Brown University students end failed eight-day anti-Israel hunger strike
Students at Brown University ended their eight-day hunger strike after they were unable to force their school to divest from companies with connections to Israel.
Students at Brown University ended their eight-day hunger strike after they were unable to force their school to divest from companies with connections to Israel.
According to the Brown Daily Herald, 17 students ended their hunger strike after eight days on Feb. 9, while around 200 other students completed a 32-hour solidarity fast.
Brown University President Christina Paxson refused to put forth a resolution to the Corporation of Brown University for the consideration of divesting from companies with connections to Israel, telling the protesters in a Feb. 2 letter to consider filing a proposal with the Advisory Committee on University Resource Management.
A Brown Divest Coalition statement read “Rather than continue the strike with now-obsolete demands, the strikers decided collectively to end their strike, along with 200+ student solidarity fasters, at 5 p.m. on Friday.”
[RELATED: Students at Brown go on hunger strike to demand divestments from Israel]
Those who went on the hunger strike demanded that the corporation consider a resolution to divest from companies “associated with human rights abuses in Palestine.
Paxson told the student newspaper that the bar for divestment is “very high.”
“Throughout the protest, the students’ health and well-being was our primary focus, as well as ensuring they understand the mechanisms available to all members of the Brown community to request that the University consider divesting its endowment from the assets of specific companies,” said Paxson. “We also made clear that the bar for divestment is very high — the University consistently rejects calls to use the endowment as a tool for political advocacy on contested issues.”
“Members of the Brown Corporation during meetings this week acknowledged the activism on campus by students advocating for divestment, including the group of students engaged in the days-long protest that ended Friday evening,” Paxson wrote.
Campus Reform previously reported that 41 students at the Providence, Rhode Island, institution were arrested in December for hosting a sit-in protest advocating for divestment in a closed campus building. Those students are due in court this week.
