The highest regulation enforcement officers in 24 states warned Brown College of monetary penalties if the college’s trustees vote in favor of a proposal calling for divestment from firms with shut ties to Israel.
Some states have begun reviewing pension funding and contracts “to find out if Brown has already violated state regulation” by agreeing to permit the October vote, the attorneys basic from Arkansas, Florida, Texas and different states advised the college’s trustees in a letter Monday. Approving the measure would have “instant and profound authorized penalties,” they mentioned.
“Adopting that proposal might require our states — and others — to terminate any current relationships with Brown and people related to it, divest from any college debt held by state pension plans and different funding automobiles, and in any other case chorus from participating with Brown,” mentioned the group of Republican attorneys basic, which was led by Tim Griffin of Arkansas.
The warning underscores the stakes for the Ivy League faculty, which agreed to think about the calls for of pro-Palestinian pupil activists as a part of a deal to clear a protest encampment earlier this yr. Whereas faculty management has opposed politicizing the administration of Brown’s greater than $6 billion endowment, the college mentioned it will weigh the proposal after a committee makes a advice by the tip of September.
Brown declined to remark.
Schools throughout the US have been roiled since Hamas’s lethal Oct. 7 assault on Israel and the Jewish state’s retaliation in Gaza. Three Ivy League presidents have resigned and universities have confronted allegations of tolerating antisemitism. A number of have additionally been accused of suppressing the speech of pro-Palestinian college students and criticized for sending in police to clear protesters.
The vote at Brown is scheduled for an October assembly of the 54-member board of trustees, which is led by Brian Moynihan, chief government officer of Financial institution of America Corp.
Ben & Jerry’s
Whereas the extent of the 24 states’ monetary ties to Brown is unclear, their willingness to flex their monetary energy harks again to a high-profile dispute involving Unilever Plc and its Ben & Jerry’s ice cream model.
In 2021, a bunch of attorneys basic took on the consumer-goods firm over the refusal by Ben & Jerry’s to promote ice cream within the West Financial institution. Underneath stress as states together with New York introduced plans to promote the Unilever shares of their state pension funds, the corporate finally overrode the boycott effort.
That controversy gives an essential instance for Brown, mentioned David Webber, a regulation professor at Boston College who suggested the marketing campaign to reverse the Ben & Jerry’s Israel boycott.
“It exhibits that these attorneys basic aren’t bluffing,” Webber mentioned. “I frankly assume they’d welcome a high-profile combat with Brown.”
One potential level of leverage for state officers is Brown’s Selections Program, a curriculum about historical past and present occasions, which in keeping with the college has a presence in all 50 states and 1 million college students worldwide.
An initiative of Brown’s historical past division, this system is bought to high school districts and to be used with skilled improvement workshops. A contract between the college and the Milwaukee public faculty system, for instance, exhibits a fee of just about $3,000 monthly.
The Selections Program is scheduled to current its curriculum in October at a convention in Georgia, one of many states that signed this week’s letter to Brown.
Many college directors and lawmakers have for years rejected the so-called Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions, or BDS, motion in opposition to Israel, viewing it as antisemitic as a result of it calls into query the legitimacy of the Jewish state and singles out the insurance policies of 1 nation.
States throughout the US have handed legal guidelines that prohibit discrimination in opposition to Israel. In Arkansas, for instance, the state can’t enter contracts valued at greater than $1,000 with an organization until the contract features a written certification that the individual or firm isn’t engaged with a boycott of Israel — a regulation that was upheld by a federal appeals court docket.
Rhode Island, the place Brown is predicated, has its personal anti-BDS regulation on the books. However it wouldn’t apply to Brown because it’s a non-public college and doesn’t obtain sufficient public cash to be impactful, mentioned Mia Ackerman, a state lawmaker who launched the laws. She mentioned she deliberate to analysis laws that might embody personal entities.
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