In an email this afternoon, the Brown Corporation released its decision not to divest from the 10 companies the Brown Divestment Coalition (BDC) exposed as supporting the Israeli apartheid of Palestine. The Corporation explained its reasoning as following the Advisory Committee on University Resources Management (ACURM)’s report, which counseled against divestment. In reflecting on the decision-making process, the corporation stated, “We just really hate making big decisions. It’s like, ugh, it could go either way. On the one bloodstained hand, profiting from the genocide of an entire people sounds kinda icky, but, on the other, we really LOVE money. Mama needs a new holographic projection show for the CIT Building!”
At this point in the email, Corporation member Ricky “Big Oil Owns Me” Limpdickman described the Corporation’s position on “geopolitical” issues in the Middle East, such as wiping out all the universities in the West Bank. He wrote, “Brown’s mission of education and scholarship does not exclude us from supporting the removal of educational access for Brown-skinned people who make me uncomfortable. We at the Corporation believe the university’s funds should go towards the discovery, communication, and preservation of knowledge of oil deposits for the United States to control and exploit. It is not to adjudicate or resolve global conflicts that remove our foothold from the Middle East.” When asked about the university historically divesting from the South African apartheid or Sudan, he made a zippering sound while closing his mouth and pretending to throw away an invisible key.
ACURM, currently staffed by CPax holding various finger puppets, held a vote on the BDC’s divestment proposal earlier this year. Having met with several student groups advocating for and against the systemic murder of children, eight of CPax’s puppets voted against divestment; two voted for it; and one imaginary finger that she taped on to prevent a tie vote, just in case, decided to abstain. “Releasing such an influential decision made with such antipathy can create some anxiety about public reception,” wrote one finger, “so the ACURM report was only just now made public in the Corporation’s email.”
ACURM stated it was devoted to helping the Brown Corporation “put aside their personal views and exercise their best judgment in making decisions that serve the best long-term interest of the University.” One strategy they proposed for doing so was to stick one’s fingers in one’s ears and yell “LALALALALALALALA” until the groups of protestors and betrayed Palestinian students leave you alone. Other tips from the report include: spitting on university students singing protest songs from your private balcony and yelling “GOAL” when you hit a keffiyeh, wearing university-provided sleep masks to avoid seeing photos of dead Palestinians trapped under rubble, and reminding yourself the money you make from this genocide can fund all the therapy you’ll need in twenty years when you realize you directly contributed to the murder of hundreds of thousands of people that will never again hug their families or do their laundry or go to school or smile watching the sunrise or—ohmygodI’mamonsteraren’tI???
The email ends with a call to look ahead for Brown’s community, raising considerations about what constitutes a situation where divestment is necessary. “After all, since the university has such ‘minimal exposure’ to direct investments in companies funding Israel, why can’t everyone just forget all this silly nonsense and pretend nothing is happening, like us?” writes Mr. Limpdickman.
We hope that the Brown Corporation and ACURM will come out with more helpful strategies for ignoring the calls of their student body and the world in the coming weeks, as their divestment rejection reaps what it sows.