Thank you, Gazette, for your article regarding Smith College’s rejection of a divestment proposal put forth by current and former students. As a Smith alum I have been following the work of Students for Justice in Palestine and Alumni for Justice in Palestine with great interest, and was deeply disappointed by the college’s recent decision to reject their proposal for an ethical investment policy.
The college’s Advisory Committee on Investment Responsibility [ACIR] claims that it was rejected due to a “misalignment between the proposal and the college’s mission statement,” but has failed to adequately explain the incongruity. Their reasoning that divestment would “have a negative financial impact” and “hinder the endowment’s long-term performance” is frankly horrifying and embarrassing.
Are we to believe that a college must profit from human rights violations in order to achieve its goals? This from an institution which states its mission as “developing engaged global citizens and leaders to address society’s challenges.” Considering the number of alums (including me) who are now refusing to donate money until Smith agrees to an ethical investment policy, I wonder at the wisdom of this decision from a financial standpoint.
I would also imagine that many young people would be deterred from enrolling in a college where the material interests of the endowment seem to outweigh ethical concerns. The ACIR further claims that they can’t screen out companies that have contracts with countries found by the ICC to be in violation of human rights because “the ICC does not find countries, but rather individuals, guilty of such actions.” Please. When both a country’s prime minister and minister of defense are both wanted for crimes against humanity, this quibbling response from the ACIR feels downright insulting.
In my experience, both former and current Smith students overwhelmingly support efforts to divest from companies that knowingly and directly enable or facilitate genocide, apartheid, or crimes against humanity. I really don’t think this proposal is so much to ask from a college that promotes itself as educating women to “understand the complexity of human experience and world cultures through engagement with humanistic, social and scientific ideas.”
Alisa Kowal
Sunderland