Student protestors have a long history of demanding financial divestment

In the '70s and '80s, college students demanded divestment as a way to put pressure on South Africa to end its apartheid policy.

At Columbia University, pro-Palestinian student protestors took over a campus building and put up barricades early on Tuesday. At Columbia and other campuses across the nation, students have been pushing for colleges and universities to sell off investments in Israeli companies or companies they say profit from the Israel-Hamas War.  

There’s a long history of divestment being a demand of protestors, including college students over 30 years ago who wanted to put pressure on South Africa to end its apartheid policy.

Back in the ’70s and ’80s, lots of college students demanded their universities cut ties with any company that did business in South Africa.

“The idea of a global disinvestment movement was to make it impossible for South Africa to function,” said sociologist David S. Meyer, author of the book “How Social Movements (Sometimes) Matter.”

Divestment caught on because it was something tangible that students could ask for, he said.

“You gave people who were very, very, very distant from the conflict in South Africa something to do that connected with their lives,” said Meyer.

The student protests spilled over to trade unions and religious groups, according to Mattie Christine Webb, a social and political historian at Yale.

“It wasn’t just limited to university campuses — it very much drew in the local community,” she said.

The student protests were also part of a larger cultural movement, including musicians, who said they were boycotting playing in the South African resort Sun City and put that into a song.

Despite the pressure, the whole effort to end apartheid took place over decades — not months. Sociologist David S. Meyer points out that social movements often take a long time.