Brown Trustee Resigns Citing “Stunning Failure of Moral Leadership at Brown University"

A member of Brown University’s board of trustees has resigned over the decision by the school to vote to divest from investments in Israel. He has served as a trustee since 2019.

Joseph Edelman, the founder of New York City-based hedge fund Perceptive Advisors. He took to the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal to announce his resignation. Brown President Christina Paxson, in late May, announced a deal with student protestors that ended the campus sit-in — in exchange for a vote by the Board Corporation to take up a vote on divestiture. 

“As a member of the Brown University board of trustees, I disagree with the upcoming divestment vote on Israel. I am concerned about what Brown’s willingness to hold such a vote suggests about the university’s attitude toward rising antisemitism on campus and a growing political movement that seeks the destruction of the state of Israel,” Edelman wrote in the WSJ.

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The vote is scheduled for the upcoming Corporation meeting in October.

“I find it morally reprehensible that holding a divestment vote was even considered, much less that it will be held—especially in the wake of the deadliest assault on the Jewish people since the Holocaust. On Oct. 7, 2023, Israel was invaded and brutally attacked by Palestinian terrorists. Twelve hundred innocent people were slaughtered, some of them raped and burned alive, and more than 250 were abducted to Gaza and held as hostages. Israel, like all nations, has a moral duty to defend its citizens from terrorist attacks, and that is exactly what it has been doing. It is revealing that of all the countries in the world, only Israel is expected to restrain itself because of the civilian lives that will tragically be lost in war,” Edelman wrote.

Edelman is not the only Brown power player who ripped Paxson’s management of the anti-Israel movement at Brown.

In May, real estate mogul Barry Sternlicht blasted Paxson’s policy and called the vote “unconscionable,” and announced he was pausing his donations to the University.

Edelman’s resignation letter added, “Brown’s leadership admits the looming divestment vote is designed to buy good behavior from pro-Hamas activists, many of whom are adherents of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, which seeks the destruction of the Jewish state through political and economic warfare. BDS is an attempt to normalize antisemitism in mainstream American institutions. More than a dozen U.S. states have passed laws treating BDS as a form of discrimination.”

“It’s no coincidence that leading pro-boycott groups have ties to terrorist organizations that seek the annihilation of the Jewish people. In the end, that is the goal of the BDS movement, and I can’t accept the treatment of a hate movement as legitimate and deserving of a hearing. Brown’s policy of appeasement won’t work. It’s a capitulation to the very hatred that led to the Holocaust and the unspeakable horrors of Oct. 7,” wrote Edelman.

“How can Brown lend credence to these antisemitic voices, who notably began protesting in support of violence against Jews before Israel had even responded to the Oct. 7 attack? It’s as if the Brown board has agreed to vote on whether Israel has a right to defend itself, whether Israel has a right to exist, and even whether Jews have a right to exist," added Edelman. "I consider the willingness to hold this vote a stunning failure of moral leadership at Brown University. I am unwilling to lend my name or give my time to a body that lacks basic moral judgment. I hereby resign from the board of trustees."

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