Thread by @thestustustudio

Here is the second of four forums that Brown University is holding in regards to divesting from Israel. Yesterday, students opposed to divestment presented their case.

Stick around for the full recording and clips from this forum! 🧵

Here is the video of the full presentation. Remember, Brown is a private university; you can't FOIA this video. Without me, this recording may not have ever gone public. This will be mirrored on YouTube as well.

Brown Divestment Coalition works with other student divestment groups across the nation. What happens at Brown will impact other schools. Higher education frequently likes to welcome you as part of the greater "community" until you start making things difficult for them. Clearly, they don't want full transparency on this matter.

The questions the students received were much more grounded in technical definitions and responding to their critics. This same style of questioning was not employed for the Pro-Divestment students.

One of the stranger moments to me was when Noliwe Rooks, Chair and Professor of Africana Studies, asked the students why they were so focused on Hamas if Hamas isn't represented on campus. Professor Rooks seems well-intentioned but deeply uninformed.

The Pro-Divestment students weren't asked about Hamas, material support for terrorism, or even to respond to charges of anti-Semitism levied against them.

This led to a discussion on innocent Palestinians separate from Hamas. During their thirty-minute presentation, Avital addressed possible programs that Brown University could sponsor in Gaza and the West Bank to aid innocent Palestinians and promote peace. This is alluded to before the students discuss the oppression that Hamas subjects Palestinians in Gaza to.

James Kellner, Associate Professor of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology, and Environment and Society, mentions that the students said "would" in regards to wanting dialogue on campus. He asks, "Do people have dialogue?"

One student shares how students are demonized and discriminated against already. Another discusses efforts to have dialogue.

Kellner asks what could be done to "cool down" campus and promote dialogue. The response from the student is simply amazing.

"I think a lot of professors at this university are creating echo chambers, and you know the speakers that are being brought in by this university are presenting as if there's only one moral high ground and one objectively correct position on this issue. And I think, as you could see from meeting with us and from meeting with BDC, there isn't; it is so nuanced and so complicated, and I find that sometimes the people who are supposed to be showing us, being an example of what dialogue should look like, do a really poor job of that."

Other students want the administration to do more to facilitate dialogue and to highlight what makes us similar.

Keenan Wilder, one of the students members of ACURM, asks the students to respond to the fact that Israel has settlements in the West Bank.

I think this is outside the scope of what is even appropriate to ask; however, the students rose to the occasion, and one student even stated, "To be very clear, we are not here to defend every aspect of
Israeli policy."

Two of the students walk us through a history lesson and share their thoughts on settlements.

The pro-divestment students weren't asked about any policies of Hamas or the Palestinian Authority.

Kellner asks the students to respond to various definitions of genocide and apartheid and explain why they put those terms in quotation marks.

There is a lot that could be said here, but I will let you be the judge.

Kellner also wanted the students to respond to the paradox of thinking divestment was symbolic yet cause social harm to Israel. The students respond, and Kellner pushes them to grapple with what is symbolic versus what is material.

This leads to an interesting moment.

"I don't think that will be the effect of divestment. I do not believe divesting from these 10 companies will have any effect on alleviating the suffering of Palestinians or would affect the ability of Israelis to protect themselves. What I'm hoping to point out is the fact that if we were to divest and if we were to have an impact, it would be a negative one, merely to point out what the repercussions of divestment are and what it signals to the world and to the Jewish students on this campus."