Obviously fuck these laws. And even if these laws state that universities cannot legally divest, they should divest anyway and say 'fuck you, take me to court'--but, with that aside, what are the actual details of these laws?
I know it varies state to state, but in PA, for example, where the UPenn encampment was raided this morning, the university says "Penn remains unequivocally opposed to divestment, and it is unlawful for institutions receiving funding from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania."
From what I can tell, there's just a 2016 law that states that the government of PA essentially can't do business with entities that have divested from Israel--but how does that legally prevent the entity from actually doing so on their part?
I keep seeing this claim that "It's illegal to divest, so we as a university can't do so. Tough luck." Not only is it ethically BS, but it seems to be a straight up lie, too?
Just a personal anecdote, but i once said exactly that - that I'm a good googler. Then I went into a spiel about how being able to navigate to certain corners of the interent is an underrated skill in todays world. I ended up getting that job.
Might not always work, but i wouldn't necessarily shy away from talking about it.