Out of the loop

11086 readers

11 users here now

A community that helps people stay up to date with things going on.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

zachimusprime44

121

Why do all those US universities have dealings with Israel? (self.outoftheloop)

submitted 7 months ago by marcos to c/outoftheloop

31 comments fedilink hide all child comments

All those student protests on the US seem to be about stopping their universities from supporting the Israel government. But supporting a foreign government is not a normal thing for a university to do, why do they do it?

Is there some educational or research resource they get?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] palebluethought 10 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

For the most part, they're not specifically supporting the Israeli government. They have endowment funds, which they invest in mutual funds and other such financial instruments, like everyone else. Those mutual funds, in turn, invest money in a huge array of different stocks, bonds, etc, generally with the goal of producing a decent return with a minimum amount of risk. Buried somewhere in that pile of investments are things like Israeli government bonds, shares in defense contractors, etc, because political priorities are not usually a factor in how mutual funds decide where to put their money.