Spring Break
Club campaigns for transparency
by Matthew Brock
News | 4/15/08
Posted online at 4:49 AM EST on 4/15/08
/ Last updated at 1:27 PM EST on 4/15/08
A new campus club is investigating whether its endowment can fit under the banner of social justice.
Independent Voices for Endowment Sustainability and Transparency is campaigning for greater endowment transparency to ensure that the corporations Brandeis supports share the University's values.
This all started, the group's founder, Alex Melman '11, said, when the Sustainable Endowment Institute published its College Sustainability Environmental Report Card and Brandeis received a C. Part of the reason for this grade was that Brandeis scored an F on all of the endowment-related criteria, such as transparency, he said.
InVEST has drawn the support of a number of activist groups on campus, such as Students for Environmental Action and Democracy for America, said club member Liza Behrendt '11. "It's one thing for a group of students to target an issue, but it's another thing when you are targeting an issue and the goals of the University are counterproductive," she said.
Behrendt cited Students Taking Action Now, a Darfur group on campus, as an example of why endowment transparency is necessary. The group ran an entire divestment campaign to compel Brandeis to withdraw its funds from Darfur profiteers, only to learn that Brandeis was never invested in companies that profited from Darfur in the first place.
"We don't know what our University is representing in the broader financial sector. We have a huge endowment, half a billion dollars, and that money has big influence," Behrendt said. "So as students, we're sort of symbolic shareholders. We are the ones who are paying the money."
Also, the University itself does not vote at shareholder meetings, but hires proxy voters who may be more permissive of policies that violate the University's values, Melman said.
So far, Melman has corresponded with University President Jehuda Reinharz via e-mail, and has met with Chief Investment Officer and Vice President for Investment Management Deborah Kuenstner. "They don't think that the University should have any endowment transparency at all," Mellman said. However, he commended them on how helpful they were, as they agreed to meet with him to discuss the issue.
Independent Voices for Endowment Sustainability and Transparency is campaigning for greater endowment transparency to ensure that the corporations Brandeis supports share the University's values.
This all started, the group's founder, Alex Melman '11, said, when the Sustainable Endowment Institute published its College Sustainability Environmental Report Card and Brandeis received a C. Part of the reason for this grade was that Brandeis scored an F on all of the endowment-related criteria, such as transparency, he said.
InVEST has drawn the support of a number of activist groups on campus, such as Students for Environmental Action and Democracy for America, said club member Liza Behrendt '11. "It's one thing for a group of students to target an issue, but it's another thing when you are targeting an issue and the goals of the University are counterproductive," she said.
Behrendt cited Students Taking Action Now, a Darfur group on campus, as an example of why endowment transparency is necessary. The group ran an entire divestment campaign to compel Brandeis to withdraw its funds from Darfur profiteers, only to learn that Brandeis was never invested in companies that profited from Darfur in the first place.
"We don't know what our University is representing in the broader financial sector. We have a huge endowment, half a billion dollars, and that money has big influence," Behrendt said. "So as students, we're sort of symbolic shareholders. We are the ones who are paying the money."
Also, the University itself does not vote at shareholder meetings, but hires proxy voters who may be more permissive of policies that violate the University's values, Melman said.
So far, Melman has corresponded with University President Jehuda Reinharz via e-mail, and has met with Chief Investment Officer and Vice President for Investment Management Deborah Kuenstner. "They don't think that the University should have any endowment transparency at all," Mellman said. However, he commended them on how helpful they were, as they agreed to meet with him to discuss the issue.
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