Nineteen Brown University students called off a hunger strike Friday after the Corporation of Brown University refused to hear or consider an updated divestment proposal.
The proposal calls on the university to sever ties with “companies which profit from human rights abuses in Palestine,” and builds on a 2020 report that recommends the university divest its $6.6 billion endowment from some of the world’s largest military and defense companies, including Boeing, RTX (formerly Raytheon and United Technologies) Northrop Grumman.
The strike concluded two days before intense Israeli air strikes in the Southern Gaza City of Rafah killed more than 100 people Monday evening, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society. Approximately 1.3 million civilians are currently displaced in Rafah, which was Gaza’s last designated safe zone.
“The situation in Palestine is unimaginably dire and our university remains complicit,”Ariela Rosenzweig, one of the 19 hunger strikers said. “We have to continue doing everything we can.”
Rosenzweig and 18 others pushed through exhaustion and fatigue as they anticipated presenting the divestment proposal to the Brown University Corporation, the school’s highest governing body, for a vote Thursday. By then, the hunger strike had grown to include hundreds of students who rallied outside the building where the corporation meeting was held. Some students showed their support for divestment by fasting temporarily, staging protests outside other campus buildings and occupying the school’s campus center.
But, the corporation ultimately rejected the calls Friday, holding firm in keeping its current investments in place.
University President Christina Paxson refused to move on the proposal, denouncing it as an attempt to “use the endowment as a tool for political advocacy on contested issues.”
“I think all of our students agree with that,” Niyanta Nepal, one of the hunger strikers said to Reckon. “We think investing in…
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