Brown University is cutting ties with the Choices Program, a high school history curriculum that is housed at the university, the provist announced in mid-April.
Provost Francis J. Doyle III noted that the program was “no longer economically viable in its current structure at Brown” and that the university would be discontinuing hosting the program.
According to the Brown Daily Herald, university administrators had been working with the program since 2024 in an effort to try to balance Brown’s $46 million spending deficit after funding threats from the Trump administration.
The program notably had pushback on the curriculum it presented on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. The Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy found that the program had ties to a non-profit attached to the Qatari royal family, Ynet reported on Friday.
However, Brown administrators have categorically rejected claims that the curriculum is antisemitic.
“We unequivocally reject claims that including views about the range of scholarship on the Middle East is antisemitic,” Brown leaders said in a press release. “As is the case with many subjects in the social sciences and humanities in a rigorous education, students must be encouraged to learn based on interrogating and confronting a range of perspectives.”
Brown pushes back against Trump
The university noted that the Choices curriculum materials often present drastically opposing points of view to have students evaluate them and develop their own findings.
The university claimed that a report on the event used selective wording to portray the curriculum as anti-Israel.
“A writer selectively extracted words and phrases to fit a constructed narrative critical of the role of education in campus climate around the Middle East conflict and issues of Israel-Palestine,” university leadership said in a statement.
“It has been troubling to see some news outlets begin to simply echo that narrative without contacting Brown University at any time to discern whether the characterization of the Choices Program curriculum on the Middle East was accurate. It definitively is not.”
This comes as the Trump administration is cracking down on US higher education institutions, including Brown. The Guardian reported that White House officials threatened to pull $510 million in funding from the university.
Regarding the funding cuts, the Jewish Telegraph Agency reported that dozens of rabbis and Jewish spiritual leaders who are alumni of the Ivy League school told President Christina Paxson not to “cede control to those who weaponize antisemitism.”
Last year, amid a surge of pro-Palestinian encampments on campus, Brown officials negotiated with protesters instead of clearing the encampments.
Donald Trump has notedly said that the encampments and protests on campus side with Hamas and are an antisemitic threat to Jewish students.
However, in October 2024, the university suspended Students for Justice in Palestine for its “intimidating” activity on campus.
Brown University officials, alongside representatives from over 100 universities, signed a statement on Tuesday pushing back against the president’s treatment of higher education institutions.
“We are open to constructive reform and do not oppose legitimate government oversight,” the statement said. “However, we must oppose undue government intrusion in the lives of those who learn, live, and work on our campuses.”
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