Our struggles are connected: from divestment to staff cuts

Edinburgh University staff and students at strike rally on 8 Sept. 2025

Ben Law, Edinburgh University Justice for Palestine Society

A few weeks ago, JPS was delighted to be invited to speak at the rally on the first day at the rally on the first day of the UCU Edinburgh Welcome Week strike, on 8 Sept., in George Square. What was palpable that day was not only anger, but a shared understanding that the fights for staff dignity and student satisfaction are two fronts in the same battle. We wanted to expand on that speech here, for those who couldn't be there, as this message is at the heart of the mass power students and staff need to build together.  

We are not just separate groups of staff and students, but also comrades in the same struggle. On the surface our fights may differ. You are fighting for fair wages, against job cuts, and for dignity in your work. We are fighting for our University to stop profiting from genocide. But look closer. These are symptoms of the same disease.  

The disease is a senior leadership team that prioritises profit over people.  They tell us there is no money for staff salaries, for secure contracts, for mental health services. But there is always money for their unconscionable investments, for their projects, for their partnerships with companies that manufacture destruction. They see your labour and our futures as items on a budget to be slashed, while they see arms dealers as a safe bet for their portfolio.

Let’s be specific. Let’s talk numbers. Through our research, we now know that the University of Edinburgh invests £75,251,828 in companies enabling and profiting from Israeli apartheid and the ongoing genocide in Palestine. This is not an abstract sum. It is:  

· £57 million in BlackRock, a fund that pours money into the arms companies equipping the atrocities.  

· Millions more in tech giants like Alphabet and Microsoft  – companies that, through ‘Project Nimbus’, provide the essential cloud-computing and AI infrastructure that the Israeli military uses to conduct its operations. 

· Another £7 million in Amazon, a company that operates in illegal settlements, normalising the occupation.  

· Further information can be found on the Edinburgh University Justice for Palestine Society’s Instagram page.   

These are not passive investments. They are active choices. They are decisions signed in ink, and paid for in blood. When the University says there is ‘no money’ for your salaries, or demands cuts, remember: there is always money for genocide. And do not forget – they rely on the disconnect between our movements to keep us from realizing our combined power. They hope we remain separate and that our student energy remains unfocused. Our task is to fuse them together. 

As a student who studies Philosophy and Politics, sitting in lectures about International Law and Ethics, the irony is crushing. I am taught by brilliant lecturers about these principles, all while our University’s finances are entangled with the companies that help a military bypass them. Project Nimbus isn’t just a tech contract; it is a system that powers more efficient surveillance and military planning. Our tuition fees are helping fund the infrastructure for a genocide while your colleagues are systematically undermined.  

We stand with you because your fight for fair work is a fight for the soul of this University. We ask you to stand with us because our fight for ethical investment is a fight for its conscience.  

We are the lecturers who inspire. We are the porters who keep the doors open. We are the staff that keep the wheels turning. We are the students who give this place its breath and heartbeat. We are the university. Not you Peter Mathieson. Us.  

But they seem to have forgotten that haven’t they? Forgotten that this is not an investment firm, but a community. A community they seem intent on destroying.  

Nothing makes this clearer than their insistence on shutting down the arteries of our university: our cafes. Most recently, it was the café in the Chrystal Macmillan Building. Before that, it was the Lister café and Appleton Tower. These were essential third spaces.  

By removing them, they make the campus a series of disconnected silos.  People go directly from class to home. They are replacing a vibrant, collaborative ecosystem with a transactional model where students are consumers, staff are service providers, and the campus is a mere facility.  It signals that the senior leadership team no longer values the social fabric of the university, viewing it instead as a set of assets to be trimmed.  

We must see these café closures for what they are: not just mistakes but a strategic choice. A physical manifestation of their philosophy. They are dismantling our community spaces while using our tuition fees and our labour to fund the destruction of communities abroad. It is a violence of neglect here, enabling a violence of action elsewhere. The connection is direct.  

Our solidarity cannot just be words. It must be action. So, here is our pledge to you, clear and concrete: we will show up for you. When you are on the picket lines fighting for your jobs, we will be there with you. We will amplify your demands not as sympathetic outsiders, but as comrades who understand that your fight for job security is inseparable from our fight for justice.  

But our solidarity must be more than just mutual support on separate fronts. To win, we must weave our strengths into a single, unbreakable fabric. And that is where we need your proactive leadership.  

You hold the keys to this institution in ways we simply cannot. You have the long-term insight we lack. So, we are not just asking for your voice; we are asking for you to help us strategize and escalate.  

Let’s move beyond rallies and petitions. Together, we can design actions that hit them where it hurts. You can help us craft targeted, un-ignorable campaigns. 

And in return, we ask for your voice. Because when we, as students, stand alone with our facts and figures, senior leadership can try to dismiss us. They can paint us as idealistic, or uninformed. But when academics and professionals like you stand with us, that narrative shatters.  

Your endorsement is not just another voice; it is expertise. It is the weight of academic authority. When a law professor says these investments violate international law, the administration must listen.  When a finance lecturer explains the ethical and reputational risks, they cannot look away. When a renowned researcher says this complicity stains their life’s work, it becomes an institutional crisis, not just a student protest.  

We are asking you to use that authority. Stand with us. Voice your condemnation in your departments and faculty meetings. Help us force the question that senior leadership is desperate to avoid: ‘How can this University keep funding genocide?’

They have the money and the power. But we have the numbers, the passion, and the undeniable moral authority. Most importantly, we have each other. And so, divestment is inevitable. It is only a question of how long they choose to be on the wrong side of history.  

And when that day comes, we will be ready. We will be ready to build a university that values knowledge, not just capital. A university that serves its people, not its portfolio. A university we can be proud of - not in spite of our principles, but because we fought for them, and won.