The university determined that there would be no significant financial impact or expenditure of its resources, noting that it is neither directly invested in any of the companies listed by the student-led Brown Divest Coalition nor does its indirect investment exceed 0.01% of the aggregate market value of the ten companies.
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Moynihan and Paxson conveyed that both ACURM and the Corporation concluded that divesting would serve more as a political statement for the university rather than impose a substantial financial burden on any of the companies named in the proposal from the Brown Divest Coalition.
The Coalition’s report identified the following companies: Textron, Safariland, Volvo Group, Airbus, Boeing, General Dynamics, Motorola Solutions, General Electric, RTX Corporation, and Northrop Grumman. It referenced previous decisions made by Brown’s Advisory Committee on Corporate Responsibility in Investment Practices (ACCRIP), which led the university to divest from the tobacco industry, the Sudanese government, and South Africa’s apartheid regime.
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Paxson and Moynihan stated, “The Corporation felt that the current backdrop of deep divisions within our community — not to mention nationally — clearly distinguishes this proposal. We acknowledge that in the cases of Sudan and South Africa, Brown made divestment decisions that might now largely appear to be symbolic.”
The students assert that Paxson informed them in a letter dated December 2023 that she had rejected the initial proposal due to its failure to “meet established standards for identifying specific entities for divestment or to articulate how financial divestment from the entities would address social harm.” (ACCRIP, which preceded ACURM, released a report in 2020 titled ‘To Recommend Divestment from Companies that Facilitate the Israeli Occupation of Palestinian Territory’.)
In response to a multi-day student encampment on the college’s green, Paxson agreed to reconsider the Coalition’s divestment proposal with the Brown Corporation in April.
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