(Bloomberg) -- Northwestern University and Brown University headed off the police crackdowns that hit campuses from New York to California last week by making concessions to pro-Palestinian protesters. Now they’re being slammed by critics who say they capitulated to an angry mob.

Three Jewish students filed a lawsuit against Northwestern, accusing the school of allowing a “dystopic cesspool of hate.” At Brown, billionaire real estate investor Barry Sternlicht said he would pause donations, according to the New York Times, after administrators said they would let five students present arguments in favor of divestment to members of the school’s governing body.

After the University of Minnesota agreed to disclose more about its financial holdings as a concession to protesters who dismantled an encampment, the regional Jewish Community Relations Council said it was “outraged” by “appeasement of pro-Hamas protesters.”

The blowback illustrates the delicate positions colleges are in as they try to quell disruptive protests over the Israel-Hamas war — especially ahead of commencement ceremonies — without conceding to demonstrators’ demands. On Monday, Columbia University canceled its main commencement event slated for May 15 because of the disruptions, and Harvard University told protesters that they need to end their encampment or face consequences, including suspension, as commencement approaches.

Tensions on campus are poised to remain at a boil, as Israel sends tanks into Rafah, in southern Gaza, and takes control of the border-crossing into Egypt. The war erupted when Hamas attacked southern Israel from Gaza on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 hostage. Israel’s retaliatory bombardment and ground attack on the Palestinian territory have killed almost 35,000 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

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The issue of divestment strikes a particularly sensitive nerve as colleges weigh their options: University administrators have long viewed the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement against Israel as antisemitic because it calls into question the legitimacy of the Jewish state and singles out the policies of one country.

“The negotiated measures at Brown, Northwestern, Minnesota and elsewhere are wrong,” said Mark Yudof, a former head of the University of Texas, University of Minnesota and University of California. “One may criticize the policies of any government, but it is quite another thing to say that the country itself is illegitimate and should not exist.”

Read more: Columbia Protesters Have Wrong Investment Strategy: John Authers

Of course vague promises to consider divestment are a long way from actually doing anything, and no universities have committed to cut holdings. The New York Times reported that at least one Brown donor has been privately assured that the university won’t divest.

But universities may have decided that promising to consider the idea in exchange for protesters backing down is preferable to calling in the police — and schools outside big cities can’t draw on the resources of large urban police forces.

In New York, Columbia University President Minouche Shafik said administrators spent eight days and nights unsuccessfully negotiating with protesters before she asked law enforcement to remove them, ultimately resulting in more than 100 arrests and the accidental firing of an officer’s gun. That followed the occupation of a campus building, which she described as “a violent act that put our students at risk, as well as putting the protesters at risk.”

Virginia Foxx, the Republican chair of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, said Monday that she would ask the presidents of Northwestern and Rutgers to attend a May 23 hearing about the deals they made with protesters. The leader of the University of California at Los Angeles had already been summoned to the same event.

“Over the last several days, the presidents of Northwestern and Rutgers have made shocking concessions to the unlawful antisemitic encampments on their campuses,” Foxx said in a statement. 

At the University of Chicago, which has been widely praised for its commitment to free speech, police removed an encampment Tuesday after warning protesters last week that it couldn’t continue.

Many of the campus protests over Israel’s military actions in Gaza in the wake of the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas have focused on university endowments that protesters say are invested in Israeli assets and companies such as US weapons makers. Private colleges aren’t required to make assets public and many large schools don’t disclose them. Some public filings offer insight into a few hundred million dollars out of multibillion dollar funds.

Divestment is fiercely opposed by many donors and alumni, and acting on the BDS concept is discouraged by laws in more than half of US states, including New York, California and Rhode Island, where Brown is based. That’s unlikely to change anytime soon.

But the recent settlements some schools reached with protesters open the door, if only by a crack, to further discussion. Brown’s agreement means that a discussion of divestment will be on the agenda. President Christina Paxson pledged that a university advisory committee would formulate a recommendation on divestment that the school’s governing body would vote on in October. Rutgers University’s president also agreed to meet with students over divestment demands in exchange for ending a protest. 

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said that he’s supportive of efforts by university leaders to communicate with protesters and that no major concessions or changes have been made in terms of policy.

Divestment would be difficult in Illinois anyway because of anti-BDS laws, but schools are “perfectly free to have conversations among their board of trustees,” he said in an interview.

Other divestment initiatives have chipped away at resistance over the years before winning broad support. Universities played an influential role in the push to divest from South Africa in the 1980s. But at the time, colleges invested differently and were more likely to directly hold shares in companies that could be easily sold.

Students have also tried with fossil fuel investments. But the most influential universities largely haven’t switched strategies to sell holdings, which are frequently tied up in long-term private equity funds, even as they’ve committed to policies designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on campuses.

In a statement, Northwestern said the accord with protesters “ensures the safety of all members of the Northwestern community while providing space for free expression that complies with university rules and policies.”

“We did not give in to the demands of the protesters, including their calls to divest,” it said.

A spokesperson declined to comment on the lawsuit.

“Our guiding principles were to protect the safety of our entire community, preserve free expression and peaceful demonstration, denounce and refute intolerance and hate, and ensure that our university can continue to operate without disruption,” the statement said. “The university chose to engage students, staff and faculty representatives to identify a sustainable and de-escalated path forward.”

--With assistance from Maxwell Adler and Janet Lorin.

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