Brown rejects calls to divest from companies in connection with pro-Palestinian protests on campus

BOSTON (AP) — Brown University has rejected a proposal to divest from 10 companies that protesters say were facilitating the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.

The vote Tuesday by the Corporation of Brown follows a committee report recommending against divesting partly because the university has little investment in them and the amount it does would not cause social harm. The report estimated the school had no direct investment into the companies, which included Airbus, Boeing, General Dynamics Corp and and General Electric Co., and that about 1% of its endowment was indirectly invested in the companies..

“If the Corporation were to divest, it would signal to our students and scholars that there are ‘approved’ points of view to which members of the community are expected to conform,” University Chancellor Brian Moynihan and President Christina Paxson said in a joint statement. “This would be wholly inconsistent with the principles of academic freedom and free inquiry, and would undermine our mission of serving the community, the nation and the world.”

Last spring, the university committed to an October vote by its governing board on a divestment proposal, after an advisory committee weighed in on the issue. In exchange, student protesters agreed to dismantle their encampment on campus.

Ahead of the vote, Niyanta Nepal, the student body president who was voted in on a pro-divestment platform, were spending their energy on applying pressure for a vote in favor of divestment. They rallied fellow students to attend a series of forums and encouraged incoming students to join the movement.

The defeat left the students, led by the Brown Divest Coalition, charting their next move.

“This is a moral stain on Brown University, 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," the group said in statement. “This decision makes one thing clear: our university has at least $66 million dollars invested in companies that facilitate Israel’s genocide, apartheid and military occupation and still refuses to dissociate from these funds.”

But Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO and executive director of the Anti-Defamation League, welcomed the decision. He said the push to divest from the 10 companies is part of a larger movement known as Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions or BDS, which target U.S. companies that do business with Israel.

“Brown University’s Corporation made the right decision by refusing to yield to BDS bullies,” he said on X. “Research shows BDS would drain billions from university endowments and poison their culture because BDS is prejudicial to Jewish students already under siege on campuses.”

Colleges have long rebuffed calls to divest from Israel, which opponents say veers into antisemitism. Brown already is facing heat for even considering the vote, including a blistering letter from two dozen state attorneys general, all Republicans.