PROVIDENCE – Joseph Edelman, founder and CEO of New York-based hedge fund company Perceptive Advisors LLC, has resigned from the Brown University board of trustees over his disagreement with the Ivy League institution’s upcoming vote on a proposal to divest from companies that do business with Israel.
In an opinion editorial published Sunday in the Wall Street Journal that was adapted from Edelman’s resignation letter to Brown, Edelman says he is concerned about what the university’s willingness to hold the vote suggests about Brown’s attitude toward rising antisemitism on campus “and a growing political movement that seeks the destruction” of Israel. Edelman, who served as a trustee since 2019 before his resignation, says he finds 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.
“I don’t wish to imply that any real principles informed Brown’s decision to hold a divestment vote: It was made not based on facts or values but based on weakness toward student activists,” Edelman said. “The university leadership has for some reason chosen to reward, rather than punish, the activists for disrupting campus life, breaking school rules, and promoting violence and antisemitism at Brown.
“I consider the willingness to hold this vote a stunning failure of moral leadership at Brown University. I am unwilling to lend my name or give my time to a body that lacks basic moral judgment. I hereby resign from the board of trustees.”
The divestment vote by the Corporation of Brown University will take place next month, but the recommendation of the university implementing divestment measures related to companies benefiting from Israeli occupation of Palestine
was made in 2020.
The ongoing conflict in Gaza has since 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 told Providence Business News on Monday 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 to the existing Advisory Committee on University Resources Management, the advisory body on campus that considers how ethical and moral standards are applied across all of Brown’s business and investment practices in a manner consistent with the university’s mission and values.
While the students’ proposal eventually led to the upcoming divestment vote next month, Clark says Brown is following a half-century-old process built on the principle that Brown has an obligation to examine and investigate claims challenging its moral responsibility and “far from a direct response to current activism.”
Clark said while the university valued Edelman’s service for five years, Edelman “has a fundamental misunderstanding of the decisions that led to the upcoming vote on divestment.”
“Our process allows any university community member to submit a divestment proposal for examination and does not predetermine the merit or outcome,” Clark said. “As an educational institution, Brown is and must be a campus that confronts and interrogates difficult questions.”
Edelman’s resignation also comes almost two weeks after 24 state attorneys general
submitted a joint letter to Brown urging the trustees and fellows to reject the divestment proposal. The attorneys general, mainly from the southern and Midwestern U.S., say the “Brown Divest Proposal” will have “immediate and profound legal consequences” for the university because it may trigger applying laws in in close to 75% of states prohibiting them and their instrumentalities from contracting with, investing in or otherwise doing business with entities that discriminate against Israel, Israelis or those who do business with either.
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.
