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Stu Smith

Sep 9, 2024 • 8 tweets • 5 min read • Read on X

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BREAKING: Joseph Edelman, a Brown University trustee, has now resigned over the future divestment vote at Brown University.

As a result, I am releasing my recording of the Wednesday meeting where the Brown Divest Coalition presented their proposal to divest from Israel.

Here is video of the full presentation below. Remember, Brown is a private university; you can't FOIA this video. Without me, this recording may not have ever gone public.

I honestly wanted a bit more time with this footage and other divestment trainings I have recorded to present this in a digestible format. The language of ESG is how many of these students are getting their foot in the door and they are being trained to exploit this. There is a lot I could say about this subject.

However, Edelman's resignation will hopefully get sizable attention, and I hope by "democratizing" this footage, you can see how ridiculous this presentation was. If you use it, please tag me so I can boost it and comment if needed.

I really enjoyed watching Professor James Kellner grill the students after their presentation. Kellner is a Professor of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology and Environment and Society. In a past life, I imagine he must have been a lawyer. He is one of the professors who is a member of the Advisory Committee on University Resources Management (ACURM).

Here he explains ACURM's duties when it comes to "social harm." In a truly golden moment, he then asks the students if they know that Brown University is not directly invested in any of the ten companies they want to divest from.

Kellner posed a philosophical question to the students about how social harm could be easily identifiable if we presume that companies are responsible for how their products are used. He used alcohol as an example of something that is widely used yet creates social harm.

President of the Undergraduate Council of Students, Niyanta Nepal, didn't engage with this thought experiment and instead focused on how strong the students feel about divestment and how personal Palestine is for the student body.

Nepal ran on a platform of divestment and even participated in the hunger strike for eight days.

Again, Kellner gets philosophical and discusses how possibly neutrality cannot exist; if so, should we consider the net good and net harm of these companies?

It sounds like Nepal, but could be another student, responds that the students are only looking at the harm.

Kellner says, "The world is more complicated than that." He uses flying on airplanes as an example of a social harm that also provides great benefits. He asks the students to consider how the university needs to consider the totality of a company.

The students once again don't engage with these questions and go back to how the student body has spoken about not wanting to be complicit and how they have proven how great the social harm is.

Kellner now asks the students about what Brown should do considering that they have received a letter from 24 Attorney Generals threatening legal action if the university divests.

Rafi Ash, the Treasurer of the Undergraduate Council of Students and Secretary of Brown/RISD Young Democratic Socialists of America, walks us through his legal analysis of the situation. He sees this as illegal and unconstitutional. He also believes these politicians are "jockeying for political power."

Kellner is such a good professor. If he is like this in the classroom, I imagine his students grow so much if they rise to the occasion.

"I appreciate that response; I'm going to push back and ask you to try again from a slightly different point of view."

Kellner walks the students through how grants work, how they "flow through other states," and how they could be jeopardized if Brown University divests.

Ash doesn't engage with this. Instead, he blames "fundamentally extremist politicians" and wants us to consider "who does the university stand for?" He sees this as an issue of academic freedom and that these students are simply questioning the university.

Major Takeaways from the Divestment Presentation

-Kellner rules and has such a great approach. We should all be blessed to have such a professor who challenges you to be your best.
-These are the best that Brown has to offer? Really?
-Volvo being one of the companies they want to divest from makes me laugh. Raise your hand if you ever rode around in that old iconic Volvo station wagon!
-One of my followers recently said, "Nobody else has coverage on events like this and it’s so important." If you agree and appreciate my reporting, buy me a coffee! See my pinned tweet to see how to show me some love.

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More from @thestustustudio

Stu Smith

@thestustustudio

Sep 14

This clip, from a longer interview with Georges Abdallah — the Lebanese Marxist revolutionary — is now being pushed hard across the pro-Palestine social media.

In it, Abdallah frames Elias Rodriguez’s alleged murder of two embassy staffers as a "revolutionary duty" to eliminate "Israeli agents." The rhetoric is extreme: denying that civilians were targeted, dismissing any call for "politeness and restraint," and urging revolutionaries in the West to rise up.

And it’s being shared by everyone from Calla Walsh to Code Pink ally and GWU grad student Moataz "Taz" Salim — all just days after Charlie Kirk was assassinated.

The message is unmistakable: the movement must intensify, even if it means resorting to more extreme and deadly measures.

Calla has also been heavily focused on this theme over the past few weeks, frequently praising individuals involved in murders and violent crimes—alleged, in cases where the legal process hasn't been completed.

https://x.com/thestustustudio/status/1963046245511135588?t=LBXPxF22MrXvkmOfSLddtw&s=19

Read 4 tweets

Stu Smith

@thestustustudio

Sep 10

🚨 UC Riverside Professor Dylan Rodríguez: “F*cking terrorizes civilization. I want to be that kind of terrorist.”

In a recent appearance on Millennials Are Killing Capitalism, Rodríguez — a UC Riverside professor, past president of the American Studies Association, and a leading voice in Ethnic and Black Studies — openly glorified terrorism and insurrection. His teachings don’t stay in the classroom. One of the students he hailed as a “genius” is now serving time for firebombing vehicles at UC Berkeley.

Rodríguez scoffs at nonviolence:

“This pacifism shit will get people killed.”

He praises direct sabotage of federal property:

“Shout out to folks throughout Southern California who are actively disabling ICE vehicles when they find them in the f*cking hotel parking lots.”

And he ties his vision to global militancy:

“Where has Palestinian liberation militancy gone? It’s only upscale. It’s only increased, it’s only globalized, it’s only spread.”

His rhetoric matches his own biography, where he insists:

“Most importantly, Dylan believes in the right — in fact, the obligation — of occupied, colonized, and incarcerated peoples to fight for their liberation… and the parallel responsibility of those who profess solidarity to take all necessary measures to protect, defend, and advance liberation struggle, whatever forms it may take.”

One of the students he celebrated as a “singular intellectual, just singular” is now serving time for federal arson and firebombing attacks.

Casey Robert Goonan, 34, of Oakland and Pleasant Hill, pleaded guilty to federal arson charges for a series of firebombings at the Oakland federal building and UC Berkeley in June 2024.

According to the plea deal, Goonan:

Tried to smash windows at the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building to throw lit Molotov cocktails inside. When stopped by security, he lit the devices in a planter outside instead.

Days earlier, placed a bag containing six Molotov cocktails under the fuel tank of a marked UC Police Department patrol car at UC Berkeley, lit the bag on fire, and fled. The patrol car caught fire and was destroyed.

This is the same Casey that Rodríguez has mentored for nearly 20 years, put into graduate-level courses as an undergrad, and later guided through a Northwestern PhD — describing him as more than a student, but one of his “most precious colleagues.”

Yes — this is his official UC Riverside biography. It’s astonishing to see how openly it doubles down on the same themes from his talks:

“Liberationist, anticolonial, abolitionist confrontations with the antiblack, colonial, and white supremacist violences that permeate the ongoing Civilization project.”

“Obligation… of occupied, colonized, and incarcerated peoples to fight for their liberation… and the parallel responsibility of those who profess solidarity to take all necessary measures to protect, defend, and advance liberation struggle, whatever forms it may take.”

That last line — “whatever forms it may take” — is basically a blank check to justify violence, sabotage, and terrorism. And this isn’t buried in an obscure paper — it’s posted right on UCR’s official site, under his Distinguished Professor title.

Read 4 tweets

Stu Smith

@thestustustudio

Sep 10

🚨 BREAKING: Code Pink crashes a private dinner with President Donald Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

“Trump is the Hitler of our time. Free D.C., Free Palestine.”

Why was the Secret Service so slow to respond? How was this even allowed to happen? President Trump had to order them to act!

Part 2 which heavily features Olivia DiNucci.

Two of the activists behind this stunt are Olivia DiNucci and “Bita” — who might want to think twice about leaving her kids front-and-center on public social media if she plans to keep engaging in this kind of activism.

Read 4 tweets

Stu Smith

@thestustustudio

Aug 29

If there’s one soundbite that I hope becomes synonymous with the People’s Conference for Palestine — beyond all the Hamas mentions — it’s this:

“We have to destroy the idea of America in our heads, in our neighbors’ heads, in our comrades’ heads..."

https://x.com/thestustustudio/status/1961542295209349351

I noticed a few questions in the replies. Here’s some additional context that should help clarify things.

https://x.com/thestustustudio/status/1961542295209349351

https://x.com/thestustustudio/status/1961545448050618457

This worldview comes naturally if you loathe America and imagine communism as the better alternative.

https://x.com/thestustustudio/status/1961545448050618457

Read 4 tweets

Stu Smith

@thestustustudio

Aug 19

🚨 BREAKING: Microsoft employees and "community members" calling themselves the "Worker Intifada" have established a "liberated zone," also known as an encampment, on the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Washington.

"We demand Microsoft cut all ties with the entire economy of genocide immediately."

A plainclothes Microsoft security guard literally hauling away the protesters’ trash. Give this man a bonus for putting up with this nonsense.

Read 6 tweets

Stu Smith

@thestustustudio

Aug 14

🚨 UN-Backed Feminist Education Program Features Mahmoud Khalil Praising Terrorist Icon and Urging Student “Revolution”

Earlier this week, I attended Transform Education’s From Classrooms to Revolution, featuring Columbia University’s Mahmoud Khalil.

What’s troubling is that Transform Education is part of UNGEI, the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative. Instead of focusing on education, the event promoted student “revolution” as a moral duty and necessity.

Khalil praised PFLP terrorist Ghassan Kanafani as an inspiration, framed education as “resistance,” and lauded Columbia’s militant campus activism and mutual aid networks that supported students during arrests. He described carving protest chants into his prison bunk, hailed students as the “moral compass” of radical change, and even preached about “positive masculinity.”

Given the militancy of Columbia’s protests, it’s alarming that a women’s education program would choose Khalil as its keynote speaker.

Sapphire, a young feminist activist from Trinidad and Tobago, opened From Classrooms to Revolution by declaring that in many societies, young people are “viewed as powerless, entitled, or in some cases even lazy” and “expected to obey authority without question.” She countered that “students have led many of history’s greatest protests” — from the Soweto uprisings to today’s campus encampments — often “at great personal risk.”

She said the event was “a celebration of student activism, countering the narrative that student activists are deviants,” and closed by declaring, “We are agents of change, shifting the world order away from a movement of extractivism, capitalism, and oppression toward collective liberation, freedom, and justice for all.”

It is certainly surprising to hear such far-left, anti-capitalist rhetoric — the kind you’d expect at a socialist rally, not from a UN-backed education program.

Mahmoud Khalil opened by saying he wanted to define himself in his own words. He introduced himself as “a human being, a human rights defender, a freedom fighter, a refugee, husband, and father,” and “a Palestinian.”

He said these identities shaped who he is, comparing himself to Columbia students who “fought constantly… for justice, for dignity, for the right of people to live free from oppression.”

It takes a certain arrogance to casually crown yourself a “freedom fighter.”