Brown says no to pro-Palestinian students’ demands for divestment

Brown University has refused pro-Palestinian student demands to divest from companies doing business with Israel.

The university’s highest governing body, the Corporation of Brown University, says divesting “would signal that there are ‘approved’ points of views to which members of the community are expected to conform,” which would be “wholly inconsistent with the principles of academic freedom and free inquiry and would undermine our mission.”

In a letter announcing the decision, Brown President Christina Paxson and Chancellor Brian Moynihan, who also heads the Corporation, added that “Brown’s mission doesn’t encompass resolving or adjudicating global conflict.”

Supporters of divestment ended their encampment last spring, in exchange for a promise that their call for divestment would get a vote from the Board this fall. Students on both sides of the issue had made their case last month to the Advisory Committee on University Resources Management, which on Sept. 30 voted 8-2, with 1 abstention, to recommend that the board not divest.

After extensive deliberation, the committee said that while there is grave harm in the Palestinian territories as well as in Israel as a result of the ongoing conflict, the university’s tiny, indirect investment in the 10 companies in question cannot be considered the cause of that harm. Those companies are: Airbus, Boeing, General Dynamics, General Electric, Motorola Solutions, Northrop Grumman, RTX Corporation, Textron, Safariland and Volvo Group.

For its part, the Corporation’s decision was based on its “distinct fiduciary duty” as well as considerations of legal, reputational and academic consequences, according to a statement from Paxson and Moynihan. The vote took place Tuesday by secret ballot, they say, so that “no members felt pressure to conform to a majority view.”

A sense of anger and relief

The decision was both a surprise and a disappointment to many on campus.

Brown senior Arman Deendar of the student group Brown Divest Coalition called it “a moral and ethical failure of unimaginable magnitude, compounded by the untransparent, undemocratic, and frankly disgraceful manner in which the Corporation voted in secret.” He also said it was “an egregious erasure of the insurmountable violence enacted by the Israeli regime in Gaza and now Lebanon.”

Pro-divestment students say they are still plotting their next move. Niyanta Nepal, a senior who was one of the 19 Brown students who staged a hunger strike for divestment last year, says students are reeling with anger, grief and a sense of betrayal.

“I came to this university because I thought the institution’s mission was aligned with my values,” she says. “They are the ones who taught us the meaning of terms like genocide and oppression. But then [we] come to find out the Corporation cares more about money in their pockets than they do about the mission and values that they’re supposed to be theoretically upholding.”

Other students on campus, however, welcomed news of Brown’s decision as just and fair.

“I’m just ecstatic that they made the right decision,” said Brooke Verschleiser, a senior who is president of the group Brown Students for Israel and one of those who argued the case against divestment to the advisory committee. “They really acknowledged the divestment proposal for what it was. The [Brown Divest Coalition’s] goal from the beginning was to stigmatize Israel, and to make a political statement. And they wanted the school to make that political statement for them.”

Rabbi Josh Bolton of Brown’s Hillel, a Jewish student group, says he believed the vote would fail but was surprised by how decisive it was at the advisory committee level. He called it a “strong affirmation that divestment is wildly out of touch with [Brown’s] morals, values and mission, that it was not going to bring peace to the Middle East, and also that it has been corrosive to our community.”

Bolton says the campaign for divestment has fueled tensions on campus, contributed to the marginalization of Jewish students, and has helped normalize hateful rhetoric.

“There’s much to do now in terms of healing,” he says.

But that will be easier said than done. After receiving a letter from school officials announcing the decision, the Brown Divest Coalition posted a picture on Instagram of the letter scribbled over with obscenities directed at Brown’s president and governing board. It drew thousands of likes within a few hours.

Paxson and Moynihan noted the “deeply held views” on both sides of the divestment issue and, more generally, around the Middle East conflict and urged all students, whether they agree or disagree with the decision, to do so with mutual respect and empathy.

They also underscored that “open questions that remain” even after the decision.

“One such question … is how the bar for divestment should be set” Paxson and Moynihan wrote, and “when, if ever would there be a decision to divest?”

Brown decision is in line with most universities so far

The Brown decision has been watched closely around the nation, as it would have been the first Ivy League school to divest from businesses with ties to Israel. Most schools that have considered divestment have rejected the move. A few are still considering it, including San Francisco State University, where policy changes are expected to result in divestment from several companies that do business with Israel. The plan is “region-neutral” but will limit investment in companies whose revenues come from weapons manufacturing when it is expected to get its final approval in December.

Omar Zahzah, SFSU assistant professor of Arab, Muslim, Ethnicities and Diaspora Studies in the Department of Race & Resistance Studies, calls the Brown decision unfortunate, but he says he’s undeterred. “Every divestment attempt is a victory in that it always brings new people to the fore of the cause and it educates people,” he says. “So I’m sure that [this Brown decision] is not going to slow the momentum of activism across the country.”

Others, however, hope it will give universities pause, and that they’ll take a cue from Brown.

Michael Poliakoff, president and CEO of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, says, “The fiduciary duty of the trustees is to optimize the investment strategy and to avoid the slippery slope of campus constituencies demanding divestment, which in many cases, if not all of them, would be quite contrary to the investment policies that bring the returns that support the academic mission of the institution.”

The sentiment is shared by Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin, one of 24 attorneys general from states whose laws bar doing business with entities that boycott Israel and who wrote a joint letter imploring Brown to vote against divestment. In a Wednesday email to NPR, Griffin said he is “pleased that the Brown University board made the right decision” to reject what he calls an antisemitic proposal, adding, “Other universities should follow their example.”

This article was first published by NPR on October 9, 2024.