On Dec 2, Brown University’s Advisory Committee on Corporate Responsibility in Investment Policies (ACCRIP) voted to recommend that the school divest from companies that facilitate Israeli human rights violations. Six ACCRIP members voted in favor of divestment, two voted against it, and one member abstained.
The ACCRIP is comprised of students, faculty, staff, and alumni. It “considers issues of ethical and moral responsibility in the investment policies of Brown University.”
“We recommend that the Brown Corporation exclude from Brown’s direct investments, and require Brown’s separate account investment managers to exclude from their direct investments, companies identified as facilitating human rights violations in Palestine,” reads the resolution.
This past spring, 69% of Brown’s undergrad student body voted in favor of a referendum to divest from occupation-connected companies like Motorola, Boeing, and Raytheon. After that vote was dismissed by Brown University President Christina Paxson, members of the group Brown Divest have repeatedly presented their case to ACCRIP, while Brown Students for Israel and JStreet members have argued against such a vote.
“I am really excited that ACCRIP took this step towards divestment,” Jewish Voice for Peace student group member Tal Frieden told The Brown Daily Herald, “We know that this is the first Ivy League university to recommend divestment from companies committing human rights violations in Palestine, and we’re really excited for other universities to join this movement.”
The decision is not binding, as the advisory body will now submit the recommendation of divestment to Paxson and await the university’s decision.
The Brown vote comes just days after Columbia University’s student council voted to hold a referendum on Israeli divestment in 2020. The group Columbia University Apartheid Divest has been pushing the ballot initiative for three years.
Michael Arria is the U.S. correspondent for Mondoweiss.
John Menadue is the Founder and Editor in Chief of Pearls and Irritations. He was formerly Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet under Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser, Ambassador to Japan, Secretary of the Department of Immigration and CEO of Qantas.
Comments
5 responses to “MICHAEL ARRIA. Brown University committee votes to divest from companies connected to the Israeli occupation (Mondoweiss 6.12.2019)”
Your last question regarding “a list of Federal MP’s who have accepted free trips to Israel” is a good place to start.
Unfortunately, such a list would be a great embarrassment for all to read as it would include more than half the serving Federal members, some State Governors, the Governor General (due to visit again this month), journalists, academics, all popular choices for such visits, Federal Ministers, particularly Foreign Affairs, all designed for a brainwashing purpose, topped off with a visit to all the Holocaust events and museums.
It has been in place for 20 years. Just read jNews where such successes for the Zionist PR Department are lauded week after week, all designed to paint an unrealistic picture of a country totally engaged in inhumanity for over 70 years and now apartheid on a grand scale.
A well selected list, believe me, planned to the last little detail.
Expanding your idea however, should include all the people who think they may extract some benefit from appearing front and centre in the online pages of jNews, published out of Melbourne, naturally, the home of Zionism in Australia, in the main passing some comment as to some Jewish event or another, supporting Jewish ex-Servicemen and the like and generally engaged in some publicity exercise to gain some form of potential benefit for their career and to have embedded a residual feeling of obligation to their ‘generous’ benefactor. Clever marketing.
Yes, our own PM seen on the pages often. A willing subject together with our new Governor-General as well, a great and active supporter of everything Israeli.
A good suggestion, but no point in promoting this idea. Far too many to list.
Yes, Jim, it would be a great example to the wider Australian community for our universities to review their investments in any company which supports the oppression of Palestinian people by the Israeli government. The beginnings of a BDS policy in this country is identifying those local companies which are involved in giving encouragement to military action, the illegal occupation of Palestinian land and the destruction of homes and businesses in the occupied territories. It is not hard to name the companies involved.
Might we have statements from ALL Australian universities that they, too, are not complicit in any business arrangements/investments in Israel which in any degree impact on the Palestinian peoples occupied by that fascist-National/Zionist state? It’s not much to ask – as well as a distancing from the ugly so-called Jewish Lobby (especially in Melbourne, apparently) bribing Aussie politicians and others with free trips to Israeli-occupied lands – including of Palestine. I think we need a Jewish-Lobby watch to be set up – quite frankly. Might we start with a list of Federal MPs who have accepted free trips to Israel, do you think?
Well, Jim, your last question regarding “a list of Federal MP’s who have accepted free trips to Israel” is a good place to start.
Unfortunately, such a list would be a great embarrassment for all to read as it would include more half the serving members, some State Governors, the Governor General (due to visit again this month), journalists, academics, a popular choice for such visits, Federal Ministers, particularly Foreign Affairs, all designed for a brainwashing purpose, topped off with a visit to all the Holocaust events.
It has been in place for 20 years. Just read jNews where such successes for the Zionist PR Department are lauded week after week, all designed to paint an unrealistic picture of a country engaged in inhumanity for over 70 years and now apartheid on a grand scale.
A well selected list, believe me, planned to the last little detail.
Expanding your idea however, should include all the people who think they extract some benefit from appearing front and centre in the online pages of jNews, published out of Melbourne, naturally, the home of Zionism in Australia, in the main passing some comment as to some Jewish event or another, supporting Jewish ex-Servicemen and the like and generally engaged in some supporting exercise to gain some form of potential benefit for their career and to have embedded a residual feeling of obligation to their benefactor. Clever.
A good suggestion, but no point in promoting this idea. Far too many to list.
As mentioned by others in these comments, and using as an example un-American investigations of a similar nature in the 1950’s in the USA, their House Un-American Activities Committee was created to investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having Communist ties. Now that was Communism in the 1950’s and hardly anyone even remembers such things in 2020, when compared to today’s terrorist activities.
What a relative harmless group Communists were those days.
Those “crimes” included bribery, spying, corruption, influence peddling, election support and on, the very same the activities that the mainstream media is currently highlighting with Chine as the target. Is China acting in a warlike manner with any country today? Are they actively bombing any country for their gain? China is Australia’s largest customer. We benefit from their involvement. We just have to monitor the degree of influence they provide as we do with any other country.
But is there anything as corrupt as politicians, academics and journalists accepting free world travel and accomodation in Israel and who knows what else to influence their attitudes and as politicians, their resulting votes at the United Nations, sponsorship of academic studies and other forms of “bribery”?
When compared to China with an emphasis on trade, Israel’s involvement in this country is very different indeed.
As suggested, it really is time to seriously investigate un-Australian activities.