FOLLOW THE MONEY AND SEE WHERE IT GOES

Universities pride themselves on legacy. It is what leads us to the institution, its name. The buildings housing our education are built honouring the alumni of our great establishment. Dates, crests, latin and lists of old white men’s names litter the five hundred and seventy three year old walls, reminding us of the people behind the University of Glasgow. But what about the money behind these institutions, not just the people. The flowing river of cash converted into salaries, scholarships and study spaces. The investment of funds into armstrading and the weapons industry has been a hot topic on campus for the last decade. It seems obscene to think that the money from our humble scholastic sanctuary put a gun in the hand of an IDF soldier or helped build a fighter jet “mowing the lawn” of the Gaza strip.

Or is it?

Let’s go step by step: 

1.You pay your fees to the University of Glasgow, around £9,250 for the average UK student

2. A fund manager from the Investment Advisory Committees invests in stock market categories, for example in the Arms Category, BAE systems. In 2024 the university bought 14,998 shares with a market value of £194,524.06.

3. BAE produces the rear fuselage, used in F-35 fighter jets. that are produced by Lockheed and Martin, whom in 2024 the university bought 855 shares with a market value of £360,731.52

4. The Israeli Government, buys 50 F-35 jets, receiving 32 by 2022. The UK Defence Minister admitted that ‘there were 14 transfers of F-35 components’ from the UK to Israel between 2023 – 2024.’

5. The stock price of BAE increases, BAE Systems prices have soared by almost 120% across the last 3 years following the war in: Ukraine, Palestine and Yemen.

6. The F-35’s are used on the air strikes of the Gaza strip, killing more than 46,000 Palestinians

7. BAE makes a profit from the IDF’s purchase, before interest and tax in 2023, BAE made a record sale of £25.3bn. 

8. UOG sees a return on their investment by the continuation of endowments from BAE, in 2023 UOG had 17,075 shares at £159,045.86 continuing into 2024. BAE have £38,879,098 in research partnerships with UOG

9. I get my £1000 a year RUK Scholarship. 

Unfortunately, the F-35 jet isn’t the odd exception. 

From the companies UOG invested in both in 2023 and 2024, they produce parts or manufacture the: F-161 jet, BAE makes the HUD (Head up Displays), MK 38 Mod 2 machine gun by BAE , F-35A jet manufactured by Lockheed and Martin or the F-35B-C jet manufactured by Rolls Royce. Or even the software for the Heron Medium-Altitude Long-Endurance UAV drones by Thales. 

Just to name a microscopic portion of the Israeli arsenal produced by companies in UOG’s investment list. 

One last question from myself-

DD Go on. 

Do you acknowledge that the university makes money from killing people? From war. Do you acknowledge that fact?

DD No. No. It’s not true. 

Are you sure David? 

The University Fund managers are ‘required to divest from companies that seriously breach international treaties that the UK is a signatory of’.

In the 2024 investments, Caterpillar Inc (1,469 shares at £397,070.89) are alleged to be providing equipment used in the demolition of homes in conflict zones, leading to displacement. This violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ‘Article 12: protection against arbitrary interference with one’s home’ and ‘Article 17: right to property ownership’. Alstom SA (2,785 shares at £42,514.16) are alleged to be involved in Israeli settlement projects in Palestinian territories, actively displacing communities. This violates ‘Article 9: protection against arbitrary exile’ and ‘Article 17’. Both the Israeli banks, Bank Hapoalim (3,904 shares at £28,073.09) and Bank Leumi (4,737 shares at £32,003.99) were identified by the High Council for Human Rights, to be ‘involved in the activities’ aiding the ‘Israeli settlements’ on ‘occupied Palestinian Territory’. 

This identifies some of the investments that have breached Human Rights, unrelated to the arms trade. The supplement of arms to states at risk is a clear breach of Human Rights, clearly not. 

GUJPS/GAAF calculated that in 2023 the sum of arms investments by UOG was at £4,493,821. In addition to this, the University’s careers service platforms these companies, inviting them to careers fairs. There are 23 active research grants, totalling around £60,343,849, funded by arms companies in the Engineering (~£23,093,465), Physics (~£26,249,593), Astronomy, Chemistry, Computing Science and Math & Stats schools. These are funded by Thales (389 shares at £48,158.10), Leonardo (3.297 shares at £61,134.90), Honeywell (1,843 shares at £293,786.64), Lockheed and Martin, BAE, Airbus (1,585 shares at £186,888.85), Dassault, Jacobs, QinetiQ, Siemens and Teledyne. 

All are known to have made contributions to the Israeli Defence Force.

A FOI request was sent to UOG to ensure the 2024 File of Investments held for Endowment would be made publically available. They were released for a few days when they were taken down and were only recently reinstated. 

110 of the 1038 companies we define as ‘socially irresponsible’. 

David Duncan defined a moral ‘distinction’ in ‘a defence sector’ and the sales of ‘arms to certain recipients’. 

So what you are saying about, companies who’ve- there is a difference between having a defense sector and-

DD selling arms-

-dealing arms to certain people, certain countries-

DD Yep.

-in high risk states. So PAX, a peace charity, used data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute to look at the unethical deliverance of arms to states at risk by the 25 largest arms companies [Lockheed Martin, Raytheon (now RTX), Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, BAE Systems, AVIC, L3Harris, Airbus, Leonardo, Thales, Honeywell, Rolls-Royce, General Electric and Safran]. In the companies identified [by PAX] bar 1 [AVIC] we have investments in all of these companies in both 2023 and 2024 [totalling at an estimated £2,896,094.39 in 2024]. And then they also looked at the links between the 15 biggest European banks who continued loans and investments with these arms companies in light of their unethical arms trading who through sales “contributed to negative human rights impacts”. So what you’re saying people delivering arms to people who are actively, the unethical deliverance of arms in differentiation from a defence sector. Out of the banks, out of the top 15 banks who engaged in that, we have investments in 10 of them. 

DD So your talking about banks rather than defence sector-

Banks who continued to support arms companies and the arms companies themselves who did exactly what you are saying is unethical, supplying them to certain states at risk, so we have done that.

DD Yeah. 

With the The companies highlighted were done through the 10% rule, as long as the company makes less than 10% of its profits from arms trading, all is ok. 

We haven’t. Murder is Murder. Whether in Yemen, Palestine or Sudan. Be it a bolt, a nut or a screw, complicity in the production of any part in the machine of war is unacceptable. 

Overall, the sum of arms investments in 2024 is estimated around £4,520,625.29.

David Duncan said a ‘revised SRI policy’ would return to the University Court in April of 2025. Judging from the ignorance to genocide by the managerial team surrounding the issue of divestment, what does this mean for the student body as we sit and wait? 

To be bigger, louder and stronger. To stand together with the UCU, SRC and the greater Glasgow community. As said by Chomsky and Pappé, ‘We are many. We will prevail’.

Success has been seen previously. Student action directly led to the divestment of university funds from the fossil fuel industry, however pathetically that has been pursued by the Investment Advisory Committee.

 The prevalent presence of student activism on campus highlights the problematic funding that goes into building a university, book by book. 

Our university is built on the back of colonial profits and we now see the game of apologetic amendments unfolding. In 2016, UOG acknowledged it ‘received some gifts’ ‘from persons who may have benefitted from the proceeds of slavery’. In 2018, UOG announced a set of initiatives acknowledging its colonial past. In 2019, they signed an agreement with the University of the West Indies in Jamaica pledging £20 million in funding activities relating to restorative justice and the issue of slavery. 

Amendments can be made and divestments done without the bankruptcy of the university that is so greatly feared . 

If David Duncan and the rest of the faceless, nameless, cowardly UOG management cannot open their eyes to the humanitarian crisis we are actively contributing to and not divest, should we? 

If only it was that simple. To remove our fees, return our scholarship removing the fear of indifference to the economic contribution to war. As students, we now have to define our alignment with the university system in the 21st Century. The access to education builds the tools to challenge the colonial capitalist ideology plaguing not just the halls of the GUU but the foundations of the world. 

Education is not the cost to be cut. It is the investment in the arms trade. 

Simple, right David?

Management’s choice to not divest illustrates the hypocrisy at the core of the University of Glasgow, not by the student body but by its perverse pedagogues. 

So, you joined us. We followed these funds down and you saw what we found. Now it falls to you. Engaging with the issue of Palestinian liberation or any war is to engage with divestment and that begins in this university we call home. 

We can only show you the way, tell you the truth, you must help create the life we all deserve. 

From the edge of every river to every sea.