How ACURM’s revised charge means Brown may never divest again

On Wednesday afternoon, students and faculty received a rare email from Brown’s Corporation. The email announced that the governing body voted in a special meeting to strike down a student-written proposal to divest from companies with Israeli military ties.

The decision followed a recommendation against divestment issued by Brown’s Advisory Committee on University Resources Management, or ACURM. The committee voted 8-2 against recommending divestment, with one member abstaining. 

In its report, ACURM wrote that some of its members believe its charge is “unreasonably narrow” — a factor that contributed to its vote and could dramatically restrict divestment actions in the future.

“If it is the case going forward that divestment action will only be considered when the investment or expenditure of University resources directly causes ‘social harm,’” the committee wrote, “this means that the University will almost never divest its resources from any entity.”

The two votes put an end to speculation on how the University would respond to the calls for divestment that have steadily grown louder over the last year, taking the form of protests, hunger strikes and sit-ins. 

Across campus, the email prompted outrage from pro-divestment activists and celebration from anti-divestment ones. Both had been campaigning for months over the contentious proposal.

Shortly after the announcement, the Brown Divest Coalition, which authored the divestment proposal, posted a graphic reading “FUCK YOU CPAX. FUCK YOU BROWN CORP. FREE PALESTINE,” on Instagram. It quickly gathered thousands of likes. 

“This decision makes one thing clear: our university has ... invested in companies that facilitate Israel’s genocide, apartheid and military occupation and still refuses to dissociate from these funds,” said Brown Divest Coalition spokesperson Arman Deendar ’25.

“We are pleased that ACURM followed its charge and that the Corporation made its decision based on the facts and appropriate guidelines,” said Brooke Verschleiser ’25, the president of Brown Students for Israel. 

The Corporation voted on the recommendation by majority. Votes were cast by secret ballot, a measure previously requested by student activists in favor of divestment. The students also requested the names of Corporation members who recused themselves from the vote. The University did not share these names publicly and declined to share them with The Herald. 

The decision against divestment cited an analysis by ACURM which showed that — as of June 30 of last year — Brown’s indirect investments in the companies identified in the divestment proposal represented at most roughly 0.009% of those companies’ aggregate market value, or less than 1% of the University's endowment. At the time, 1% of the endowment was equivalent to $66 million. 

The Corporation's decision relied on ACURM’s determination that Brown’s financial involvement in the 10 companies is “de minimis” and doesn’t constitute social harm, rendering any divestment action a “symbolic political statement,” President Christina Paxson P’19 P’MD’20 and Chancellor Brian Moynihan ’81 P’14 P’19 wrote in a message to the community.

Brown will not divest because doing so is “taking a stance on a geopolitical issue” and “adjudicating global conflict,” Paxson and Moynihan wrote. 

But the University has divested for similar reasons before.

Historically, divestment recommendations were made by a separate committee founded in the ’70s: the Advisory Committee on Corporate Responsibility in Investment Policies, or ACCRIP. That body recommended Brown divest from the tobacco industry in 2003 and from Sudan in 2006. 

In the decade leading up to ACCRIP’s dissolution, the group sent two statements to Paxson related to divestment from companies with ties to Israel, one in 2012 and another in 2020. The latter recommended that Brown divest from “companies which profit from human rights abuses in Palestine.” 

By the time Paxson rejected ACCRIP’s recommendation in April 2021, citing inadequate research, the group had already been replaced by ACURM.

ACURM’s charge, as opposed to ACCRIP’s, makes divestment in the future extremely unlikely, members say. 

ACCRIP’s charge focused on the actions of companies that Brown invests in. But based on faculty input, ACURM focused on how Brown’s investments themselves affect social harm. 

ACCRIP was previously charged with examining “issues of alleged ‘social harm’ with respect to the activities of corporations in which the University is an investor.” ACURM is now charged with examining “allegations of ‘social harm’ with respect to the investment or expenditure of University financial resources.”

In both cases, social harm is defined as “the harmful impact that the activities of a company or corporation have on consumers, employees or other persons, or on the human or natural environment.”

The difference between these two charges was a key factor in ACURM’s decision, according to the committee’s report. In 2024, ACURM voted on whether Brown’s investments “directly contribute to (social) harm.” In 2020, ACCRIP first voted on whether Israel’s actions themselves constituted social harm, then voted to recommend divestment.

“These previous decisions in support of divestment indicate the ability of previous committees to consider a wider range of issues than the ACURM Charge currently permits,” the committee wrote in its 2024 report.

In the past, some of ACCRIP’s recommendations characterized divestment as a “symbolic” action without significant financial implications. 

In ACCRIP’s 2003 tobacco divestment recommendation, the committee determined that while divestment from the tobacco industry “may have significant symbolic value,” it would “have no discernible effect on earnings on the endowment.”

Similarly, in 1986, the Campus Committee on divestment from South Africa said that while the financial effects of divesting were “relatively small,” divestment’s primary impact was “its indirect communication of our seriousness of purpose to the United States government.”

“This history makes clear that divestment of Brown’s financial resources has been a symbolic and political tool rather than an act predicated on the reduction of harm through financial mechanisms,” ACURM wrote in its 2024 report.

Still, the deep divisions of opinion concerning the most recent divestment proposal set this decision apart, the committee argued.

“Brown was clearly adopting a political or moral stance with its decisions to divest in these situations, but it was not attempting to foreclose an unresolved debate with strongly and sincerely held views on all sides,” the report reads.

“We – the Committee, the Brown community, the nation and the world – do not agree about basic aspects of this conflict.”

The report also examined ACURM’s responsibility to uphold Brown’s values, and the ambiguity surrounding just what those values are — especially in light of the University’s past decisions to divest on moral grounds. 

“Many members of the Committee, including some who voted ‘no,’ argue it would be more useful to ask whether there is social harm independent of the University’s actions, and if so whether university action is desirable,” the report reads. This approach aligns with that of the 2020 ACCRIP proposal.

But for now, ACURM’s future scope and role remain unclear.

“There is a meaningful misalignment between the questions that ACURM is being asked to answer by members of the Brown community, and the answers the Committee is permitted to offer in accord with its Charge,” ACURM wrote.

Clarification: This story has been updated to clarify ACURM's methodology for calculating Brown's exposure to 10 companies considered for divestment and the maximum value of this exposure.