Protesters sit in front of the Board of Investment meeting

A small group of protesters staged a sit-in Tuesday in the lobby of the St. Paul Retirement Systems building.

The activist group was protesting against the State Investment Council on the same day it held its quarterly meeting. The group that peacefully occupied the place starting at 8:30 a.m. made a number of demands from the state’s leaders. Its priority was divestment and stopping the purchase of Israeli bonds.

They also sought to establish a task force to investigate and publicly release its findings “concerning the entanglement of SBI investments in the crimes of genocide and segregation,” according to a statement from the Minnesota Anti-War Committee.

The board met virtually Tuesday due to the planned protest. The statement said that the demonstrators demanded a return to in-person public meetings every three months. The committee also said Tuesday’s meeting was supposed to take place on Aug. 20, or in the third quarter.

The meeting was postponed shortly after the committee and other pro-Palestinian groups published a post on social media announcing plans to “fill the room” for the meeting.

Multiple cancellations or postponements of board meetings this year have frustrated protesters who came to express their opposition to the board’s investments in Israel.

Ulysses Dolan, one of the protest group’s organizers, said he objects to the board delaying meetings and making them remote.

“These meetings are supposed to be quarterly, and they are supposed to happen in public,” Dolan said. In this way, institutions and employees with pensions managed by SBI can comment on publicly funded investments linked to pensions, he added. They can also speak directly to their elected officials.

The Investment Board is chaired by Governor Tim Walz. Attorney General Keith Ellison, Secretary of State Steve Simon and State Auditor Julie Blaha are on the board.

Dolan also said there is historical precedent for divestment.

"“Our model of divestment reflects immediately after the push for divestment from South Africa in 1985. Our demands are no different than they were 40 years ago,” he said.

“The board has shown it can do it, and it can do it again today.”