ANALYSIS – It's their choice. In a surprisingly refreshing stance by the president of a very liberal Ivy League college, the head of Brown University has told its rabble of far-left anti-Zionist student radicals on a hunger strike to go starve, saying they are making their “own choices.”
Christina Paxson openly rejected the demand of the group participating in the hunger strike (the Brown Divest Coalition – BDC) to force Brown to vote on a boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) resolution against Israel.
Ignoring Israel's right of self-defense, and the brutality of the Hamas terror attack, and its sworn mission to destroy Israel, the BDS resolution falsely accuses Israel of “genocide” in its war in Gaza.
It also ignores the fact that Hamas deliberately wages war in (and invites retaliatory responses to) densely packed civilian areas and cities, using the civilians as human shields while the terrorists hide like rats in tunnels underneath.
In a letter to students of the private college in Providence, Rhode Island, Paxson forcefully rebuffed the radicals' demands. As the Algemeiner reported:
“We consistently reject calls to use the endowment as a tool for political advocacy on contested issues,” Paxson said in a letter to the students. “Our campus is a place where difficult issues should be freely discussed and debated. It is not appropriate for the university to use its financial assets — which are there to support our entire community — to ‘take a side' on issues on which thoughtful people vehemently disagree.”
Paxson added that the students' method of protest possibly contravenes school rules proscribing demonstrations that endanger “personal safety” and that they are making their “own choices.” Additionally, she has directed the school's Campus Life office to monitor their well-being and a school doctor has already assessed their fitness to endure prolonged periods of self-deprivation.
“I will not commit to bring a resolution to the February 2024 Corporation meeting or any future meeting of the Corporation,” she concluded.
Since the 1960s, Brown has been known as the most liberal college of the Ivy League but also more libertarian than, say, leftist Yale University.
The school's leftist aggressive, anti-Jewish mob has caused serious disruption to the school since the Hamas terrorist massacre in southern Israel Oct. 7, 2023. In December, campus police arrested dozens of protesters for illegally taking over and occupying the University Hall admin building.
As of January, the university is still pressing ahead with trespassing charges against all 41 students for their role in the unauthorized protest.
In November, the school had 20 students arrested for trespassing as well.
But this isn't the first time Paxson has stood up for Israel and free speech on campus. Last year, Paxson denounced antisemitism and “boycotts against any country,” an implicit reference to the anti-Israel BDS movement, during a speech at the 2023 Hillel International Israel Summit.
Now, The Providence Journal reported, Brown Divest Coalition member Hannah Aboueid said that students' relationship with the administration is “reaching a boiling point.”
“They don't seem to be taking our demands seriously,” Aboueid said, “even as student support for divestment grows exponentially.” Well, too bad!
Kudos to Paxson for showing true leadership courage, grit and sanity in an otherwise increasingly insane Ivy League. The adults should be in charge.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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