Brown University Votes Down Resolution to Divest From Israel

Brown University Votes Down Resolution to Divest From Israel

The BDS crowd thinks their moment has arrived but they keep losing these battles.

The Brown Daily Herald reports:

Brown University Corporation votes to reject divestment resolution

Brown University will not divest from companies with Israeli military ties, its governing body voted Tuesday.

The decision, announced publicly Wednesday, follows a recommendation against divestment issued by Brown’s Advisory Committee on University Resource Management, or ACURM. The committee voted 8-2 against recommending divestment, with one member abstaining.

Brown was one of few schools to consider divestment in an official capacity. It did so in exchange for an agreement by student protesters to dismantle a week-long encampment on the Main Green. The decision drew mixed reactions, and prompted a warning from 24 Republican state attorneys general and the resignation of a trustee on the Corporation.

The ACURM recommendation “played a central role in the Corporation’s deliberations,” Chancellor Brian Moynihan ’81 P’14 P’19 and President Christina Paxson P’19 P’MD’20 wrote in an email to the University community. The committee, which was tasked in part with assessing the extent to which Brown’s current investments contribute to social harm, reported that Brown’s indirect investments in the 10 companies constitute 0.009% of their market value.

The University is not directly invested in weapons manufacturers or any of the 10 companies implicated in the divestment proposal.

“Any indirect exposure for Brown in these companies is so small that it could not be directly responsible for social harm,” the letter stated. “These findings alone are sufficient reason to support ACURM’s recommendation.”

The companies identified within the proposal included several weapons manufacturers with connections to the Israeli military, including Boeing, General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman.

“The escalating loss of life and violence in the region is, for many, deeply personal and reflects the lived experiences of Brunonians,” Moynihan and Paxson wrote in the letter. But addressing conflicts around the world, they said, does not fall within the scope of Brown’s mission to advance knowledge and educate its students, and divestment “would signal to our students and scholars that there are ‘approved’ points of view to which members of the community are expected to conform.”

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