“We were impatient that there wasn’t a voice for divestment at Yale,” said YDIC alumni spokesperson Swenson. “So we researched the issue and drafted a petition with the help of Professor Boyle.”

But he added that the relatively late date of Yale’s petition allowed them to develop a more elaborate proposal than those already in circulation.

Harvard’s Pierce Professor of Psychology Ken Nakayama, who helped initiate Harvard’s divestment petition last spring, said yesterday that though he had not heard anything about the divestment effort at Yale, he supported such a move.

“I do not know any of the organizers of this effort, but it is good to hear that other groups around the country are initiating similar campaigns,” he said. “Only through the countless efforts of informed American citizens will we be able to pressure the U.S. government to force Israel to dismantle the settlements and end its 35-year occupation.”

The Harvard-MIT divestment petition has gained the signatures of 74 Harvard faculty and 56 MIT faculty, along with that of hundreds of students and alumni. To date, University President Lawrence H. Summers’ only public statement about divestment came at Morning Prayers two months ago, when he said these efforts were “anti-Semitic in their effect, if not their intent.”

Boyle, who recently debated divestment with Harvard’s Frankfurter Professor of Law Alan M. Dershowitz on Boston’s National Public Radio station, said he hopes to unify different universities’ divestment efforts—including those at Harvard.

“If we could simply meet with Larry Summers to discuss the merits of divestment, I believe we could allay his concerns,” he said.

Boyle also hopes to bring international support to the divestment movement. Along with others, he is working on creating an “international clearinghouse” that would serve as an information base for groups to consult.

“There are some financial limitations in creating this clearinghouse,” Boyle said. “But we could use it to get groups in England, France and South Africa involved, and to spread the message of divestment from students to the broader public.”

University-based divestment groups continue to spread across the country. Organizations at the University of Massachusetts and the University of Maryland both launched petitions yesterday.

“There is a great momentum right now,” Swenson said.