GOP attorneys general threaten Brown University over Israel divestment vote

Nearly half of the nation’s attorneys general are asking Brown University to break a promise university President Christina Paxson made to student protesters earlier this year.

Twenty-four state attorneys general added their names to a letter released Monday that suggests financial retribution and potential legal battles should the fellows and trustees of Brown University agree to divest from Israel-associated companies like Volvo, General Electric, Motorola and General Dynamics at a vote planned for October.

Leading the pack of signatories is Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin, who noted in a statement released alongside the letter that if Brown follows through with divestment, that would activate numerous states’ laws designed to negate what the Republican state prosecutors called an “antisemitic and unlawful proposal” in their letter.

“Nearly three-fourths of the states have laws that prohibit them from contracting with, investing in, or otherwise doing business with entities that discriminate against Israel, Israelis, or those who do business with either,” Griffin wrote. “Arkansas’s law places our state among those aggressively combating antisemitic conduct, and it has survived federal court challenge.” 

The Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions movement, also known as BDS, has existed since 2005, when Palestinian activists sought to end what they consider Israel’s apartheid oppression of the Palestinian people. At the individual level, the movement’s tactics involve boycotting goods from companies that do business in Israel — which has seen some success with companies like Ben & Jerry’s, which tried to stop selling its frozen treats in occupied Palestinian territory in 2021 (without admitting to any affiliation with the BDS movement). 

On a larger scale, BDS activism usually takes the form of pressuring banks, pension funds, corporations and institutions like colleges to end business arrangements with Israel and Israeli companies, or to otherwise stop financially benefiting from relationships with the country — which is what Brown’s Paxson said the university would consider investigating after a week of protests in April led by Brown Divest Coalition.

Asked about the attorneys general letter, Brian Clark, a spokesperson for Brown University, wrote in an email Tuesday: “We do not plan to comment in the news media as we await formal receipt of the letter.” 

Clark instead pointed to a recent post on the university’s blog that shares updates on the divestment process as well as an Aug. 1 letter by Paxson.

“I committed to accelerate the regular process for review of the proposal and assure a Corporation vote in the fall,” Paxson wrote. “I therefore have asked ACRUM (Advisory Committee on University Resource Management) to deliver a recommendation to me by September 30, 2024.”

After pro-Palestine protests emerged earlier this year in the wake of the Israel-Gaza war, legislation to counter boycott efforts followed.

The attorneys general argue that the Brown Divest Now proposal to be considered could lead to the 38 states with anti-BDS laws to “terminate any existing relationships with Brown and those associated with it, 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.”

How Brown’s finances could be wounded by the attorneys general challenge is unclear on several points. Rhode Island has its own anti-BDS law which passed in 2016, but the statute regulated state contracts and not the endowments of private universities like Brown. Also murky is how interstate litigation could affect Brown’s existing endowment — the smallest of the eight Ivy League schools, but also one with some of the most consistent returns, Pensions & Investments recently reported. 

Whether Brown invests in companies based in the states which signed the letter is also unclear. The university rarely makes direct investments and approximately 96% of its endowment investments are managed by third-party financiers, whose holdings would not appear on Brown’s public filings.

“In order to generate the appropriate risk-adjusted return for Brown, the Investment Office endeavors to partner with the most talented investors in their respective fields,” Jane Dietze, the school’s chief investment officer, said in a university Q&A in April. “We set out to build an ‘all-weather’ portfolio that will generate returns in most macroeconomic scenarios…We aim to choose managers who invest with ethics and integrity.”