US university committee recommends divestment from Israel occupation

A Brown University committee has issued a formal recommendation that the Ivy League university divest from “any company that profits from the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land”.

According to JTA, citing a report carried by the Brown Daily Herald student newspaper, “the recommendation was contained in an official report made to the university president and its highest governing body”, while “an additional report will include which specific companies to include”.

The committee met this week to discuss the criteria, which will reportedly be guided by the United Nations Human Rights report containing a list of 112 companies found to be involved in “activities that raised particular human rights concerns” in illegal Israeli settlements.

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JTA noted that “the advisory committee makes nonbinding recommendations about investment and ‘issues of ethical and moral responsibility’ to the school’s president and governing body”. Its members represent the university’s faculty, staff, students and alumni.

Last December, Brown’s Advisory Committee on Corporate Responsibility in Investment Policies (ACCRIP) voted on resolutions surrounding “ethical and moral issues or issues of alleged social harm with respect to the activities of corporations in which the University is an investor”.

The news this week marks the publication of the committee’s official recommendation. Student group Brown Divest published a press release calling ACCRIP’s recommendation “an important victory for our movement”.

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