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Rhode Island School of Design Votes Against Israel Divestment
Rhode Island School of Design’s (RISD) board of trustees announced last week that it has voted against a proposal to divest from Israel presented by the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter (RSJP). The board’s rejection comes in the wake of the group’s three-day occupation of a campus building last May, when it called for the nonprofit college and museum to divest as part of a larger movement across academic institutions in the United States.
Five RSJP representatives met with the board’s Investment Subcommittee and administrators including President Crystal Williams in October, a spokesperson for RSJP told Hyperallergic. During the meeting, the representatives proposed the institution sever its financial ties to companies linked to Israel’s war on Gaza and other anti-Palestinian violence and discrimination, according to a divestment proposal document shared with Hyperallergic.
As of June 2023, RISD’s endowment stood at $396 million. A spokesperson for the school declined to comment on the institution’s endowment or disclose what percentage is invested in companies linked to Israeli interests.
“The reason why we create art and seek to understand it in a thoughtful and complex way is because we collectively believe that it holds a real bearing on global society,” RSJP’s divestment proposal reads.
“If we as an institution do not put into practice our ability to effect influence as global changemakers, we render hollow RISD’s fundamental value of the power of art and design and the power of an art institution to do good in the world,” the proposal continues.
In a statement emailed to RISD community members and posted on the art school’s website, the board of trustees said RSJP’s proposal did not meet the criteria outlined in its Statement on Divestment. Those criteria, adopted in May 2015, stipulate that while its duty is to “achieve the maximum possible return” on investment, “in rare circumstances … the Board of Trustees may also in its sole discretion take political and social considerations into account.”
For divestment to occur under these guidelines, a proposal would need to “implicat[e] an issue of importance to RISD as an institution and to its constituents as a whole, and not solely to a segment of its constituents,” and “would be likely to have a meaningful impact on the resolution of that issue.”
According to the RSJP’s divestment proposal, 800 of the school’s over 2,000 students signed in favor of their demands, including disclosure and divestment, in a petition in fall 2023. The group also called for a third-party student referendum vote. Some universities, including Columbia University and Pomona College, rejected disclosure and divestment demands from students, despite referendum votes indicating that most of them were in favor of such actions.
In May, the SJP chapter of the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) and Faculty for Justice in Palestine were successful in pushing the school to commit to a full disclosure of its investments. The school also vowed to create a student-led Ethical Investment Workgroup that would work with the board of trustees to divest from entities connected to human rights abuses.
During the occupation of the second floor of RISD’s Providence Washington (Prov-Wash) building last May, which RSJP renamed “Fathi Ghaben Place” in honor of the Gazan artist who died after Israeli authorities blocked his travel for medical treatment, students held art-making sessions and teach-ins. The action was disbanded following expulsion warnings.
RISD’s board of trustees has divested before: Nearly a decade ago, the board unanimously voted to withdraw its investments in fossil fuel industries, two years after, students from the group Divest RISD staged a sit-in, the Portland Press Herald reported.
RSJP’s divestment proposal also calls for the institution to back out of any investment in the “exploitation of natural resources,” referencing the Hague Regulations of 1907, which limits an “occupying state” from using the resources of the “occupied population,” according to Amnesty International. The student organization additionally called for RISD’s divestment from weapons manufacturers, military contractors, and companies tied to Israeli settlements in the Occupied West Bank.
In an Instagram post this week, RSJP alleged the administration did not engage with them in good faith, claiming that “several trustees” did not attend on short notice.
“As long as the administration refuses to divest, they are participants in the violence,” RSJP told Hyperallergic. “We will not rest until our demands are met.”
New East Bay Bike Path bridges are open and ready for bikes
What’s it like to ride over the new East Bay Bike Path bridges? We sent a reporter to try them out.
I’ve long thought bike paths are among Rhode Island’s premier attractions, up there with the beaches, the mansions and the bay.
We like to knock government, but credit where it’s due, the state has done an amazing job building out an incredible pedaling network.
It’s clearly a priority.
At least I thought it was.
But they’ve just dropped the ball on what should have been a beautiful new stretch.
The plan was to finish a mile-long connector from the East Providence end of the Henderson Bridge all the way to the East Bay Bike Path.
There was even $25 million set aside to get it done.
Except WPRI recently reported that it’s now been canceled.
The main fault lies with the Trump administration, which is no friend of bike paths, and moved to kill that $25 million.
But it gets complicated, as government funding always does.
To try to rescue that money, the state DOT reportedly worked with the administration to refunnel it into a road project. Specifically, the $25 million will now be spent helping upgrade the mile-long highway between the Henderson Bridge and North Broadway in East Providence, turning it into a more pleasant boulevard.
That totally sounds worthy.
But it’s insane to throw away the bike path plan.
Especially for a particular reason in this case.
They’d already put a ton of money into starting it.
When state planners designed the new Henderson Bridge between the East Side and East Providence, they included a bike path.
It’s a beauty – well protected from traffic by a barrier, a great asset for safely riding over the Seekonk River.
The plan was to continue it another mile or so along East Providence’s Waterfront Drive, ultimately connecting with the East Bay Bike Path, which runs all the way to Bristol. Which, by the way, is one of the nicest bike paths you’ll find anywhere.
But alas, that connector plan has been canceled.
So the expensive stretch over the Henderson Bridge to East Providence is now a bike path to nowhere. Once the bridge ends, the path on it continues a few hundred yards or so and then, just … ends.
Too bad.
We were so close.
Most of the stories on the issue have been about the complex negotiation to rescue the $25 million by rerouting it to that nearby highway-to-boulevard project. But I don’t want to get lost in the weeds of that bureaucratic process here because it loses sight of the heart of this story.
Which is that an amazing new addition to one of the nation’s best state bike path systems has just been scrapped.
You can knock the Rhode Island government for blowing a lot of things.
The PawSox.
The Washington Bridge.
But they’ve done great with bike paths.
And especially, linking many of them together.
Example: not too many years ago, Providence bikers had to risk dicey traffic on the East Side to get to the more pleasant paths in India Point Park and on the 195 bridge to the East Bay Path.
But the state fixed that by adding an amazing connector that starts behind the Salvation Army building and beautifully winds along the water of the Seekonk River for a mile or so.
That makes a huge difference – and no doubt has avoided some bike-car accidents.
We were close to a comparable stretch on the other side of the river – that’s what the $25 million would have done.
But it’s now apparently dead.
Online commenters aren’t happy about it.
On a Reddit string, “Toadscoper” accused the state of being “complicit” with the feds in rerouting the money from bikes to cars.
And there was this fascinating post from FineLobster 5322, who apparently is a disappointed planner who worked on the project: “Mind you money has already been spent on phase one so rejecting it at this point is wasting money and also against the public interest … but what do I know? I only worked on the project as an engineer … I didn’t get into this to build more highways. I do it … to give back to communities and give them more access to their environment.”
Wow. One can imagine the state planning team is devastated. That’s not a small consideration. Good people go into government to make life better in Rhode Island, and it’s a bad play to take the spirit out of the job by first assigning a great human-scale project and then, after a ton of work, trashing it.
A poster named Homosapiens simply said, “We just accept this?”
Hopefully not.
The first stretch of the path over the Henderson Bridge is done, money already sunk.
What a shame to leave that as a path to nowhere.
It doesn’t have to happen.
Between Governor McKee and our Washington delegation, there’s got to be a way to get this done.
There’s got to be.
mpatinki@providencejournal.com
WARWICK, R.I. (WPRI) — Two people are dead and another person seriously hurt after a crash involving two vehicles on the highway in Warwick Saturday.
Rhode Island State Police said the crash happened around 1:34 p.m. on the ramp from Route 113 West to I-95 South.
According to police, a Hyundai SUV that was driving in the middle lane of the highway started to drift to the right, crossed the first lane, and then crossed onto the on-ramp lane. The car struck the guardrail twice before driving through the grass median.
The Hyundai then struck the driver’s side of a Mercedes SUV that was on the ramp, causing the Mercedes to roll over and come to a rest. The impact sent the Hyundai over the guardrail and down an embankment.
The driver of the Hyundai, a 73-year-old man, and his passenger, a 69-year-old woman, were both pronounced dead at the hospital.
A woman who was in the Mercedes was rushed to Rhode Island Hospital in critical condition.
State police said all lanes of traffic were reopened by 4:30 p.m.
The investigation remains ongoing.
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A federal judge on Friday tossed the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) lawsuit aiming to force Rhode Island to hand over its voter information as part of the Trump administration’s push to acquire voter data from several states.
Rhode Island U.S. District Court Judge Mary McElroy wrote that federal law does not allow the DOJ “to conduct the kind of fishing expedition it seeks here,” siding with Rhode Island election officials. She added that the DOJ did not provide evidence to suggest that Rhode Island violated election law.
McElroy, a Trump appointee, wrote that she sided with the similar decision in Oregon. That decision ruled that the DOJ was not entitled to unredacted voter registration lists.
“Absent from the demand are any factual allegations suggesting that Rhode Island may be violating the list maintenance requirements,” she said in her ruling.
Rhode Island Secretary of State Gregg Amore (D) praised McElroy’s decision. He said in a statement that the Trump administration “seems to have no problem taking actions that are clear Constitutional overreaches, regularly meddling in responsibilities that are the rights of the states.”
“Today’s decision affirms our position: the United States Department of Justice has no legal right to – or need for – the personally-identifiable information in our voter file,” he said. “Voter list maintenance is a responsibility entrusted to the states, and I remain confident in the steps we take here in Rhode Island to keep our list as accurate as possible.”
The Hill reached out to the DOJ for comment.
The DOJ called for the voter lists as it investigated Rhode Island’s compliance with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which allowed Americans to register to vote when they apply for a driver’s license.
The DOJ sued at least 30 states, as well as Washington, D.C., in December demanding their respective voter data. This data includes birth dates, names and partial Social Security numbers.
At least 12 states have given or said they will give the DOJ their voter registration lists, according to a tracker operated by the Brennan Center for Justice.
The department stated after it lost a similar suit against Massachusetts earlier this month that it had “sweeping powers” to access the voter data and that, if states fail to comply, courts have a “limited, albeit vital, role” in directing election officers on behalf of the administration to produce the records. The DOJ cited the Civil Rights Act as being intended to unearth alleged election law violations.
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