An advisory committee at Brown University has formally recommended that the Rhode Island school divest from “any company that profits from the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.”
The Advisory Committee on Corporate Responsibility in Investment Policies (ACCRIP), which met on Tuesday, cited criteria in the recently released U.N. Human Rights Council’s database of 112 companies that do business in Israeli neighborhoods in the West Bank.
These activities include supplying “equipment and materials facilitating the construction and the expansion of settlements and the [security] wall,” supplying “equipment for the demolition of housing and property” and providing “security services, equipment and materials to enterprises operating in settlements.”
In December, ACCRIP voted in favor of supporting the BDS movement that works to boycott Israel.
The ACCRIP, which consists of university students, faculty, staff and alumni, vote on resolutions surrounding “ethical and moral issues or issues of alleged social harm with respect to the activities of corporations in which the university is an investor,” according to its website.
The vote occurred just months after Brown students voted overwhelmingly in favor of a referendum calling on the school to separate itself from companies that conduct business with the State of Israel.
Brown University has 1,000 Jewish undergraduates and 200 Jewish graduates, according to Hillel International. Chabad at Brown also serves Jewish students on campus.
