Updated October 09, 2024 at 15:55 PM ET
Brown University has refused pro-Palestinian student demands to divest from companies doing business with Israel.
The university’s highest governing body, The Brown Corporation, 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.”
Supporters of divestment ended their encampment last spring in exchange for a promise that their proposal 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 offered its recommendation to the board.
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 Brown President Christina Paxson and Chancellor Brian Moynihan, who also heads the Corporation. The vote took place Tuesday by secret ballot, they say, so that “no members felt pressure to conform to a majority view.”
“This decision is a moral and ethical failure of unimaginable magnitude, compounded by the untransparent, undemocratic, and frankly disgraceful manner in which the Corporation voted in secret," said Arman Deendar, with the Brown Divest Coalition, one of many students disappointed by the decision. "This is a … clear affront to democratic values of the institution, and an egregious erasure of the insurmountable violence enacted by the Israeli regime in Gaza and now Lebanon.
Pro-Israel students welcomed the news. As did Michael Poliakoff, president and CEO of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni.
Paxson and Moynihan noted the “many conversations and thousands of emails and letters” they have received reflecting the “deeply held views” on both sides of the divestment issue and more generally the Middle East conflict, and the “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?”
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