Brown University President Refuses Demands of Students Staging Hunger Strike for Palestine
“The Brown Corporation must heed these calls and promote an immediate ceasefire and a lasting peace by divesting its endowment from companies that enable and profit from the genocide in Gaza and broader Israeli occupation.”
Pro-Palestinian students at Brown University began a hunger strike last week and issued demands to the school, but President Christina Paxson has basically told them to pound sand. These students have lost the plot. Do they think this is what they’re supposed to be doing with their time at the Ivy League school?
UPDATE: Brown President Christina Paxson has informed the hunger strikers that she will not meet their demands.
At the end of her email to the students, she “highlighted University mental health and well-being resources.” https://t.co/XewA9Tf0aQ pic.twitter.com/d0B7CilAEU
— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) February 3, 2024
From the Brown Daily Herald:
President Paxson refuses to meet hunger strike demands
President Christina Paxson P’19 P’MD’20 has declined to meet the demands of 19 student protestors who began a hunger strike Friday afternoon, according to a letter Paxson sent to the demonstrators and reviewed by The Herald.
On Friday, the protestors announced that the strike would continue until the Corporation, the University’s highest governing body, “hears and considers a divestment resolution” in the ongoing Israel-Palestine war during their meetings that begin next week.
In her letter to the protestors, Paxson wrote that the first step toward requesting divestment “is not a Corporation resolution, but rather to submit a proposal to the Advisory Committee on University Resource Management.”
Paxson also wrote that she will “not commit to bring a resolution to the February 2024 Corporation meeting or any future meeting of the Corporation.”
The strikers did not immediately respond to request for comment. University Spokesperson Brian Clark wrote in an email to The Herald that the administration’s “understanding at this time is that students will continue their hunger strike.”
This behavior isn’t cultish at all.
“We breathe together. Stop the occupation.”
Brown University students sing a hymn in support of 19 students hunger striking until the university board agrees to discuss divestment from Israel. pic.twitter.com/FbtLjT3JiQ
— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) February 3, 2024
This is just more of the same BDS activism we have been seeing on campuses for years.
WLNE News reported:
Brown University students go on hunger strike for divestment from Israel
Brown University shared Friday that a Palestinian and Jewish-led coalition of 19 students began a hunger strike.
Following several student-lead actions last fall, students are once again calling upon the university to completely divest its involvement from companies profiting from the genocide in Gaza…
The coalition released the following demands:
As we approach week 17 of Israel’s military assault on Gaza, Brown University remains invested in the genocide despite the mounting calls of thousands of Brown students, grad workers, faculty, and alumni for divestment. The Brown Corporation must heed these calls and promote an immediate ceasefire and a lasting peace by divesting its endowment from companies that enable and profit from the genocide in Gaza and broader Israeli occupation.
We, a Palestinian- and Jewish-led coalition of 19 students, will refuse food until the following demands are met: (1) Brown University President Christina Paxson and Chancellor Sam Mencoff must publicly commit to including a divestment resolution on the agenda of the Brown Corporation’s February 8/9 meeting; this resolution must be based on the Brown University Advisory Committee on Corporate Responsibility in Investment Practices (now the Advisory Committee on University Resources Management) 2020 report“To Recommend Divestment from Companies that Facilitate the Israeli Occupation of Palestinian Territory.” (2) The administration must permit representatives from the Brown Divest Coalition to present the case for divestment to the Corporation. (3) Upon the fulfillment of demands one and two, the Brown Corporation must publicly commit to conduct a formal vote on this resolution as a full body in the presence of the coalition representatives. We will hunger strike until these demands are met in full.
Featured image via Twitter video.
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Comments
Good. Let them die. They’ll be martyrs for the Catastrophic Global Warming delusion, which I’m sure they all espouse, as well. When they expire the abortion-mongers can collect their carcasses and sell off their organs for medical research or to burn as fuel. Bill their parents for the clean up.
I bet they start eating a day or two into the hunger strike, if they’re not already sneaking around eating.
They’ll have to remove their masks and risk infection in order to eat. Oh, the horrors….. lol
That’s a Catch 22 if I ever saw one
Respectfully, these students are gonna stop at Taco Bell on the way home for a Combo Meal. They are like the Hollywood fasters who bragged they were gonna fast for 3 hours..
“Pro-Palestinian students at Brown University began a hunger strike last week and issued demands to the school”
Judging by the pics coming out of Gaza, especially of the Hamas “soldiers,” hunger strikes is something entirely unknown.
Someone let me know when one of them dies. I’m a sucker for a happy ending!
Hey! No cheating!
You’re going to have to read the book like the rest of us. No turning to the last chapter for how it turns out!
😉
Gaza is occupied by Hamas — any rational and morally upright person would fairly and accurately acknowledge this fact.
Operate statement:
“rational and morally upright person”
Of which does not exist in this group of over indulged parent basement dwellers.
Most of them could stand to lose a few pounds anyway.
A lot of fat bodies in that crowd. The hunger strike needs at least another 30 days before we begin to see results.
Hunger Strikes are a self-solving problem.
Correct.
Perhaps Brown University (is that racist?) should lock the doors and let them starve.
Yes! It’s racist! “University of Color” is preferred. Or “University of Colour” if you’re on the wrong side of the Atlantic.
May I suggest University of Dark Almond?
Or Biden’s favorite – University of Chocolate Chocolate Chip, as in “Chip on their shoulder.”
I had a black first sergeant in Germany. His nickname was “the Chocolate Chip.” He even had that painted on the windscreen frame of his jeep. We loved the Chip. He was an outstanding first shirt. He never had to keep after us, because we felt that if we screwed up, we would disappoint the Chip, something we were loath to do.
Exactly. Also, after the first couple pass out and ar taken to the hospital and their parents contacted the resolve of the others will diminish quickly.
Of course there is a better way to handle this order them out of the building and inform them if they don’t comply they will be arrested and expelled.
OSU gave a master class on how to do this back in 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__iQGa0OkIs
Sorry it was 2016.
Bonus: the average medical insurance policy excludes coverage for the results of self-inflicted harm; any cost for treatment will be sel-paid.
I’m surprised he stood there so long debating with them. He made his proclamation; maybe stick around for a few clarifying statements (“it means you will be expelled”), but then restate the requirement (be out by 5:00 am) and the consequences of ignoring it; Then leave, and let the chips fall where they may.
My favorite hunger-strikers are:
All they call him is Aboud –
“hunger strikes for months”?? ‘Hunger strike … hunger strike … you keep saying that but I don’t think that phrase means what you think it means …’
And then there’s, Kalikoonāmaukūpuna Kalāhiki ’24 …. do I need say any more?
ANd we have,
It’s a “they”!! So why does she say “As a black person”? Shouldn’t she say, “As black people”?? Does she want to be a “they” or does she not?
Brown has always had some real losers, but … sheesh. It’s like the school is nothing but Amy Carters, now. What a joke.
Really?!! 😉
She’s got an IQ of 85, definitely an affirmative action selection, 19 years old with the wisdom to match.
She needs to get a real job, and not some African American Studies degree in self promotion and oppression.
Her identity is politicized because She/It politicized it.
They’s a lumberjack and they’s okay
“hunger strikes for months”?? ‘
That means they don’t supersize at Mickey Ds.
“…I felt like it was incredibly natural to align my solidarity with Palestinians who have also been given that burden of having their identity politicized.”
The Jews did not politicize the identity of the Arabs of what was formerly known as “Palestine.” Yasser Arafat did that. He created the identity specifically to club Israel over the head with it in the court of world opinion.
Let them starve, it will massively raise the average IQ in that place
These students are a bunch of d-bags
They SAY they’re on a hunger strike. But unless someone is monitoring them 24/7 to verify this is so I’m not going to believe it.
They are not eating their favorite foods….
“Mmmmmm, bacawwwwwwwwn!”
— Eric Forman
LOL, “I haven’t had my floppacino with soy milk for THREE WHOLE DAYS! Oh the humanity!”
Exercise their opinion, if they know their history it’s Egypt that should be upset.
Reminds me when the Code Pink folks were on a “hunger strike” over the Iraq War in 2003, and were caught with smoothies in their hands —
— “just how much weight were you folks planning to gain on your hunger strike, anyways?”
“By Any Means Necessary” makes it likely president Paxson will repent and relent.
You can bet they’re sneaking food or bending the “rules” by taking liquid nutrition. They’re progressives and lying is as normal as breathing to them.
Regarding Brown:
“About 38% of students at the Ivy League school identified as either homosexual, bisexual, queer, asexual, pansexual”
I could never understand why these people think that them not eating is going to bother someone else?
What they are hoping for is that it will cause enough bleeding hearts to complain that it will force the university to act. It’s just terrorism by a different name. They are hoping the school will get so scared that they will give in.
They’ need to escalate by holding their breath until there’s a ceasefire.
Well, if they don’t eat then it will be easier to carry them off campus. Really, a hunger strike as if anyone cares that these $90,000yr pampered Larpers miss a few meals.
Where on campus is this hunger strike taking place? I’d like to order a pizza delivery from Providence Coal Fired Pizza! Probably with bacon or ham, in case these protestors obey halal laws.
Send them some New York System wieners from Olneyville New York System Restaurant. A spicy wiener smothered in meat sauce, covered with chopped onions, all in a steamed bun. Damn, I could use a few myself. Haven’t had one in decades.
Brown kids are woke joke. Let the terrorist apologists fast for ramadan if they want. Who cares??
It’s very uncharacteristic for an Ivy League president to not cravenly cave to woke students and faculty. What’s up with that?
Two things: more for me and I’d be rolling up with my brand new food truck featuring smoked pig cooking full grill. Suck it freaks!
I’ve never understood what hunger strikers hope to achieve, why they think anyone cares whether they starve. There are exceptions, where a person has good reason to believe that the target of the strike does care, but in general, why would they?
I think the reality is that very few people have the mental fortitude and the unshakable dedication to a cause necessary to actually starve themselves to death. They’re like cats stuck in trees. Ever see a dead cat in a tree? Neither have I! Nobody should worry about a cat that seems to be stuck in a tree. It will get itself unstuck as soon as it gets hungry enough.
The IRA hunger strikers are the only ones I can recall ever starving to death. There was about a dozen in 1981 or 82. The first was Bobby Sands,
I remember him because “Bobby Sands Diet” jokes made the rounds. No one ever remembers who died subsequently except their families.
Bobby Sands 1st hunger strike was under Prime Minister Harold Wilson, whose administration cared. His 2nd hunger strike was under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, whose administration did not care. The outcomes were quite different, no?
I don’t know about Wilson, but Maggie came within a hair’s breadth of being blown up by the IRA. I’m sure that colored, ‘scuse me, coloured her perception of members of the IRA.
It’s time to sit in front of them with a Domino’s pizza.
And Cheese Puffs.
Hunger strike?
I’m reminded of what Captain Kirk said of the Klingons in “Star Trek VI – The Undiscovered Country”.
“Let them die.”
Too bad there’s not a bacon smell in a spray can. I’d love to troll these children by giving the hunger striker’s environment a spritz or two. Even if they’re vegetarians, the smell of bacon produces instant hunger pangs, and an added bonus, if there are any authentic “Palestinians” at the event, one whiff and they’ll be prevented from going to heaven.
No, they won’t. I don’t know where that myth came from.
Find the return air grill for the HVAC unit serving the space. Fry some bacon right in front of it. The heavenly aroma will permeate the space in a minute or two. Repeat every half hour or so. Should be fun to watch.
.
if they promise not to eat anything for 789 days
I might support them
carry on!
these thugs tried it before and were rebuffed
they will not give up
WE MUSTTTTT STOP THE WELFARE STATE!!!
99% of this garbage goes away
I hope Brown isn’t wasting money buying food that they aren’t going to eat, unless they have made arrangements to quickly move the already contracted food paid for by the students to feed the poor..
Sooo glad that my son didn’t go there.
I really wish these hunger strikes were sincere and that people in them Darwinned themselves out of the gene pool.
However, they all just sneak food. It’s the most empty load of crap attention parade I’ve ever seen. Expect a few to “check in” to the ER soon as a way of garnering sympathy for the cameras.