PROVIDENCE – Brown University will not divest from 10 companies that do business from Israel after reviewing a proposal from students requesting that the Ivy League institution do so.
The Corporation of Brown University on Tuesday voted against the divestment proposal, supporting the recommendation made by the university’s Advisory Committee on University Resources Management to say nay to the proposal. In a letter to the campus community on Wednesday, the committee said that it found Brown’s exposure to the 10 companies identified in the divestment proposal as being “de minimis,” meaning it was immaterial and too small to be meaningful or taken into consideration.
Also, the committee says the university has “no direct investments” in any of the companies that were targeted for divestment and that “any indirect exposure for Brown in these companies is so small that it could not be directly responsible for social harm.”
“The committee determined that this investment is de minimis and the majority believes it is too distantly removed from ‘social harm’ to thus justify divestment action,” the committee wrote. “The majority believes that divestment would be a symbolic political statement, and therefore that the requirement of ‘social harm’ as defined in the ACURM charge is not satisfied.”
The vote comes nearly a year after tensions rose on campus regarding the ongoing conflict in Gaza. The matter has stirred various controversies on campus back in the spring, including students being
arrested in protests – with those charges since being
dropped. Brown also has since implemented
various measures to combat discrimination on campus.
Brown spokesperson Brian Clark previously told Providence Business News that as part of its agreement with students to end the encampment of the College Green on campus last spring, the students submitted their divestment proposal – which was decided on Tuesday by the corporation – to the advisory committee.
Concerns about the divestment vote went beyond just on campus. Back in August, 24 state attorneys general from the southern and Midwest U.S. in a letter
urged Brown’s fellows and trustees to reject the divestment proposal. Among many reasons, the state attorneys general said at the time that adopting this proposal may require their states and others to “terminate any existing relationships” with Brown and those associated with it. They additionally said states could also divest from any university debt held by state pension plans and other investment vehicles and “otherwise refrain from engaging with Brown and those associated with it.”
Plus, Joseph Edelman, founder and CEO of New York-based hedge fund company Perceptive Advisors LLC, in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal said he
resigned last month from Brown’s board of trustees over his disagreement with the vote on the divestment proposal. Edelman, who served as a trustee since 2019 before his resignation, said at the time he found it “morally reprehensible” that holding this divestment vote was “even considered, much less … be held” in the wake of last October’s deadly attack by Palestinian terrorists.
Brown President Christina H. Paxson and Bank of America Corp. Chairman and CEO Brian T. Moynihan, the university corporation’s chancellor, said that while the corporation voted against divestment, “there is no doubt that open questions remain.” They said one question that remains is how the bar for divestment should be set.
“Through many conversations and thousands of emails and letters, we have heard from members of the Brown community about the wide range of deeply held views on the divestment proposal and, more generally, on the long-running Middle East conflict and the current war in Gaza,” Paxson and Moynihan wrote. “The escalating loss of life and violence in the region is, for many, deeply personal and reflects the lived experiences of Brunonians – Israelis and Palestinians, Muslims and Jews, and numerous others. These deep feelings and beliefs have resulted in tension and division within the Brown community.”
James Bessette is the PBN special projects editor, and also covers the nonprofit and education sectors. You may reach him at Bessette@PBN.com. You may also follow him on X at @James_Bessette.
