At Bowdoin College’s Board of Trustees meeting Friday, students sat in silently to protest the college’s handling of a resolution students passed in May demanding the school take a stance against the war in Gaza.

Bowdoin’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) spearheaded May’s referendum asking the college to divest from defense-focused funds, publicly disclose direct and indirect investments in arms manufacturing, and establish a committee to oversee socially responsible investments. 

The referendum passed with a supermajority after being voted on by nearly 70% of the student body, but the college has not met divestment or disclosure requests, or issued an institutional statement.

Student protestors on Friday lined the entrance to the meeting, displaying “honor the referendum” signs as trustees passed. Several students worked together to display a sprawling list of names of Palestinians killed in Israel’s invasion of Gaza, where more than 40,000 civilians have been killed.  

In September, Bowdoin College President Safa Zaki announced an Ad Hoc Committee on Investments and Responsibility (ACIR) in response to the referendum. Composed of trustees, faculty, administrators and students, the referendum is designed to make broad investment strategy recommendations to the board of trustees, which oversees college investment policy.

“Rather than asking them to render a position on a particular issue, I have invited the committee to focus on developing a set of considerations and principles that we can turn to when analyzing questions that emerge at the intersection of the College’s mission and its investment practices,” Zaki wrote to members of the college on Sept. 5.

Organizer and Bowdoin senior Olivia Kenney expressed disappointment with Zaki’s decision to form the committee as a response to the referendum, stating that it falls short of the action items students voted on in the spring.

“Something that Bowdoin repeats in its rhetoric is its commitment to the ‘common good,’ and we have seen by its dismissive response to our referendum, including now with this committee … that their commitment seems, to us, hollow,” Kenney told The Times Record after the protest.

In the days before the sit-in, the committee hosted “coffee listening sessions” that offered students and employees of the college the chance to interact directly with committee members. 

Kenney and fellow organizer Marc Rosenthal attended these sessions and were frustrated with what they identified as a lack of committee transparency. According to Rosenthal, committee members present at his session often answered questions indirectly or not at all.

“As these listening sessions went on, we began to realize that these were ultimately a distraction tactic [and] a way to delay instituting real change,” he said.

The college has not yet responded to requests for comment.

Friday’s protest is the latest of many public-facing actions from Bowdoin’s SJP. In December, student protesters marched to Sen. Angus King’s residence in Brunswick to call for a cease-fire in Gaza. At May’s commencement ceremony, several students held signs urging for divestment, disclosure and an end to scholasticide in Gaza as they crossed the stage to receive their diplomas. Scholasticide is the term for an effort to destroy education in a specific place.

Rosenthal hopes the sit-in will encourage the board to alter its investment strategies to meet the referendum’s demands.

“This action was a way for us to interface directly with the board of trustees, see their faces as they walk by and get them to grapple with this,” he said.

Emma Kilbride is executive editor of the Bowdoin Orient, Bowdoin College’s student newspaper.