In one of the first large protests at Brown University this year, more than 100 Brown University students poured onto the Main Green Friday to demand that school leaders refuse to comply with demands they expect are coming from the Trump administration.
Over the past several months, the Trump administration has used the prospect of freezing millions or billions of dollars in federal funding from universities as a way to get them to agree to changes in school policy and curricula. The Trump administration has threatened to withhold $510 million in funding from Brown, though the administration has not yet sent the university a list of demands it wants the school to agree to.
Freshman protest organizer Simon Aron, who is Jewish, said that the Trump administration is cracking down on universities where students held large pro-Palestinian protests last year under the guise of eliminating anti-semitism.
“Seeing my people being used as a shield to attack the most vulnerable among us felt absolutely terrible,” Aron said. “I didn’t choose to be in the middle of this war that Trump is waging against universities, right? But here I am, and I feel like it’s my obligation to fight.”
Brown University also cracked down on pro-Palestinian protesters last year, which many students say has led to fewer protest actions on campus this year. The university has previously punished and arrested students for their participation in protest actions. Last fall, Brown suspended its chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine after school officials said students used a racial epithet against a Brown Corporation Board member.
Junior Alicia Joo said Friday she thinks the decrease in protesting this academic year is at least in part tied to decreased media attention on Israel’s war in Gaza, which recently reignited after a short-lived ceasefire, and has now claimed the lives of over 50,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
But Joo said student activists are more energized now and have repositioned their protests around pressuring their school to stand up to the Trump administration and not make concessions like Columbia University has. The rebranded campaign slogan for their activism is Do Not Comply.
“I think there is still room for Brown to maybe follow in Harvard’s footsteps, in publicly making that commitment, and also even doing better and not capitulating at all,” she said.
Brown University biology professor emeritus Kenneth Miller also spoke at the rally, which he told The Public’s Radio was intended to send a “message” to Brown administrators that, if they stand up to the Trump administration, they will have broad support from students and faculty alike.
“Regardless of how you view the horrors of October 7 or the continuing horror of the Gaza war, regardless of where you stand on the issue of divestment, we must all stand together to preserve this institution and others like it,” Miller said.
Brown University President Christina Paxson said in a statement last month that if Brown’s academic freedom and mission were under attack “we would be compelled to vigorously exercise our legal rights to defend these freedoms.”
The University has also joined a lawsuit to fight back against cuts to U.S. Department of Energy grant funding.
“We will continue to take the action necessary to protect the essential funding that supports Brown research and our country’s need for innovative solutions to critical problems,” Paxson said in a press release about the lawsuit.
One noticeable group was absent from the rally Friday. Nearly every speaker mentioned that international students were too worried about their personal safety to attend, citing recent visa revocations in the region. Simon Aron, the protest organizer, said organizers delayed the rally one day because of a concurrent naturalization ceremony being held at Brown on Thursday out of fear that federal immigration authorities could show up.
“This is such a scary moment for students, and even despite international students not being able to come, despite having to move our rally a day, we still had this massive turnout,” he said.
Editor’s Note: A previous version of this story said this was the first large protest at Brown since the school’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine was banned. Rather, this was the second large protest since the group was banned.
