On Thursday, July 11, University of King’s College (King’s) president William Lahey published a statement to the King’s community writ large on the school’s divestment and disclosure status—which included complying with the university’s Responsible Investing Policy. Within it, he mentioned three student and alumni groups by name that have sent demands, written open letters or, as was the case with the King’s Student Union, amplified the demands of others.
This last point is an error in Lahey’s statement, says King’s Student Union (KSU) president, Sara MacCallum. The KSU had not issued their own demands, but had presented demands of a King’s student group at a recent Board of Governors meeting. MacCallum says this is an example of how Lahey’s statement lacks clarity and contains inaccuracies.
Inaccurate to say disclosure not a result of student action
For starters, MacCallum says she was glad to see King’s comply with their own Responsible Investing Policy “for the first time since it was adopted [in 2021],” through the disclosure of their most recent financial assets that accompanied Lahey’s statement.
However, she says she found it interesting that his statement said that full divestment and disclosure was not related to current student demands, or student union organizing. “It's inaccurate to say that’s not related to student organizing in solidarity with Palestine,” says MacCallum, “when that's what revealed the non-compliance with the policy over the past few months.”
In his statement, Lahey took “full responsibility” for King’s not honouring its policy’s commitment to disclosure sooner. When noting the list of holdings was now available online, he added “again, its publication has nothing to do with Israel or Palestine.”
While MacCallum wasn’t at King’s in 2021, she says that student organizing was also a big factor in King’s creating the Responsible Investing Policy, “so, it’s interesting they helped again to ensure it was finally complied with.”
Lack of clarity, some inaccuracies
There were three spots in Lahey’s statement that MacCallum said lacked clarity, which made it hard to parse.
The first is his evocation of the school’s Code of Conduct and the prohibition of harming others, which he says is the responsibility of himself and the university in general to uphold.
MacCallum says Lahey’s intention in doing this “isn’t super clear.” She says the King’s Code of Conduct “governs how we’re supposed to relate to each other on campus, which people have been talking about in relation to potential instances of Islamophobia or antisemitism across the world for the past several months.” However, MacCallum doesn’t know whether Lahey is referencing specific instances within the King’s community when he says this.
The second spot that she says lacks clarity is the reason he gives, or doesn’t, for not engaging further with student demands beyond meeting the university’s threshold policy on responsible investing—which necessitated divesting $320,938 in June and publishing financial holdings at the time of his statement.
For clarity, Lahey noted the following demands from student and alumni groups below as ones that King’s will not take action on:
- Demand from alumni group for King’s to call for a ceasefire in Gaza
- Demand from student group and alumni group for further discussions on divestment related to Israel
- Demand from student group for increased student representation in decision making
- Demand from student group for Palestinian representation in King’s academia
- Demand from student group for King’s to create more supports for Palestinian, Arab and/or Muslim students at King’s
Lahey wrote, “The demands generally have in multiple respects called for changes in university policies, leadership, administration and governance that are unsupported by any rationale that could be accepted as the basis for university decisions and would be contrary to the best interests of King’s.”
This is where MacCallum says more clarity is needed. “He doesn't explain the rationale that he is purporting to disagree with,” says MacCallum. She says she’s left wondering what his understanding of the rationale behind the demands is.
What’s more, she says that “dismissing discussion and saying ‘No’ outright—that none of the other demands will be acted on—is a failure to engage with students in a way that they deserve.”
The third weak point of clarity, says MacCallum, was Lahey's mention of a KSU “post” made in October 2023 which he issued a response to on Oct. 24, which he received backlash for and apologized for in Thursday’s statement.
MacCallum says what Lahey is talking about was an Instagram story in which the KSU shared someone else's post about a student walkout happening at the school.
“That was something we shared to make sure our students were aware of that walkout if they wanted to participate, or not,” says MacCallum. “That post included the phrase, ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,’ which, it's accurate to say, is a controversial phrase.”
MacCallum says that while there’s a lot behind that phrase “in relation to the movement for Palestinian liberation,” the KSU did take it down and apologize in a separate Instagram story that they’ve kept on their page. “We continue to be sorry for any surprise or harm that [shared story] caused to individuals,” she says. “The whole discussion is much more nuanced than is captured in the paragraph in [Lahey’s statement], or than we could capture in our Instagram story.”
Lahey wrote that he “received strong criticism from both sides of the debate” for the email sent Oct. 24, 2023 “in which I distanced the university from a KSU post that I said would be viewed as antisemitic by many and in which I also recognized the freedom of expression of the KSU.”
Lahey wrote that while he stands by that statement, he acknowledges the criticism his statement received for implying “that only Jewish students needed support in light of the impact of the conflict between Israel and Hamas [and] for that, I apologize and emphasize that the support the university can provide was and is available to all.”
To that, MacCallum says “it’s telling that, even in [Lahey] acknowledging the implication that only Jewish students needed support was wrong—which I appreciate—Palestinian students and Muslim students are not mentioned at all, when that is something that students have highlighted as people who would need support.”
As for a point of inaccuracy, MacCallum says that Lahey gets it wrong when he wrote King’s “recently received [demands] from the KSU,” which he includes in a paragraph saying how acting “on the shifting and evolving demands” of certain groups would violate the responsibilities of King’s and himself as president.
“That specifically is not accurate,” says MacCallum. The KSU did not issue their own demands but rather brought forward a simplified version of the updated demands from the King’s Students in Solidarity with Palestine group, to the King’s Board of Governors meeting on June 20. These motions were read by student board representatives, like MacCallum, “because we felt that they should be considered by the governance body of this institution.”
The three motions, which Lahey’s statement said were all voted down, were for King’s to disclose its investments as mandated by their own investing policy; to divest from weapons manufacturing and companies and create additions to the investing policies setting this as precedent; and to increase student representation on the Board of Governors Investment Committee to 50%-plus-one.
Currently, King’s’ governance policy ensures one student representative on the committee of six to ten members.
“These demands weren’t written by the KSU, they were written by our students—and we chose to amplify them,” says MacCallum.
What’s also inaccurate, says MacCallum, is when Lahey wrote that a statement he “might be willing to make expressing shared abhorrence for all of the destruction and killing, which includes civilians, children, health care workers and journalists, that started on Oct. 7” wouldn’t be well-received by “those who are now calling on me and the university to make a statement to express support for Palestine” on terms he calls contrary to the responsibilities of himself and King’s. MacCallum disputes this. She says that when he previously suggested making a similar statement to students, they responded positively.
MacCallum says she’s learned a lot as president of the KSU since October, through “listening to our students, even when they're not always happy about things that we do,” she says. “It's my view that I have to try and do what's right, based on the understanding that I have at any time, and then listen to people if they disagree with me.
“I get that that's exhausting. But, to me, that's part of the job.”
Is King’s being impartial?
Much of Lahey’s statement hinges on the principle that King’s and himself must remain impartial during moments of division within the King’s community, or put the functioning of King’s at risk. He wrote that “to pronounce on this conflict in ways that took sides could call my impartiality into question for anyone who had differing views.”
MacCallum says that students have been expressing concerns that King’s “has already taken a position that isn't impartial,” especially through Lahey’s Oct. 24 statement and his first statement following Oct. 7, which he issued on Oct. 10. That one, says MacCallum “made a lot of students feel like the university is not a safe place to talk about Palestine or complicated issues more generally.”
McCallum says “there's a balance there that hasn't been struck yet” in terms of what the goal of impartiality can look like, “because that's not what students are feeling right now.”
MacCallum says that back in October, she was speaking with diverse members of the King’s community expressing concerns for safety and respect within campus culture, which is something she empathizes with “entirely.” But, she says she doesn’t think that means “pretending the genocide in Palestine isn’t happening or that students aren’t thinking about it often—it’s the kind of thing that needs to be confronted, and it will be imperfect.”
MacCallum says she finds it interesting that the position being taken by Lahey is that “in order for the university's other functioning processes to remain impartial, [King’s] can't make political statements,” like calling for a ceasefire in Gaza or condemning Israel. “I don't think that the decision making of the university on other matters should be affected.
“In an ideal world, [King’s] would be a strong enough system that students, faculty, and everyone could trust that university decisions are made fairly for everyone [while allowing for] the university as an institution to take an anti-war stance.”
Opportunity for King’s if they engage with students
Overall, MacCallum says the tone of Lahey’s statement reads as “a desire to get it over with and shut the whole conversation down.” She says this is similar to what she’s felt from the administration for months.
“I would hope that students and those responsible for governing this university would be able to talk to each other and work through nuances—and I don't think that's gonna happen through a statement,” says MacCallum.
She adds that more engagement with students is what’s needed, not less, and says “there's an opportunity for King’s to do a really good thing if they turn it around and listen to their students.”