point. The only fact is you have stooped to making personal attacks and attacks on motives, which are both fallacious and intellectually dishonest lines of attack.
I see, too, that you’ve now moved from “arguably” genocide to “perhaps” genocide. You’re also strangely using past tense, as though this is not an ongoing process. It is ongoing, and it is a genocide. Can we get you to drop the qualifiers and live in the present?
Be specific about the 75% of the world you think the college should divest from if we should be divesting from apartheid. Does this mean you agree Israel is an apartheid state, but since you feel there are other apartheid states, we should not divest from Israel? I’m not sure I understand your logic. Which are those states, and which investments does Swarthmore hold that support them? I’ll bet we’re once again going to find that divesting from war, genocide, and fossil fuels would divest us from these other, unnamed apartheid states, too.
You keep trying this whataboutism line of attack and it is going to keep failing. Protestors and opinion writers here at the Phoenix have, for years, made concrete claims that support specific means of divesting from fossil fuels and from Israel’s perpetration of genocide and apartheid. You, on the other hand, are just blanket labeling “75% of the world” an apartheid state somehow and going off on tangents about the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Yes, let’s divest from the defense industry. Let’s divest from oil.
You can keep trying to declare me wrong and ignorant while you put up rhetorical air ball after rhetorical air ball, dodge questions, and refuse to face facts. I do not expect better from someone who cannot even call a genocide what it is, who has shifted his stance from there being “some” Board members connected to finance to “a lot” of Board members being connected to finance, but has no comment on the case of, say, general partners of Highland Capital Partners, nor the myriad other conflicts of interest exposed in the recent letter from the graduating seniors.
No. One of us doesn’t grasp basic facts. It isn’t me.
Yes, it’s arguable whether Israel is committing genocide. But in the broad scheme of things, that doesn’t matter; much of Israel’s behavior is very bad. And Israel’s behavior in the West Bank (but not in Gaza or in pre-1967 Israel) constitutes apartheid, assuming that Israel has no intention of allowing a Palestinian state in that territory. Accuracy is important.
Second, yes, there are Board members who work in finance, including in money management. But, again, you don’t grasp how that industry works, at all. I’m not sure if it’s because you’re deliberately being obtuse, or if you’re really an exceptionally dim person, but it probably doesn’t matter. The point is, the board is not investing Swarthmore’s endowment for Board members’ benefit. And in fact, “divestment” would generate MORE, not less, in fees for endowment managers. Because, for perhaps the 25th time, customizing an investment portfolio comes with additional fees. I don’t know how many times it needs to be repeated for you to grasp it. Maybe the suit analogy wasn’t simple enough for you. So let me try to make it even more basic, in a way my toddler would understand. If you go to the store to buy a cheese, you pay $X. If you want the cheese maker to make you an extra special custom cheese that melts Swiss and Cheddar together or something, you pay $X+Y. Where Y is a positive number. Because it takes extra work to do so. That’s what telling an external manager to “divest” means. I really can’t make it any simpler for you.
So, yes, anyone could divest. But divestment comes at a cost. Just like going to get a custom suit versus an off the rack one comes at a cost. And if your custom suit costs as much as an off the rack one, it means you’re getting a shitty custom suit. And the purpose of the endowment is… to get the best possible suit for the student body, to pay for things like faculty and staff salaries, financial aid, and other stuff that is the school’s core mission.
What you’re declaring is that Swarthmore should use its endowment to make a statement regarding certain types of businesses, to the detriment of its students. The Board of Managers, which is charged with doing what’s in the best interests of students rather than your ego, thinks that using the endowment to make that statement is inconsistent with their mission. That’s something that should be a point of discussion. But it can’t be because you and your ilk (i) insist on keeping yourselves purposely ignorant of how the endowment/money management industry work; and (ii) searching for reasons to declare that the reason professionals disagree with your know-nothing blathering is that they’re irreparably morally broken/compromised, and not just, as any of us with even a passing grasp of this industry understand, that you haven’t bothered to do even the most basic homework. Perhaps that would be a better starting point for discussion than making a fool of yourself on the internet…
Look at you moving the goalposts. First of all, it absolutely does matter that Israel is an apartheid state and is perpetrating a genocide. Those things matter very much. That’s the crux of everything we’re talking about here. It’s why these protests have been happening.
Second, it’s not just that “some” Board members “work in finance.” A disproportionate number work in finance, and one is specifically a manager at Highland Capital Partners.
And, finally, it’s good that you, at long last, admit that Swarthmore could divest. That’s a great step for you to take. And perhaps divestment does come with a cost (virtually every financial transaction, at the very least, carries a fee, so of course there is a cost). But part of having moral integrity is doing the right thing even if it costs more. Integrity is a Quaker value.
Well given Super Duper Ben is OK with increased costs I’m sure he would be more than willing to foot the bill…
Ben feel free to wire the funds to Swarthmore, or would you rather cut financial aid, EVS salaries, etc?
That’s a losing argument. You cannot claim Quaker values and then immediately justify not adhering to those values with arguments about how doing so would increase costs. Integrity means doing the right thing even if it is burdensome to do so. Everyone with a modicum of ethics understands this.
And bear in mind, those are short-term costs. Long term, I believe Swarthmore would attract higher-caliber matriculants and professors, sell more merch, and secure more donations if it were to act according to its stated principles instead of casting them aside for short-term gains, which is the exact problem with letting private equity run the show in the first place. Private equity is defined by prioritizing the short term over the long term, ultimately leading to ruin for all bag holders.
Further, you have asserted, without evidence, that any short-term costs from Swarthmore behaving ethically will be so large as to necessitate salary cuts, which I can just reject without evidence.
As for me wiring funds, that’s obviously not going to happen while Swarthmore is funding genocide. I’ll be sure to pick up some merch after they stop doing that though.
To summarize the antics of Legendarily Bad at Math Ben:
-does not like businesspeople or PE people or VC people or seemingly anyone else who makes money (and donates a bunch of it to Swarthmore for the betterment of the entire community, much of which seems to irrationally hate them)
-is OK wasting money on divestment that is symbolic and does not accomplish anything
-does not understand that an endowment is not free money to spend at will, and that divestment could very well cost an additional ~1% in fees for custom SMAs (separately managed accounts)
-Swarthmore endowment draw is a bit under 5% (the BoM have a fiduciary obligation to maintain its sustainability – most conservatively managed non-profits run endowment draws of 3% to 4%, so Swarthmore is already arguably overspending), and the endowment return is impacted by 1%, then yes salaries and financial aid will be cut given Swarthmore is majority funded by the endowment draw
-this is especially true in the likely event of a downturn in asset prices in the next 1-2 years and resulting negative endowment returns
So basically to fund Awesome at Math Ben’s purely symbolic, absolutely self-destructive act of divestment, the people he hates would have to donate a lot of money to the school to compensate. Feels like an SNL skit. Ben – I nominate you to go hat in hand to all these people and ask them to fund your fever dream.
Love that the loudest, most convinced people so often have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. Keep at it Ben, you might be right by accident one day
@Ben @Alex I have been reading through your guys’ exchange over the past few days and while it has been quite the entertainment as I procrastinate finals studying, it is rather dismaying.
@Ben, as a very pro-palestinian Swarthmore student who believes that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, I have a question for you. What is your solution? “Divest” isn’t a good answer. You continue to ignore Alex’s statements regarding the functioning of endowments and divestment. A one percent fee for a custom account extrapolated to the entirety of the endowment would cost about $30 million per year… This wouldn’t be a “short-term” cost. It would be every year, as the account would have to be continually managed. This doesn’t account for the impact on returns given the fact that many lucrative things things are less moral. I somewhat see your point regarding “dominos eventually fall” but Swarthmore’s holdings equate to like .00001% of these companies in question… Their divestment wouldn’t impact anything. And this $30 million dollar cost would likely come at the expense of things like financial aid. I think that the scholarship equivalent of 333 students per year, who will go on to be changemakers and activists, is much more important than the value signaling of a ‘pure’ endowment… Furthermore, the calls to stop using Cisco as the internet provider are frustrating when no alternative is provided. I did some (admittedly quick) research into alternatives, all the other college VPN providers also have deep ties to Israel. So unless there is a plan for inventing a new VPN provider what is the next step?? My main concern is that your abrasiveness and lack of openess to conceding shortcomings of these demands assumes the speaking voice of pro-palestinian students at Swarthmore college. I admire your passion, the fact that you take the time to write these thousands of words in the comment section, but in many ways I don’t think it actually helps the Palestinian cause. It alienates students like myself who agree with the values you promote and the cause you allegedly seek to help, and alienates those with the actual power to enact the changes you seek.
That being said, Alex, as a fellow student of Ben, I just think your name calling is uncool and Trump-esque. Regardless of the efficacy or accuracy of your arguments, the condescension makes it impossible for Ben to agree with your points, even if they wanted to.
I do appreciate both of your well-written debate, I just wish there was more kindness and openmindedness in a community that is meant to be value-driven. I would love to hear your thoughts, @Alex on how we can invoke Swarthmore’s Quaker and social justice values by putting our money where our mouth is, and @Ben I’d love to hear your thoughts on how we can realistically balance morals with the greater good of longterm progress through the functioning of an institution like Swarthmore via their scholarships, protected servers, etc.
@Concerned Thank you for your response. You’ve fully grasped the point, which gives me faith that students continue to be able to think smartly and critically.
In terms of your point about Swarthmore’s values, there’s plenty that the institution can do. It can refuse to purchase goods from Israeli companies that are based/operate in the West Bank (if any). It can issue a statement condemning Israel’s behavior (the efficacy of which is probably minimal, but it has the benefit of not hampering the college’s operations in the process). On climate, the college is aiming for carbon zero by 2035. These kinds of steps are all available to the college, and in line with its values.
Perhaps there are other things people can think of. Considering those is a good idea. But the broader point here is that the activist class is fixated on this particular tactic, which has very substantial costs primarily to the most vulnerable students at no particular benefit. As you’ve seen above, Ben and his ilk either don’t grasp or ignore these costs. As you’ve demonstrated, they’re not hard to understand. That ignorance is one thing. But when the stewards of the college decide not to take those steps, these activists accuse them of being genocide lovers or whatever. The combination of ignorance and toxicity is a significant issue.
Students are, as a whole, smart. We can and should discuss their ideas. Issue being that plenty are ill-informed and self-righteous (which is fine; they’re college kids, but responsible adults rightly note their objections, and proceed to ignore them when they’re ill-informed). But many alumni don’t grow out of their ignorance. Bummer.
Indeed, this graffiti incident speaks to one of the moral questions of our time: should people who create extra work for the facilities staffs of educational institutions be punished?
“In December 2023 reports emerged of a massacre of Palestinians, including women, children and babies, by Israeli forces in the Shadia Abu Ghazala School, west of Jabalia refugee camp in Al-Faluja, the northern part of the Gaza Strip. The massacre reportedly occurred in early December. The school had been used as a shelter and had been surrounded by the IDF for several days. Video and photo footage showed bodies piled up in the school and damage to the school’s interiors. Survivors of the massacre recounted women, children and babies being “killed execution-style” by Israeli troops as they were sheltering in the school. Reports say at least 7 and up to 15 bullet-ridden bodies were found.”
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attacks_on_schools_during_the_Gaza_war)
… yes, harassing Swarthmore College facilities workers will certainly address alleged war crimes. I’m fuzzy on how it’ll do so, but I’m sure somehow it will.
My lord, your education really failed you…
I didn’t read in the article where harassment charges had been filed and the perpetrators were found guilty. I read about some alleged acts of vandalism, attributed to as-yet unknown suspects.
And as for your posturing about caring about workers, where were you when dining staff penned an open letter to management asking for improved wages and better working conditions? (https://swarthmorephoenix.com/2023/04/13/an-open-letter-to-the-managers-of-swarthmore-college-from-a-group-of-dining-center-workers/). Nowhere, that’s where. Just like the rest of the people in these comments up in arms about graffiti.
Where were you when all of this protest first kicked off, where Gazan workers were being air struck, bombed, massacred, and forced to clean up truly horrifying scenes left behind by the IDF? You were here, denying the scholasticide.
Nobody believes that you care about workers. That goes for everyone in this comments section hand-wringing about this who has never showed up to support unions, better working conditions, better wages, and Swarthmore staff having direct representation on the Board of Managers by way of one or more Board positions being reserved for staff.
I wholeheartedly agree with Alex Imas, those red triangles were used to mark political prisoners in Nazi Germany.
This is true. The red triangles became s symbol of anti-fascist resistance.
Currently, they are either a symbol of solidarity with Palestine or a symbol of supporting violence, depending on who you ask. I think it is best not to use them.
Educated and adult users of the terms apartheid and genocide in discussion of Israel persist not because of intellectual or moral integrity, but because it is an emotional provocation that is used to signal membership in a tribe. If only in one’s own fearful mind, it creates a safety buffer of noise comprised of a thousand similar vacuous calls. It is, neatly, a symptom of virtue group think.
Words. Matter. Heid. Geno.
If you extract their historical and ethical specificity in order to blunt trauma your way through an argument, you are demonstrating both moral and intellectual debility. A thousand weaklings are, indeed, a formidable force.
Swarthmore is making some difficult decisions. No easy remedy exists for resteering a ship of petulant, privileged, and strangely self assured youth.
Occam’s razor: we use these terms because they’re the factually correct terms to use.
Thank goodness for ‘we’.
Nah , Legend in your own mind. You use them because they are inflammatory lies. There is no genocide by Israel ( though there is genocide by Hamas , the Iranian regime , and other Iran terror proxies.
The icc says there is no finding of Israel having committed genocide. Phillipe Sands , lawyer representing palestinians in international forums , says Israel did not commit genocide. Numerous eu and USA retired generals snd admirals say that Israel did not commit genocide and in fact has the lowest civilian to fighter death ratio of any urban warfare by anyone anywhere, due to the extraordinary snd unprecedented measures Israel undertook to avoid civilian harm. Legend-in-his own mind is a lying bigot.
The triangles are unnecessary. I think the student activists should be thinking about their upcoming cases, not making new ones for themselves. I hope that Swarthmore pays the workers for overtime work, as we know they do not care about them enough. If anything, I hope they enroll in art class next semester. I understand graffiti is used as a form of protest. I hope they can honor this medium, as these could have been done by anyone, really. ~ comment originally meant for this article
Why do you assume the graffiti activists are the same people who are being charged for a peaceful encampment a year ago?
Exactly. It’s likely done by people trying to get the college not to drop the charges.
We don’t know who sprayed the graffiti. It would be a terrible miscarriage of justice if this ends up being blamed on the people who are facing serious charges in court for having refused to leave an encampment. We need to be very careful to keep the two incidents separate.
Has anyone pointed out that facilities workers were stuck cleaning this up on May Day? Also, tagging trees is just scummy. And this is coming from someone who basically agrees with the messaging. This action made the movement look bad.
Pretty shameful of those cowardly enough to hide their faces and do this. Congratulations, our underpaid staff get to clean up your mess, and you won’t get anything out of it.
@Concerned
I wrote the last 2 comments making fun of Ben and stand by them. I think anyone who is so assiduously calling, at the top of their lungs, for policies that they do not understand in the least while aggressively denigrating anyone with an opposing view, should be made fun of (especially when they are Legendary or whatever). It is a peak luxury belief to scream and scream for a completely symbolic divestment that could easily cost hundreds of deserving students their financial aid in the future. What a living, breathing parody.
That said I really appreciate the spirit of your comment – in terms of seeking civil discourse to (1) reach truth and (2) make a better world. That is Swarthmore at its best.
I do not however see any desire for either from Ben – feel free to peruse his extremely amusing contributions across the Phoenix comments section of any article. Hope springs eternal however, maybe Ben will reflect on these facts (which many people have brought forward in previous conversations around divestment) and contemplate further.
Alex on the other hand, to his credit, has painstakingly tried in several forums – here and Facebook – to create space for debate. In the process, a small but very vocal minority of the alumni continuously ignore his points and just stick to screaming about how much they hate the administration and how Israel is committing genocide and how Swarthmore is enabling genocide… which again feels like a bad SNL skit (divest Cisco –> solve genocide??).
These heinous graffiti are similar in nature – they do not create space for debate, they do not seek to convince or win an argument – they just look to impose their worldview on the majority through brute force.
I think the claim that they “look to impose a worldview” isn’t quite right– I think they’re a provocation. What they’re looking for is not to change any minds or bring people into their tent; it’s to attract attention. They want a response that centers them. They get people talking. Perhaps the administration punishes them. Then they can yell loudly about how the administration and everyone else are knaves and fools punishing the one righteous group.
Nowhere is there any hint about how this helps Palestinians. Because actual Palestinians have nothing at all to do with it. It’s an exercise in attention seeking. Actual action to help Palestinians would focus on building mass support. There’s a subset of the population that’s firmly “pro-Israel” and isn’t going anywhere. There’s another subset that’s firmly “pro-Palestine.” Much of the population is only nominally attentive. The goal should be reaching and persuading that group. Their focus seems to be the opposite– vandalizing public spaces, appropriating and repeating the symbols and iconography of antisemitic hate groups, declaring that everyone who doesn’t agree either with their maximal political project or their tactics must be bought and paid for or something. It’s pretty perfectly calibrated to chase people away– both explicitly by chasing them away, and by making themselves repugnant enough that people who have a lot of empathy and concern for the plight of Palestinians also won’t countenance aligning themselves with them (same way having Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes in your “pro-Palestine” tent is a good way to raise lots of red flags about your movement).
So I don’t think it has anything to do with “imposing a worldview”– rather, it’s entirely a juvenile cry for attention.
Since this action was obviously not going to get the BOT to divest from Cisco and was obviously going to make tons of people upset with SJP etc, my first instinct is that it was wone by someone who is intentionally trying to do that, possibly for pay.
The mental gymnastics people go through to try to pin this on some sort of weird false flag event…
SJP themselves posted many deplorable things to their own Instagram account, including “Happy October 7th” https://www.swarthmore.edu/division-student-affairs/rejecting-glorification-violence
They have no issue trafficking in hate and accidentally/hilariously making themselves look like the hate-mongering fools they are, I think you just have to take a closer look.