Brian Moynihan is so busy running Bank of America, the second-largest financial institution in the nation, that he drew public attention in July when he volunteered to become chairman of the Brown University Board of Trustees, the governing body of his alma mater.
Those eyebrows widened even further as Brown took stupid wokeness to a new level.
As the war in Gaza rages and Israel understandably protects its own citizens after the October 7 massacre, we all know that universities have become hotbeds of left-wing, Marxist activism and anti-Semitism is rife. Leaders at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard lost their jobs for failing to crack down on Jew-haters on campus, but what's happening at Brown is truly bizarre.
The Brown Corporation is set to vote soon on whether to divest Brown’s $6 billion-plus fund from companies that do business with Israel, the only true democracy in the Middle East, rather than dictatorships like Iran or Venezuela.
That this vote to economically damage our nation’s ally and multi-ethnic democracy is taking place in mid-October, nearly a year after the massacre of innocent Israelis and Americans near Gaza, only adds to the lack of common sense and plain old decency in this scene. The fact that the CEO of a major bank is part of a move to appease university extremists who apparently believe the killing of innocent people is justified makes this even more bizarre.
Moynihan's defenders say his involvement in this mess is more subtle, as I will return to later, but given his history of bowing to the Enlightenment, I would not be at all surprised if he was even indirectly involved in this farce.
As I point out in my book, Go Woke Go Broke: The Inside Story of the Radicalization of Corporate America, Moynihan’s biggest woke hits as CEO included justifying the social justice uprisings that followed the killing of George Floyd as the by-product of a systemically racist country, or, in his muddled language, saying that the protests were about equal opportunity, the treatment of criminal justice by authorities, and serious [COVID] “We're seeing increased infections in communities of color,” he said.
BofA's Carolina Roots
Though BofA is now headquartered in New York, its roots can be traced back to Charlotte, North Carolina, and the state's largest regional bank, North Carolina National Bank, which still has a presence in the city and the conservative state.
Moynihan didn't care, though, as he openly opposed a state law in 2016 that would have banned transgender women from using women's restrooms, despite legitimate concerns that such amenities would lead to sexual assault.
Also in 2021, Bank of America partnered with Charlotte United Way to encourage some employees to take part in the “21 Days of Racial Equity Challenge,” an opportunity for employees to confront what the event called “white privilege, white fragility and systemic racism.”
I'm not sure what happened to Moynihan during the challenge or if he was ever tested, but you can see why I'm hardly surprised that he's part of an organization that made a deal with the devil, in this case, with left-wing campus extremists.
The Brown University Board of Trustees is scheduled to vote on the divestment on Oct. 17 and 18 after Brown President Christina Paxson caved to the demands of campus extremists.
In exchange for voting for divestment from Israel, the students said they would end disruptive “campouts” and protests with explicit anti-Semitic overtones.
What happened to refusing to negotiate with terrorists? We know that universities are not banks where the CEO and Board of Trustees make all the decisions. Left-wing faculty have a lot of influence beyond indoctrination of students with their own ideology.
A university spokesperson told me in an email that the vote was “part of a long-established process” whereby “any member of the university community can submit a divestment proposal for consideration.”
Maybe that’s true, but the kind-hearted people who run Brown University and have succumbed to the extremists may have forgotten who pays most of the costs – the vast majority of students and alumni who fund the university’s endowment – and are tired of the protests and the indoctrination by faculty.
The Boston Globe via Getty Images
Just ask the fired presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania.
Again, those who know Moynihan describe his role in this mess as more like that of an innocent bystander: He volunteered for the chancellorship.
The agreement with the student militants was largely curtailed by Paxson, who then passed it on to the business community for an up-or-down vote.
Christopher Sadowski
But that doesn't mean he should go along with the foolishness. I asked a Bank of America spokesman why Moynihan wouldn't defer to a hedge fund guy named Joseph Edelman, who was also on the Brown Corporation board but resigned when a vote was allowed.
“Even considering holding a divestment vote is morally reprehensible,” Edelman wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.
Moynihan could have done the same thing, which would have sent a pretty strong message that adults should either take charge or stop playing the role of useful fools in a campus revolt.
It might have sparked a useful dialogue that distanced Brown from the left-wing orthodoxy that appeases those who glorify murder.
A BofA spokesperson responded, “Ever since the founding of colleges and universities in the United States, corporate executives have volunteered to serve on college and university boards of directors and provided guidance. This is a wonderful tradition.”
Yeah, it's really great.
