Saint Paul, MN – On Tuesday, October 21, the typically quiet Retirement Systems Building was filled with chants of “Free Palestine” as advocates of divestment from Israel staged an all-day sit-in. The building houses the staff offices of the State Board of Investment (SBI), whose long-delayed quarterly meeting was held that morning in an online-only format in the board’s latest effort to avoid Palestine protesters.
The SBI is chaired by Governor Tim Walz, joined by Attorney General Keith Ellison, State Auditor Julie Blaha and Secretary of State Steve Simon. Growing numbers of public employees, pension holders and other community members have spoken at quarterly SBI meetings, calling on it to divest state-managed funds from the state of Israel and companies complicit in Israel’s apartheid system and genocide in Gaza.
Tuesday’s meeting had originally been scheduled for August 20, but was abruptly postponed by the SBI as soon as divestment advocates posted a call to pack the physical meeting room. The two-month delay and switch to a virtual-only format followed a year of similar moves by the SBI.
The action at the Retirement Systems Building began just after 8 a.m., when participants discreetly entered the building, hours before the SBI meeting and before security restrictions were implemented.
The group, which included public pension holders and Palestine solidarity activists, soon began their sit-in just outside the SBI’s offices, in the building's front lobby. They announced they would not leave until the SBI met their demands to immediately divest from Israel Bonds, create a task force to publicly state risks associated with Minnesota’s investment ties to companies complicit in Israel’s crimes, and pledge to hold all future meetings in person and fully open to the public.
It marked the beginning of what would be nearly 16 hours of continuous protest. At 10 a.m., a rally in support of the sit-in began outside the building, coinciding with the SBI meeting itself.
Several divestment advocates gave public comment at the SBI meeting, during which the SBI also approved new public engagement rules that formalized many of the arbitrary restrictions the SBI had imposed over the previous two years. In protest of the online-only meeting format, some speakers made their comments to the SBI while physically present at the rally outside the building.
Anna Madison, a member of Families Against Military Madness, highlighted a September 16 report by the United Nations (UN) Commission of Inquiry that found Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. “The UN has handed you a gift with this report. It provides you with the moral clarity and diplomatic cover to completely divest from Israel and all related entities complicit and/or profiting from genocide,” Madison said.
“My mother has a Minnesota state pension fund, and I don’t want it soaked in the blood of the Palestinians any more than Governor [Rudy] Perpich in 1985 wanted our state’s pension funds soaked in the blood of Black South Africans,” Nathan Phillips told the SBI. In 1985, the SBI passed a resolution initiating broad divestment from apartheid South Africa.
Mary Ford is a retired teacher who receives a Teachers Retirement Association pension, managed by the SBI. “With the current, violated, ceasefire, there is a good chance that Gaza will go back to what it used to be: an open-air prison, this time with no buildings,” said Ford, who also shared an anecdote of trying to explain to her students when her Palestinian friend’s entire family was killed by an Israeli bomb in Gaza.
Several members of the Minnesota Association of Public Employees (MAPE) statewide labor union spoke in favor of divestment. In 2024, MAPE passed a resolution calling for the SBI to divest.
Hannah Gary, a state employee and labor unionist with AFSCME 668, highlighted that the state of Minnesota’s One Minnesota Plan includes a guiding principle of “do the right thing, especially when it’s difficult.” Gary explained: “We are asking you to follow the same commitments that we as public servants are holding up.”
In her comments to the SBI, Kim DeFranco, a community activist with Women Against Military Madness, estimated that the SBI has heard at least 600 public commenters calling for divestment from Israel since its current members took office in 2019. Groups have also submitted tens of thousands of petitions.
Cullom McCormick from the Climate Justice Committee highlighted ecological destruction associated with Israel’s occupation and genocide. “There is not a world in which the Minnesota SBI can remain consistent with its stated values of sustainability while remaining invested in Israel,” McCormick said.
When one sit-in participant called the SBI’s office to announce the demands, they were hung up on. Ultimately, both the sit-in and the rally outside the building continued up to 4:30 p.m., when state troopers initiated arrests.
In total, 11 people were detained and taken to the Ramsey County jail, where they were booked and held for hours. The support rally relocated from outside the Retirement Systems Building to outside the jail — despite cold, rainy weather.
While nine were released around midnight, two alleged sit-in participants were arbitrarily held overnight. They appeared in court the following morning, when a judge ordered their immediate release after prosecutors failed to justify their continued detention.
Maeve Aickin is a member of the Minnesota Anti-War Committee and a public educator who holds an SBI-managed pension. “I participated in the sit-in because the SBI invests the money I earn by creating a safe and healthy space for children, in an apartheid state that has spent the majority of the past century trying to make every space a Palestinian child can access into a dangerous one,” said Aickin. “Israel’s all-out assault on Palestinian children and their right to safety and education has culminated in its destruction of over 2300 schools. It makes me feel sick to know that my pension is invested in corporations that facilitate the murder and orphaning of children the same age as my students.”
Aickin added, “The state’s response to our peaceful protest registered to me as a spiteful mismanagement of public resources and taxpayer money.”
Organizers were undeterred by the arrests, announcing that Minnesota’s fight for divestment from genocidal, apartheid Israel would continue.
#StPaulMN #MN #AntiWarMovement #Palestine
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