Texas
Pro-Palestinian protesters in Texas are calling for universities to divest. Here's what that means
When Jumana Fakhreddine took part in last week’s anti-war protests at the University of Texas at Austin, she said organizers had set up a peaceful teach-in with speakers and pizza. Their purpose was to pressure the university’s leadership to divest in entities tied to the Israeli war effort in Gaza, she said.
But the moment instead devolved into chaos where dozens of students were arrested by riot-gear clad state and local police officers who used force to quell the demonstration and stop students from venting their frustrations.
“The whole reason we were there was just to simply ask for divestment and to stop supporting the ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians,” Fakhreddine, a 21-year-old biology and pre-med student, said. “I think that we just all want the occupation to stop.”
The ongoing protests at UT Austin come in response to the Israeli-led effort against Hamas after the Oct. 7 attack that left more than 1,200 Israelis dead and dozens held captive. Since then, the Gaza Ministry of Health reports more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war.
What is divestment?
These protests aren’t confined to the UT Austin campus. Similar demonstrations have erupted on other public and private campuses across the state and the country. While reports and photos of a heavy-handed police response to the protests have dominated headlines, some students say the message about divestment hasn’t resonated as much as it should.
So what exactly is divestment, and why are protesters calling for it? It all starts with university endowments – basically, donated money and assets that are invested to generate income.
Caleb Silver, the editor-in-chief of Investopedia, told the Texas Newsroom that the UT System has one of the largest endowments in the world. As of the 2023 fiscal year, it was worth about $44.9 billion.
Silver said “divestment” is a broad term, but in terms of what protesters are demanding, it includes three key elements.
“What you see through these protests is students … asking for the university and their endowments to stop investing in companies that either do business directly with Israel, or do business with companies in Israel, or that invest in companies that are domiciled in Israel,” he said. “So, it’s a broad request for the UT [System] endowment or some of these campuses.”
Last Wednesday’s protest at UT Austin was organized by the Palestine Solidarity Committee in Austin, a student organization, and specifically “called for a cease-fire in Gaza and for UT to divest from weapons manufacturers that provide supplies to Israel,” reported KUT.
Some students have also said they don’t want their tuition to go toward funding what they call a genocide of Palestinians. That’s not too far-fetched, as Silver noted some university endowments are partially funded by tuition.
“Endowments, generally speaking, are built from tuition payments made by students. They’re also made from gifts from former students and alumni who are influential people connected to the university,” he said. “So oftentimes you will see wealthy donors giving millions – if not billions – of dollars to a university’s endowment.”
Calls for divestment aren’t a new strategy. They actually date back to at least the 1960s, when colleges and universities were in the grips of protests calling for an end to the war in Vietnam. Those were followed by calls for divestment in protest of South African apartheid and later, the fossil fuel industry in Texas.
That history aside, predicting the actual impact of divestment is somewhat complicated.
Chris Marsicano, an assistant professor of educational studies and public policy at Davidson College in North Carolina, told NPR the anti-fossil fuel movement didn’t make a significant difference. And it’s unclear whether the current campaign will yield results the protest movement deems significant.
“When universities have divested from fossil fuels, that hasn’t made much of a dent in terms of the stock prices of those fossil fuel companies, and it doesn’t seem to affect the university endowments,” he said. “It also has some parallels to South Africa in the ’80s. But even then, the research shows that most of the divestment efforts mainly led to a global political movement. And I don’t know that we’re there yet with divestment from Israel due to the Gaza conflict.”
The calls for divestment aren’t confined to the UT Austin campus. Students at the University of Texas at Dallas held sit-in demonstrations last week and eventually met with university president Richard Benson, KERA reported.
“Our demand is for divestment. Our demand is for our university to end its complicity in the genocide,” said Fatima Tulkarem, a member of Students for Justice in Palestine at UTD.
Demonstrators, however, didn’t make any headway toward their demands and said the meeting didn’t lead to meaningful discussions.
The flip side of divestment
Nationally, at least one student protest movement has provided some sense of progress. Brown University in Rhode Island announced Tuesday that an agreement was reached where protesters would dismantle their encampment and a university advisory committee would meet to discuss the students’ divestment demands.
“The University agreed that five students will be invited to meet with five members of the Corporation of Brown University in May to present their arguments to divest Brown’s endowment from ‘companies enabling and profiting from the genocide in Gaza,’” the school said in a statement. Brown President Christina H. Paxson will also “ask the Advisory Committee on University Resources Management to provide a recommendation on the matter of divestment by Sept. 30, and this will be brought to the Corporation for a vote at its October 2024 meeting.”
But Investopedia’s Caleb Silver said there is a flip side to divestment: If universities ultimately agree to divest from a certain company or entity – whether in Texas or elsewhere – they surrender any say in how it acts afterwards.
“You lose your voice in what that company is able to do going forward. And if you’re a large shareholder – like a lot of these big university endowments are – you have a pretty big voice in how these companies operate,” Silver said.
“Well, you’ve taken your money out, you’ve walked away, you’ve let your money do the walking. But you’ve lost your ability to affect strategy, to affect change within that company.”
A North Texas woman is apologizing to her neighborhood after being held hostage for more than 24 hours during a standoff that shut down a Providence Village subdivision and disrupted school bus service.
CBS News Texas obtained a post from the woman, who wrote, “I am so sorry, everyone, all of you have such wonderful families, and I’m sorry to bring this monster to us.”
Neighbors responded with support, telling her, “We are here for you,” and “Don’t be sorry, we were just so worried for you.”
Suspect faces multiple felony charges
Authorities said the woman was rescued by the FBI and SWAT after allegedly being held by 57‑year‑old Michael Miller. He faces charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, unlawful restraint, aggravated kidnapping, burglary of a habitation, and violation of bond/protective order.
Miller received bonds on all charges except aggravated kidnapping and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. His total bond on the remaining charges is $4.5 million.
Neighbors sheltered in place for more than a day
Residents of the Foree Ranch subdivision are now trying to return to normal, but many say the experience is still lingering.
Preston Turner said he walked into the situation unexpectedly.
“I went to leave my house roughly on Monday morning, around 1 a.m., to go help a friend out that was in need,” Turner said. “I opened my garage, and I was approached by two SWAT members, and they were telling me to hurry up and close my garage and that we could not leave the house.”
Turner, his wife and children spent the next 24-plus hours hosting neighbors who lived across the street from the victim’s home. He streamed the standoff live on TikTok until authorities asked him to stop for safety reasons.
“And once I got the stream going, her family was on the stream, and they were asking me to continue because they wanted to know what was going on. So, very concerned about her,” he said.
Turner said he could see when Miller was arrested and placed into an SUV before being taken to jail.
Families describe fear and uncertainty
Up the block, Ruby Condensa and her family sheltered in place as the hours dragged on.
“It went on for so long. Um, at one point, I honestly did not know what was going to happen after we hit the 20-hour mark and I woke up, and I heard them,” Condensa said.
Her nearly two‑year‑old son Kai is used to playing outside, and she believes the uncertainty added to his anxiety.
“Kai, he’s a baby. He doesn’t know, but I think that obviously it was a lot just being inside. And I know my anxious energy might’ve been a little on him because it was a scary situation. Um, if it was that scary for me, I can’t even imagine what her and her family went through.”
Community gives victim space, offers support
Neighbors chose not to visit the victim’s home on Wednesday, saying they wanted to give her space after the traumatic event. But they made clear they are ready to help.
“It’s really sad, and I feel for her, and I hope that she can heal from that,” Condensa said. “And I know that, um, our neighborhood has really rallied around her, and if she needs anything. I know a lot of us would be there to help her in whatever way she needs.”
ABILENE, Texas — A Florida truck driver has been charged with intoxication manslaughter after a crash at a rural intersection left a South Texas man dead, authorities said.
Miguel Angel Casanova, 68, of Saint Cloud, Florida, suffered minor injuries in the crash and was wearing a seatbelt, according to investigators. After receiving treatment at Hendrick North Emergency Care, he was arrested on the charge.
RELATED| Abilene man charged with Intoxicated Manslaughter
Authorities identified the victim as Adam Lee Reyna, 26, of Mission, Texas. Reyna, who was driving a 2019 Dodge Ram pickup, died at the scene and was pronounced dead by Justice of the Peace Mike McAuliffe. His seatbelt use was not immediately known.
According to a preliminary investigation, Casanova was traveling westbound on County Road 54 and approached a stop sign at the intersection with State Highway 351. Reyna was traveling northbound on the highway toward the same intersection.
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Investigators said Casanova failed to yield at the stop sign, and the vehicles collided.
The impact caused Reyna’s pickup to catch fire, and it was destroyed, authorities said.
RELATED| Abilene man indicted for intoxication manslaughter
Further investigation determined Casanova was intoxicated due to an overdose of medication at the time of the crash.
The investigation remains ongoing.
DALLAS — Texas can require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public schools, a U.S. appeals court ruled Tuesday in a victory for conservatives who have long sought to incorporate more religion into classrooms.
The 9-8 decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals delivered a boost to backers of similar laws in Arkansas and Louisiana. Opponents have argued that hanging the Ten Commandments in classrooms proselytizes to students and amounts to religious indoctrination by the government.
In a lengthy majority opinion, the conservative-leaning appeals court in New Orleans rejected those arguments in Texas, saying the requirement does not step on the rights of parents or students.
“No child is made to recite the Commandments, believe them, or affirm their divine origin,” the ruling says.
The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups that challenged the Texas law on behalf of parents said in a statement that they anticipate appealing the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“The First Amendment safeguards the separation of church and state, and the freedom of families to choose how, when and if to provide their children with religious instruction. This decision tramples those rights,” they said in the statement.
The mandate is one of several fronts in Texas that opponents have fought over religion in classrooms. In 2024, the state approved optional Bible-infused curriculum for elementary schools, and a proposal set for a vote in June would add Bible stories to required reading lists in Texas classrooms.
The decision over the Ten Commandments law reverses a lower federal court ruling that had blocked about a dozen Texas school districts — including some of the state’s largest — from putting up the posters. The Texas law signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott took effect in September, marking the largest attempt in the nation to hang the Ten Commandments in public schools.
From the start, the law was met almost immediately by a mix of embrace and hesitation in Texas classrooms that educate the state’s 5.5 million public school students.
The mandate animated school board meetings, spun up guidance about what to say when students ask questions, and led to boxes of donated posters being dropped on the doorsteps of campuses statewide. Although the law only requires schools to hang the posters if donated, one suburban Dallas school district spent nearly $1,800 to print roughly 5,000 posters.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, called the ruling “a major victory for Texas and our moral values.”
“The Ten Commandments have had a profound impact on our nation, and it’s important that students learn from them every single day,” he said.
Tuesday’s ruling comes after the appeals court heard arguments in January in the Texas case and a similar case in Louisiana. In February, the court cleared the way for Louisiana to enforce its law requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in classrooms.
Republican Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said the Texas ruling “adopted our entire legal defense” of the law in her state. In Alabama, Republican Gov. Kay Ivey also signed a similar law earlier this month.
“Our law clearly was always constitutional, and I am grateful that the Fifth Circuit has now definitively agreed with us,” Murrill said in a statement posted to social media.
Judge Stephen A. Higginson, in a dissenting opinion joined by four others on the court, wrote that the framers of the Constitution “intended disestablishment of religion, above all to prevent large religious sects from using political power to impose their religion on others.”
“Yet Texas, like Louisiana, seeks to do just that, legislating that specific, politically chosen scripture be installed in every public-school classroom,” Higginson wrote.
The law says schools must put donated posters “in a conspicuous place” and requires the writing to be a size and typeface that is visible from anywhere in a classroom to a person with “average vision.” The displays must also be 16 inches wide and 20 inches tall.
Texas’ law easily passed the GOP-controlled Legislature and Republicans, including President Donald Trump, have backed posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms.
___
Associated Press writer Audrey McAvoy contributed to this report from Honolulu, Hawaii.
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