‘Lacks Basic Moral Judgement’: Elite University Trustee Steps Down Over Vote On Israel Divestment

A trustee at Brown University announced his resignation on Sunday over the school’s vote on Israel divestment.

The university’s highest governing body, “The Corporation,” will vote on the divestment during its October meeting, which was decided after an agreement was made between administrators and “encampment organizers” in April, according to the Brown Daily Herald. Joseph Edelman, a trustee since 2019, noted that Brown’s plan to hold a divestment vote in the first place was based on “weakness towards student activists,” not facts and values.

“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,” Edelman said in the letter published by the WSJ. “On Oct. 7, 2023, Israel was invaded and brutally attacked by Palestinian terrorists.”

A Brown University spokesperson defended the decision to hold the vote, claiming that Edelman did not understand what led to the divestment vote.

“While we value the service of our former trustee, he has a fundamental misunderstanding of the decisions that led to the upcoming vote on divestment,” Brown University Vice President for News and Strategic Campus Communications, Brian E. Clark, told the 🏢Daily Caller News Foundation.

The vote shows the university’s attitude towards the campus’ growing issue of antisemitism, Edelman wrote in the letter. He also criticized the university for allegedly rewarding the student activists instead of punishing them for disrupting campus activities and “promoting violence and antisemitism at Brown.”