HANOVER — Dartmouth College has officially rejected a proposal to pull its investments from six major aerospace and defense companies that manufacture munitions and other supplies that are used in the Israeli war effort in Gaza and commit to not making similar investments in the future.

The movement for divestment has been ongoing since 2023 and is the subject of significant community activism, including a May 1 protest when students established an encampment in front of the building that holds President Sian Beilock’s office. The divestment proposal was written by Dartmouth Divest for Palestine, a group of students, faculty, alumni, staff and community members, and has been endorsed by 35 different groups affiliated with Dartmouth and in the Upper Valley.

In response to the encampment, the college confirmed that it would vote and deliver a written decision on the divestment proposal by mid-May. Following the demonstration, a college spokesperson told the Valley News that the review had been “underway” since February when the proposal was submitted.

The proposal specifically asked Dartmouth to rescind its current investments in aerospace and defense companies BAE Systems, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, L3 Harris Technologies, Northrop Grumman and RTX Corporations, and commit to not investing in any similar companies in the future. Dartmouth’s endowment totaled $8.3 billion in fiscal year 2024.

“It is only by divesting from companies directly involved in Israel’s violations of international law that Dartmouth can uphold its mission to educate responsible future leaders, as well as its fiduciary responsibility,” the 55-page proposal said.

Dartmouth’s Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility, or ACIR, reviews divestment proposals and presents recommendations to the Board of Trustees who make the final decision.

ACIR, a nine-member board including students, alumni, faculty and college administration appointed annually by the president, assesses five criteria to determine if a divestment proposal is complete before preparing a recommendation under college policy.

After 10 meetings, the committee unanimously ruled May 12 that the proposal is incomplete, meaning that it failed to meet any of the five criteria for completeness, according to its 7-page written response. As a result, the committee will not forward the proposal the Board of Trustees. There is no provision in ACIR’s policies that says whether the proposal can be resubmitted if it is revised.

The committee’s decision was upheld by Beilock and published on the ACIR web page Tuesday.

“The outcome of this process in no way changes the fact that Dartmouth is committed to cultivating a community that is open to and respectful of differences in opinion — and that greets those interactions as moments to learn and grow,” Beilock wrote in her response.

The only item the committee deemed “partially” met was that the proposal provide evidence for how the companies’ “actions or inactions” fail to align with Dartmouth’s “history, its values, or mission.”

ACIR wrote that the proposal “makes a reasonable effort” to satisfy the item by outlining how this campaign compares to the history of divestment at Dartmouth and arguing that the six companies identified “support the Israeli government by supplying missiles, bombs, vehicles, aircraft, and munitions.”

But, the committee ruled that the proposal does not meet the condition because it presents no counterarguments.

The other four criteria outlined by ACIR are that the companies were given the opportunity to and have not changed their behavior; that divestment will make a “material impact” on the companies; that divesting won’t limit dialogue or research on the topic at Dartmouth; and that the proposal provides “concrete and detailed” evidence that the Dartmouth community “has come to consensus to support” it.

ACIR argued in its response that the proposal does not include counterarguments and offers evidence that is “anecdotal and not sufficient.”

At the May 1 protest students unsuccessfully attempted to negotiate to waive the consensus condition. The absence of consensus was one of the deciding factors in ACIR’s final decision.

“The Proposal is silent on the matter of how divestment can be treated as a consensus position in the face of what is almost certainly deep opposition to it among some members of the Dartmouth community,” the response said. ACIR did not provide any evidence of the referenced “deep opposition.”

In spite of the decision, the Dartmouth community continues to organize around divestment. A group of students and community members gathered for a rally in response to the decision in front of Parkhurst Hall Thursday afternoon.

Dartmouth Divest for Palestine did not respond to a request for comment by deadline.

Clare Shanahan can be reached at cshanahan@vnews.com or 603-727-3216.