Statement by WMU President Edward Montgomery at June 27, 2024, WMU Board of

Trustees meeting:

As the Board is aware, in late April, we began working with students and other demonstrators for
Gaza to create a process for dialogue. I appointed four senior administrators to join four
demonstrators on a joint committee. They included the chief of staff, who regularly handles
sensitive matters for the University and Board of Trustees; the vice president for student affairs,
who is trusted by students from across campus; the vice president for government relations, who
we trust to negotiate with the governor and senior elected officials at the federal, state and local
level; and the associate vice president for strategic communication, who is routinely the campus
spokesperson on a wide range of vital matters. I meet with our group regularly and these senior
officials have invested countless hours to considering proposals and engage with these students.

My team, at my direction and guidance, has worked with students and demonstrators in good
faith, balancing responsive to them with adherence to our mission. We have respectfully listened,
which has resulted in some actions being taken to date. We've also come to differing opinions in
some cases, but we have stayed engaged nonetheless. This is a situation where people of
goodwill can listen and honor alternate perspectives even when they strongly disagree. Our
actions so far have been responsive to the students and demonstrators, though not to the letter of
their request, for reasons, as I will outline.

As you have heard and already knew, they have made numerous requests of WMU ranging from
a new statement on the crisis to actively deploying the resources of the campus, to boycotting
Israel and divesting from companies doing business with Israel.

The question raised here is what role universities or WMU can or should play in addressing
geopolitical crises or injustice that exists in the world in general and in Gaza. In particular, I
think it's important to talk about what is the role or mission of our University.

o As a research university, our mission is to extend and disseminate knowledge. We do

so by creating an environment that fosters the free exchange of ideas so the pursuit of
truth or understanding can develop. That is best achieved when a plurality of ideas
and approaches can be tested against each other with a hope that through that
progress, fuller, deeper understanding emerges. Hosting and nurturing that process of
discovery is what we do best and ultimately is our greatest contribution to society.

o /////As the public institution that embraces people from all cultures and perspectives,
we don't and shouldn't impose litmus tests on the beliefs of its faculty, staff, students
or alumni. Free speech and academic freedom exist on our campus not as abstract
concepts, but as the lifeblood of how we advance our teaching and research
mission./////

o When we fail to protect and promote these constructs, we risk the very reason for our
existence. And so, as a result, WMU has upheld and protected demonstrators’ First
Amendment rights and safety from the beginning. The group has been free to exercise
their right to protest on campus and has said done so on several occasions, including
 today. At the same time, we reject efforts to divide us or to make anyone lesser
through anti-Semitism, islamophobia or anti-Arabism.

o /////To best protect that free exchange of ideas, we generally refrain from taking
institutional positions on a wide range of social and geopolitical matters. This is
particularly true when there is not a clear or overwhelming consensus view within our
community or society./////
o
o //// To declare the winner of debates over complex issues or to frame that declaration
as a moral judgement would chill the very process of debate and exchange of ideas
that make us who we are. The fact is, we don't all agree in this room, on this campus
or in this country about the causes and solutions to Gaza or the Middle East. When
the University weighs in on one perspective, we run a material risk of silencing some
portion of the discourse we are in fact charged with fostering. This is why many
universities, like our colleagues at Kalamazoo College, have adopted institutional
neutrality with regard to statements.////

o To be responsive to our students, we did decide to issue a second statement, but its
central focus was on supporting those on our campus impacted by the crisis and on
our shared humanity and common desire for lasting peace. We did not venture into
offering solutions or picking or ascribing blame for the reasons I just described.

o Going beyond statements, the demonstrators are now asking us to consider boycotting
Israel and to harness the economic resources which have been entrusted to us by our
students, their families and taxpayers of the state of Michigan to promote their
particular political, social or moral cause. As with the issues around statements, we
will listen to their perspectives, but, make no mistake, the request in front of us will
raise complex and critical questions. Divestment, for example. Should our
investments be guided by social or political criteria? Who gets to decide which
causes? Or how to balance the morality of one cause versus another. How do we view
taking any given position on an issue in light of our fiduciary obligations, our
imperative to minimize the cost burden on our students and our responsibility to
operate within the bounds of the law?
Forty-one years ago, WMU looked at these questions and in that context, decided to
join a number of other universities in divesting from companies that did not support
the Sullivan principle in South Africa. Much has changed in the world since then, but
today many of the 3,000 colleges and universities across the country and right here in
Michigan have also been asked to consider this very question again but in the context
of Israel and Palestine. We can find only one that so far has been moved to divest.

In summary, our actions so far are indeed responsive to the students and demonstrators, though
not to the letter of their request for the reasons I've outlined. We welcome continued
conversations as we also honor academic freedom as a bedrock principle at the core of our
mission to create and share knowledge.