Former board member donated millions to the Ivy League institution
A Brown University trustee announced his resignation over the weekend in protest of what he described as a “morally reprehensible” decision to hold a vote on divesting from Israel.
Joseph Edelman, (pictured) a trustee since 2019, shared the news in a letter published Sunday in the Wall Street Journal. He also has donated millions of dollars to the Ivy League school.
“I find it morally reprehensible that holding a divestment vote was even considered, much less that it will be held—especially in the wake of the deadliest assault on the Jewish people since the Holocaust,” he wrote.
He said Israel “has a moral duty to defend its citizens” after the Oct. 7 terrorist attack.
“It is revealing that of all the countries in the world, only Israel is expected to restrain itself because of the civilian lives that will tragically be lost in war,” he wrote.
Edelman said the university’s “willingness” to hold a divestment vote raises questions about its commitment to addressing “rising antisemitism on campus and a growing political movement that seeks the destruction of the state of Israel.”
He is leaving one year before his six-year term ends, The Brown Daily Herald reports:
Edelman, who is the chief executive officer of biotechnology investment firm Perceptive Advisors and a graduate of UC San Diego, joined the board in 2019 with a projected six-year term. His profile and information have been removed from the Brown Corporation’s website. …
He criticized the University’s decision to hold an October vote on divestment from companies with ties to Israel in exchange for an agreement with pro-divestment demonstrators to dismantle an encampment on the campus green.
Edelman is a major donor to the University. In 2014, the Corporation accepted a $1.65 million gift from him for funding circuit therapy research and upgrading equipment in the Institute for Brain Science. He and his wife also endowed the faculty director of the Center for Human Rights.
He donated $800,000 more to Brown in 2022, according to the report.
Edelman also has faced criticism for donating to the medical watchdog organization Do No Harm, which critics say is “anti-trans,” according to the report.
In February, Brown’s president, Christina Paxson, initially refused pro-Palestinian protesters’ demands that the university divest from companies that support Israel, The College Fix reported at the time.
However, at the end of April, Paxon reversed course and agreed “to consider a divestment resolution … as part of a deal with pro-Palestinian student activists as part of a deal to clear a protest encampment,” according to the Boston Globe.
Responding to Edelman, university spokesman Brian Clark told the Globe:
Edelman has a “fundamental misunderstanding of the decisions that led to the upcoming vote on divestment.”
Clark said Brown is “following an established process that is nearly a half-century old” that is built on the principle that the university has an “obligation to examine and investigate claims challenging its moral responsibility.”
“Our process allows any university community member to submit a divestment proposal for examination, and does not pre-determine the merit or outcome,” said Clark. “As an educational institution, Brown is and must be a campus that confronts and interrogates difficult questions.”
MORE: Brown U. students hunger strike for divestment from Israel
IMAGE: Brown University website archive
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