About 20 Brown University students were arrested Wednesday after a five-hour sit-in by anti-Israel activists who demanded that the Ivy League school divest from companies with ties to the Jewish state.
The students were members of the group BrownU Jews for Ceasefire Now, which asked Brown President Christina Paxson to support its proposal that the school’s endowment funds not be invested in companies that do business with Israel amid the war with Hamas, the Boston Globe reported.
“In light of the ongoing genocide occurring in Gaza, backed by American aid, weapons, media, politicians, and academic institutions, we, the Jews of BrownU by Ceasefire Now, call on Brown University to do its part to promote an immediate ceasefire and lasting peace. by divesting their endowment from companies that enable war crimes in Gaza,” their statement read.
“We will not leave University Hall until President Christina Paxson publicly commits to including and supporting a divestment resolution at the next Brown Corporation meeting,” the group pledged.
About 20 Brown University students were arrested for trespassing after the group BrownU Jews for Ceasefire Now demanded that the school divest from companies with ties to the Jewish state.@jewsforceasefirenow / Instagram
More than 150 students were also near University Hall singing and shining flashlights on their phones.
The protest began around 1 p.m. Wednesday and the arrests began around 6 p.m. when Providence police removed students from University Hall, according to reports. Those arrested were released without bail and are due back in court on November 28.
Brown said students who remained in the building were repeatedly warned that they would be arrested for trespassing at the end of the school day due to safety concerns, the Providence Journal reported.
“To protect the safety of all community members and facilities, students are not permitted to remain in non-residential buildings on campus beyond normal operating hours,” Brown said in a statement. “The safety of our students is always our top priority.”
The students were charged with criminal trespass and released on their own recognizance.WLNE
The student group issued its own statement, which cited several members, including one of the organizers, Lily Gardner, a sophomore who was among those arrested for trespassing.
“As Jewish students who mourn friends and loved ones, both Israeli and Palestinian, we have had enough of our university using us as justification to maintain financial support for an apartheid state,” Gardner says in the statement.
“We are tired of pretending that our academic and personal lives go on normally,” he adds.
Gardner told the Globe: “I think this was really necessary to break through the rhetoric, and without claiming that this belief is anti-Semitic. We took a stance in favor of Brown.”
Brown spokesman Brian Clark told the Globe that the school “respects and defends free speech” but that “the time, place and manner” are subject to regulation on campus only “to avoid interference with the normal functions of the university”.
The Ivy League school said the students violated fire codes and had been repeatedly warned they would be arrested.WLNE
He said the students violated fire codes by gathering in a hallway.
The group’s claims were based on a 2020 report compiled by an entity that provides advice on investment practices; One of the suggestions was that a company should not receive investment support if it provides “products or services” that contribute to Israel’s occupation of the West. Bank, according to the Journal.
Among the companies cited are Boeing and General Dynamics.
Clark said divestment “from companies that facilitate Israel’s actions in Palestinian territories” was explored in 2020 by the University’s Advisory Committee on Corporate Responsibility in Investment Practices.
“The group’s recommendation to divest did not meet established standards for identifying specific entities for divestment or articulating how financial divestment of the entities would address social harm as defined in the committee’s charge,” he told the Globe.
The group BrownU Jews for Ceasefire Now cited the “ongoing genocide occurring in Gaza.”
“Therefore, it was not presented to Brown Corporation for consideration,” Clark added.
On Tuesday, more than 160 Brown professors urged the school in a letter published in the Brown Herald to “join international calls for an immediate ceasefire.”
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