Brown University President Omits Reference to Jewish Students after Heckling from Pro-Palestinian Activists

Brown University president Christina Paxson spoke at a vigil Monday night honoring a Palestinian student wounded in a shooting in Vermont until being interrupted by protesters calling for the university to divest its endowment from companies associated with Israel. 

Hisham Awartani, a junior at Brown, was among three wounded in the shooting, to which suspect Jason Eaton pleaded not guilty on Monday. All three victims are in stable condition. 

“We can’t disentangle what happened to Hisham from the broader events in Israel and Palestine that sadly we’ve been dealing with for decades,” Paxson said before being confronted by demonstrators. “Sadly, we can’t control what happens across the world and country. We are powerless to do everything we’d like to do.”

The next line in the version of the speech Brown published on its website was the following: “At a faculty meeting last month, I said that ‘Every student, faculty and staff member should be able to proudly wear a Star of David or don a keffiyeh on the Brown campus, or to cover their head with a hijab or yarmulke.'”

However, when Paxson gave the address, and after pro-Palestinian protesters began heckling her, that line changed to “every student, faculty and staff member should be able to proudly don a keffiyeh on the Brown campus, or to cover their head with a hijab,” with no mention of a Star of David or yarmulke. 

In response to National Review’s request for comment, a university spokesman said, “The remarks on the website are those prepared for delivery, as noted on that page. At the point students began to disrupt the remarks, President Paxson began to abbreviate them with the hope of being able to finish. It’s not unusual for there to be some deviation between remarks as prepared and remarks as delivered, and certainly that was the case here given the disruption.”

Brown has seen pro-Palestinian rallies devolve into celebrations of Hamas, with a student leading an event billed as a vigil for Gazans saying “Glory to our martyrs from the river to the sea.”