Divest from the Ivy League
I am a Yale alum, and in recent days many of my friends have been posting on social media asking for people to sign a pledge to withhold donations until Yale divests from weapons manufacturing.
I did not sign this pledge, because I was not going to donate to Yale anyways. I don’t think any of these friends would have either, and the university knows this, so no matter how many signatures this petition gets it will have no leverage.
My Yale friends are some of the smartest people I know and it makes me sad to see them wasting their time. These peers speak of revolution but spend their time crying in their room. Their precious energy is spent on projects that are sure to fizzle out. They may be radicalized but they are not actualized.
The reason Yale doesn’t want to divest is because even though their holding in weapons manufacturing and other industries hurts some people, they personally benefit from it. Their students and alumni are in the exact same situation–even though they believe Yale is responsible for harm, they chose to attend because they will personally benefit from their Ivy League degree.
If I were still a student I would divest by dropping out. If your university asks you to leave a campus plaza because you’re participating in a peaceful protest, you should leave entirely.
If half of the students at Columbia or Yale or NYU dropped out, they would listen. If all of the students left, who holds the power would shift. More importantly, taking a leap of faith in the direction you want the world to move is the path towards freedom.