Shanty-towns, vigorous demonstrations, demands for accountability -- this wasn't only the condition of South Africa in the 1980s, but the image of many college campuses across the United States as students rallied their respective administrations to not only make university investments public knowledge, but also divest any and all funds benefiting from the system of apartheid in South Africa. Dartmouth students partook in this effort, setting up shanties on the Green and eventually persuading the College to divest all of its South African holdings.
Yet, like all Dartmouth students, those of the '80s graduated, hoping that they would leave a legacy of social responsibility to the Dartmouth campus that would encourage accountability and social justice in all its forms.
How disappointed they would be, then, at the lack of openness regarding the socially-responsible investment of Dartmouth funds.
Rather than viewing apartheid as a lesson regarding the power of socially-conscious investing, college investment committees across the country appear to have forgotten the issue, hoping that once their fingers were out of this very publicly-damned pie, they could go back to merely worrying about balancing the books. In some ways, the drastic and morally unambiguous horrors of apartheid made university investment committees blind to the subtle, yet potentially horrendous, social and environmental consequences of nearly every investment choice. Yet it is unquestionably important that these investment committees espouse vigilance and social consciousness. University investments in a particular corporation are evidence not only of sound financial strategy; they are also an endorsement of that company's moral and social ethic.
Feeling that they had conquered the beast of apartheid, many committees treated the incident as an aberration that called for an abrupt blip in policy, rather than a long-term rethinking of investment strategies and their social penalties. Thereafter, committees shrouded their investments in secrecy, saying, for example, that the make-up of investment portfolios changes so often that an accurate picture of stock holdings is impractical if not impossible. Dartmouth, in stark contrast to other Ivy League schools, refuses to make public its holdings to this day and continues to use this "just so" argument.
Yet while a wave of complacency swept over college investment committees with the end of apartheid in 1993, in the past few years students across the country have pushed for essential information to be released regarding portfolios of their respective colleges. Just to name a few examples, Cornell, Yale, Brown and Swarthmore all have active committees on socially responsibility; Williams College and Vassar make public their stock holdings.
Where does Dartmouth fit into all of this? A few students have rounded enough campus support to create the Committee on Investor Responsibility. Rather than wait for apartheid-level crises to emerge that would force the divestment of college holdings, the committee works to use shareholder power to prevent massive environmental and human rights issues as they emerge. While in the past the Investment Office ignored proxy votes and refused to weigh in on socially-conscious issues to the various companies in which Dartmouth holds stock, the Committee on Investor Responsibility has been endowed with the power to use proxy votes to pressure companies towards socially- and environmentally-responsible ethics. In addition, the committee is working towards making portions, if not all, of Dartmouth's investments public.
This committee has been assigned not only the role but the duty to ensure that Dartmouth is held accountable for its investment policies. And it is utterly surprising (and wonderful) that our trustees have empowered such a group to vote toward more socially-conscious financial actions. And not only does the Committee have administrators Ron Green, President Wright, Robert Dornin, Mary Gorman, Adam Keller and Tommy Woon, but it also includes one undergraduate student, Sally Newman '05.
Yet, in spite of this voice, undergraduates generally do not know about the committee. But there is a very simple solution. I urge every Dartmouth student who is curious about just exactly why the College refuses to reveal its funds to contact the chair of the Committee on Investor Responsibility, Ron Green. Ask him why this group has little accountability to undergraduates. Ask him how he see Dartmouth's role as a socially responsible investor. Ask him what social ideals he's upheld lately through the Committee's proxy votes. Don't wait for another apartheid to feel convicted that Dartmouth students deserve the responsibility of knowing College investment practices.
