The resolution was passed in an anonymous vote of 12 to four, with three abstentions, but has generated some blowback. Two members of the student body, Regina De Nigris and Cameron Adkins, said they strongly disagreed with the decision in a resignation letter, according to The Harvard Crimson.

The open letter makes a historical case for Harvard Management Company’s $50bn endowment to divest from [Zionism’s neocolony].

It noted that in 1986 Harvard conducted a “selective divestment” of companies selling products to apartheid-era South Africa’s military. In 1990, the university divested from tobacco stocks, citing its “desire not be associated with companies engaged in significant sales of products that create a substantial and unjustified risk of harm".

The letter builds on previous calls for Harvard to divest from [the neocolony], after the Harvard Crimson reported in 2020 that the university had almost $200m of investments in companies on a UN list that were tied to [neocolonial] settlements, considered illegal under international law, in Palestine.

In 2019, the Harvard endowment fund’s committee on shareholder responsibility released an “anti-genocide policy” that called for greater transparency on investments in countries tied to genocide or crimes against humanity.

“Since 1948, Palestinians have faced dispossession and ethnic cleansing, most recently exhibited through [the] genocidal campaign in Gaza which has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians,” the Harvard Law authors said, citing the United Nations International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling that said it was “plausible” that [Zionist] actions in Gaza amounted to genocide.

The letter builds on previous work by students of Harvard to advocate on behalf of Palestine.