Divestment Referendum Narrowly Defeated

After a week of furious postering, tabling, and Facebook status-ing, the dust has settled on the USG Referendum to divest from companies "that maintain the infrastructure of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank."It was defeated by just over a hundred votes. 52.5% voted in favor and 47.5% voted against, according to an email from USG President Ella Cheng which announced the results, and 2032 students total voted on the referendum. That's roughly 40% of the student body.The failure of the referendum means that USG will not call on University trustees to divest. Princeton's divestment guidelines call for "considerable, thoughtful and sustained campus interest," and also require the issue at hand to involve a core University value, a high bar to clear, even if the vote had passed.Given that challenge, leaders of the divestment campaign have expressed that they consider the student conversation and awareness of the issue developed a success in itself, for their campaign. While a number of university student governments have held contentious debates and votes regarding divestment, rarely have they been opened up to the entire student body.