Columbia Elections Board announced on Monday that Columbia College has passed a divestment referendum by a large margin. The referendum, first proposed by Columbia University Apartheid Divest on March 3, asked whether the University should divest financially from Israel, cancel the Tel Aviv Global Center, and end Columbia’s dual degree program with Tel Aviv University.

The first question passed with 76.55 percent of voters in favor, while the latter two garnered 68.36 and 65.62 percent support from voters, respectively. The election had 40.26 percent voter participation, with 2,013 students voting, which passed the minimum 30 percent voter participation threshold required by the Columbia College Student Council constitution.

The referendum alone does not have any direct bearing on University policy, but functions as an official poll of Columbia College students’ sentiments towards the issue.

“Columbia University welcomes and embraces the Israeli students, faculty, and staff on our campus,” a University spokesperson wrote in a statement to Spectator. “We also benefit greatly from our dual degree program with Tel Aviv University.”

“Columbia is a leader in educating students who have served in their country’s armed forces, including students from Israel. We are proud of our students and military veterans from Israel and around the world whose experience adds considerable value to the classroom and beyond,” the spokesperson added.

In an interview with Spectator, CCSC President Teji Vijayakumar, CC ’24, said that while “overwhelming support is always great,” she doesn’t “necessarily think that this referendum will be enough to get divestment.”

Instead, Vijayakumar hopes the referendum will encourage the University Senate to “put out a University-wide referendum” to demonstrate consensus among all Columbia University students.

In December 2023, members of CUAD proposed University divestment from Israel to the University’s Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investing, but they were rejected in February due to a lack of “broad consensus within the University community regarding the issue at hand.”

The referendum marks an increase of 15 percent in Columbia College students’ support for divestment since the college last held a referendum on the topic in 2020, in which 1,771 students participated. After the 2020 referendum passed, former University President Lee Bollinger announced the results would not alter University investments because “the University should not change its investment policies on the basis of particular views about a complex policy issue, especially when there is no consensus across the University community about that issue.” Instead, Bollinger wrote that “endowment funds are not decided by referendum but through a process involving the University’s Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investing.”

“On questions of divestment, the University appreciates the work of the ACSRI to evaluate proposals consistent with its longstanding processes,” the University spokesperson wrote.

The results of this referendum come on the sixth day of the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” and five days after University President Minouche Shafik authorized the New York Police Department on Thursday to sweep the encampment, leading to the arrests of over 100 protestors. Voting on the referendum closed on Friday, April 19, one day after the arrests.

Barnard’s Student Government Association plans to hold a similar referendum vote, while the Engineering Student Council announced plans to send out a poll to all engineering students on the question of divestment.