In March, Brown University's Middle East Studies program held a panel discussion promoting "a newly-published collection of essays supporting the boycott of Israeli universities," according to one student columnist. The event was one of a nine-part “critical conversations” series, four of which were about Israel. "Not one has included an individual who defends Israel with half the intensity of the median panelist who criticizes it," the student wrote. In 2017, the Middle East Studies program and SJP co-hosted a talk on "how we can connect BDS to Black Lives Matter," shortly after Brown's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs co-sponsored a panel on “Palestine-Israel in the Trump Era” with known supporters of the BDS campaign. None of these events were uncharacteristic; the school's own Middle East Studies director withdrew from a 2015 symposium that included an Israeli academic (and Brown colleague) in order to comply with BDS. And as a Brown student explained in 2016, “for SJP, nothing has a higher priority than pushing to obliterate the Jewish State and attach a high personal price to Zionism (or, in some cases, Judaism) on campus." Yet there is reason to believe the situation may be improving. Brown's Israel Fund — which is opposed by SJP — began initial programming last year, and aims to help Brown students and faculty learn and research in Israel, while bringing visiting scholars and speakers to Brown from Israel. (Photo credit: Wikipedia.)