Last month, Rhode Island School of Design Students for Justice in Palestine presented an Israel divestment proposal to members of RISD’s Board of Trustees. The board plans to “share their thoughts” on the proposal by March, The Herald previously reported.
In May, the group organized a three-day building occupation of 20 Washington Place, known as Prov-Wash, in an effort to advocate for their proposal.
But this recent pro-Palestine activism is not the first time RISD student activists have campaigned for institutional divestment.
In April 2013, climate activist group Divest RISD made national headlines when 11 students staged a sit-in demanding that the school’s leadership endorse divestment from fossil fuel industries. The sit-in was the first across college campuses nationwide.
“RISD was the first real protest in the fossil fuel divestment movement,” said Anne Tate, an architecture professor at RISD. Tate was the chair of the faculty steering committee in March 2013, when faculty members unanimously voted in favor of divesting from fossil fuels, The Herald previously reported.
Two years later, RISD’s board unanimously voted for divestment from fossil-fuel extraction companies, becoming the first university to do so in Rhode Island, The Public’s Radio reported.
“I think it is our job to teach students to understand how change happens,” Tate said. In 2012, Bill McKibben P’16, the leader of the global climate activist organization 350.org, gave a talk at Brown urging students to remain strong in fossil fuel divestment efforts, The Herald previously reported.
Among the students in attendance was Emma Beede, an early organizer for Divest RISD.
“The talk that he gave got me really riled up,” Beede told The Herald. Despite having little experience with political activism, Beede said she began to organize on campus shortly after.
The group’s initial campaign focused on petitions and teach-ins, but conversations regarding staging a sit-in began after Beede realized “how large of an effort was needed” after she met with former President John Maeda and other RISD administrators.
The group occupied Maeda’s office in Prov-Wash overnight, drew significant media attention and eventually secured their divestment proposal as an agenda item during the next Board of Trustees meeting.
At the presentation, Beede was met with “some interest” from the administration but also “disdain” and “incredulity,” she said. Board members claimed that “it was impossible to divest from certain individual stocks.”
Beede was surprised at RISD’s eventual decision to divest in 2015, given that Divest RISD had “gradually disbanded” in 2013, she said. After graduating that year, Beede was not aware that the initial divestment proposal was undergoing consideration in those two years.
“I’m not sure what ultimately made them decide to divest,” Beede wrote in a separate email to The Herald. She speculated that leadership changes may have played a part, noting that Maeda’s successor, former RISD President Rosanne Somerson, was “more sympathetic to our cause.”
The divestment proposal “went through with very little fanfare,” Tate said. “The issue was not strongly held on to by” Divest RISD, and “there wasn’t a constant pressure” on the RISD administration.
In their October meeting with the board, RSJP pointed to RISD’s divestment from fossil fuels as evidence that divestment is possible and highlighted that administrators have responded to RSJP’s responses similarly to how they addressed Divest RISD’s 2013 demands.
Demands for divestment from companies affiliated with Israel trace back to 2020, when the RISD Anti-Racism Coalition, commonly known as risdARC, published a report calling on the school to divest from Airbnb, Textron and “other complicit entities that profit off of militarized violence and geopolitical war crimes,” the report reads. The demands also urged the school to re-evaluate exchange programs that “discriminate against Palestinian students,” among other institutional racial equity calls.
Like risdARC, RSJP has scrutinized RISD’s financial ties with defense manufacturer Textron. The Herald previously reported that the Israeli Air Force arsenal currently includes aircraft made by Textron subsidiaries Bell and Beechcraft. The group has also criticized Airbnb for allowing listings of rental properties in Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
RISD Spokesperson Jaime Marland did not respond to a request to comment, but previously told The Herald that Textron and Airbnb are not in RISD’s investment portfolio. In a May statement, President Williams rejected protesters’ demands to sever all financial ties with Textron.
RSJP’s founder, who spoke to The Herald on the condition of anonymity due to safety concerns, also contributed to the risdARC report. Starting RSJP, she said, was a natural continuation of her advocacy work with risdARC, and helped to bring conversations regarding Palestine to RISD’s campus, where “nobody knew anything about Palestine or what was going on.”
The lack of political engagement on campus was “kind of strange to me because we’re an art school,” the RSJP founder said. “You would expect artists to be more politically involved.”
Beede shared similar sentiments, remarking that although most RISD students supported Divest RISD’s cause, it seemed like many couldn’t “care less about the actual, direct action on campus.”
Currently, RSJP hopes to “provide political education and serve as a space for students to stand in solidarity with Palestine,” RSJP Spokesperson Jo Ouyang ’26, a Brown-RISD dual degree student, wrote in a message to The Herald. Ouyang emphasized the importance of working “collectively to call for divestment” via rallies, art builds and other community organizing events.
Ouyang added that RISD’s lack of established procedure and documented history of divestment also pose a challenge towards RSJP’s divestment efforts.
RISD’s Board of Trustees contains an investment subcommittee that helps oversee the school’s endowment and advises on the management of RISD securities. Members of the subcommittee heard the divestment proposal from RSJP representatives late last month.
The proposal will then move to the board’s Stewardship and Sustainability Committee, which will provide a recommendation for further action to the full Board of Trustees.
Beede recalled having “helpful conversations” with RISD’s board members about the fossil fuel divestment proposal, but emphasized that administrative receptiveness may vary depending on current leadership.
Compared to Divest RISD, RSJP has also launched “more forceful demands, more pressure (and) more volatility on campus,” Beede added, noting that Divest RISD largely focused on “building relationships” with members on the board and the student body.
“Both are valuable and reasonable strategies,” Beede said. “And I’m not sure which is more effective.”
Ouyang said RSJP “maintains a multi-faceted approach” in their advocacy and will continue “to engage in conversations with President Crystal Williams and administration.”
In a previous email to The Herald, Marland wrote that “the trustees always value open communication and they will share their thoughts on this proposal by March.” She did not respond to an additional request for comment.
Megan is a Senior Staff Writer covering community and activism in Providence. Born and raised in Hong Kong, she spends her free time drinking coffee and wishing she was Meg Ryan in a Nora Ephron movie.
