Brown University, the site of a fatal shooting on Saturday, sits high on a hill in Providence, R.I., set within a historic neighborhood of elegant Victorian homes. One of the campus’s beloved features is that it is not fenced off, but open to the wider city.
That openness may have helped the shooter escape the scene on Saturday. Authorities reported that a male, dressed in black, exited a campus building onto Hope Street, a main artery, and then seemingly disappeared into the night.
The shooting, which injured eight others, according to the authorities, came during an extraordinarily difficult period for Brown, an Ivy League school founded in 1764.
Over the past year, it has been a primary target of President Trump. In April, the White House moved to block over $500 billion in research funding to Brown, accusing it of allowing antisemitism to fester during pro-Palestinian protests. The university reached a settlement with the administration in July that restored funding but disappointed some students, faculty and alumni who saw it as a capitulation to Mr. Trump.
Brown students and alumni often point out how the university differs from the rest of the Ivy League. In 1969, Brown inaugurated an open curriculum. There are no required core classes for undergraduates, and students are free to set their own course of study, taking classes on a pass-fail basis if they wish.
Those policies helped to make the school a magnet for free-spirited students. The campus also became a center of political activism on racial equity, labor rights and divestment from Israel, among other issues.
Last year, as part of a compromise negotiated with student protesters to disband a pro-Palestinian encampment, Brown’s governing board took a vote on divesting from companies involved in Israeli military and security activities. While Jewish students were among the leaders of the divestment effort, the proposal attracted opposition from Jewish alumni, donors and students. It was voted down by the board.
In a statement after the vote, Christina H. Paxson, the president of Brown University, and Brian Moynihan, the chancellor of the governing board, said: “Brown’s mission is to discover, communicate and preserve knowledge. It is not to adjudicate or resolve global conflicts.” Brown later adopted a Statement of University Values and Voice that promised the institution would “refrain from expressing positions on topics unrelated to its mission” of education and research.
At times, Brown has been the target of ridicule and protest from conservative media figures and advocacy groups. Over several decades, critics called attention to the school’s sexually experimental party scene, its ardent protest culture and its publication of a high school curriculum series that was critical of Israel.
Though the university’s politics often attract attention, Brown maintains many mainstream, highly-regarded academic programs. Its computer science department is a leader in computer graphics, and its medical school offers a unique program that encourages future physicians to also study the liberal arts in depth.
In the humanities, Brown’s faculty includes Gordon S. Wood, a leading historian of the American Revolution. The university has also produced many well-known writers, including the novelists Edwidge Danticat, Jeffrey Eugenides and Marilynne Robinson.
Dana Goldstein covers education and families for The Times.
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