Hampshire College, Israel, and Palestine: 1975 or 1938? And 2012? Still Seeking Civility on Campus

Just under a year ago, on the eve of an event about Israel and Palestine that promised to be controversial, I wrote a piece expressing the desire for a less polarized, more civil atmosphere on campus, one in which we could debate opposing political positions without intellectual charlatanry and demonization, addressing nuances rather than resorting to gross oversimplification.

What followed has been both deeply disturbing and, in other ways, gratifying.
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It was deeply disturbing because what happened was far worse than even the most pessimistic among us might have expected. The talk, by an Israeli soldier, tore the campus apart. Activists from Hampshire Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) did not merely protest outside the lecture hall (as was their right). They also disrupted and ultimately prevented completion of the talk, in clear violation of community norms. The speaker noted that this was only the second time that something of this sort had occurred. For the unashamed disruptors, their actions were a badge of honor. Responding to the administration’s condemnation of the disruption as well as the earlier verbal and physical harassment of an Israeli student, they and their supporters basically said:  "Zionists” are fair game. (1, 2)

For the rest of us—the majority of the campus population as well as outside observers—it was a mark of shame and a wake-up call. What was gratifying was seeing the tide begin to turn. Most students, regardless of their political views, were revolted. The administration, from the office of the President down through Student Affairs, finally grasped the seriousness of the situation. It saw that we needed to take energetic and positive steps to restore a sense of both civility and safety.

* * *

A shrewd visitor to campus, interested in these issues, recently looked around and said:

“The situation is even worse than I thought. I can tell you what your problem is: One part of the campus thinks it’s 1975, and the other thinks it’s 1938.”

He got it exactly right.

Allow me to translate (in case that is necessary) the historical references:

• 1975 refers to the year when the United Nations General Assembly notoriously defined Zionism, the founding philosophy of one of its member states, as racism (ironically, on the anniversary of the Kristallnacht pogrom in Nazi Germany). The UN finally repealed that infamous measure in 1991, in order not just to redress a wrong, but also to encourage movement toward peace. Two years later, Israelis and Palestinians signed the Oslo Accords (1, 2), affirming mutual recognition and the principle of a negotiated solution.

• 1938 refers to the tensions on the eve of World War II, when Jews felt cornered and abandoned: an expansionist Germany absorbed Austria, Britain and France browbeat Czechoslovakia into surrendering its fortified borderlands to Germany, and Kristallnacht signaled an escalation in Nazi antisemtism as well as the end of emigration.  By then, there were few places for Jews fleeing Europe to go anyway: neither the western powers nor Mandatory Palestine, where civil war was raging, offered a refuge.

In other words, one side is operating with ideological caricatures older than the students themselves, and the other feels isolated and threatened with social if not physical death.

Clearly, that is anything but healthy.

Last summer, the Boston Jewish Advocate caused a stir with an article entitled, “What's up with Hampshire College? A small Bay State campus becomes a hotbed of anti-Israel fervor." It quoted the Anti-Defamation League as saying that Hampshire generates more complaints about students being targeted for pro-Israel beliefs than any other campus in the New England region. As the article goes on to note, several students have alleged that the hostile climate involves elements of antisemitism.

This is a dire situation. A college, of course, is not obligated to be either pro- or anti-Israel, as such. However, expressing opposition to the destruction of a United Nations member state really should not be a very controversial opinion. Above all, an academic institution is duty-bound to uphold principles of open and rigorous intellectual dialogue.

The situation is not unique to Hampshire.  The Palestinian-Israeli journalist Khaled Abu Toameh has said that he felt safer in Gaza or the West Bank than at US universities, where he needed police protection and was called a Nazi for daring to question the activist orthodoxy: “Listening to some students and professors on these campuses, for a moment I thought I was sitting opposite a Hamas spokesman or a would-be-suicide bomber.”

Still, we are naturally most sensitive to the flaws in our own surroundings. And, as serious as the problem here is, it of course cannot completely describe a vibrant and productive institution in which faculty and students of widely varying views nonetheless flourish and engage one another.

And 2012?

My deepest hope is that Hampshire College will establish a reputation, not as the epicenter of conflict, and instead, as a model of conciliation. Two of the groups with which I have been in contact offer strong examples of how this can be accomplished.

The broad-based Israel on Campus Coalition sends a pair of representatives—David Makovsky, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, who has written about the peace process as both a journalist and a scholar, and Ghaith al-Omari, Executive Director of the American Task Force on Palestine, who has served as part of the Palestinian negotiating team at Camp David and as an advisor to Mahmoud Abbas—to colleges and universities. Rather than just parachuting in to present pieties and platitudes in a one-off performance, they insist on doing at least three events so that they can start a sustained process of communication. Typically, they might begin with a luncheon roundtable hosted by leaders of various student groups, followed by a facilitated dialogue session. Later in the day, they speak to classes. Early in the evening, they join faculty for dinner or dessert. Finally, they take part in a larger event for the campus as a whole—a lecture or panel discussion, including question-and-answer from the audience.

The team has scored great successes, even in some of the most “difficult” venues, such as the University of California, Irvine (1, 2, 3). "Civility, we felt, was missing on campuses," says al-Omari. Sometimes, the partners explain, the mere sight of the two appearing together is enough of a surprise or a shock to prompt students to move beyond stereotypes and start thinking differently.

A report in the Georgetown Hoya could have been written about Hampshire:

“The campus discourse, we thought, was too much about recriminations, Makovsky said." "Usually the campuses are ahead of the curve on issues, but on this one issue across the country, we felt the campuses are behind the curve. While people are talking to each other in the Middle East, why can't they talk to each other in the Northeast?" [. . . . ]

Rather than forming factions, students should recognize that the interests of Israel and Palestine are not diametrically opposed, al-Omari said.  

"You can be a pro-Palestine advocate without being anti-Israel," he said.  

He illustrated the way in which campus dialogue seems focused on the "zero-sum approach," which states that what is good for one nation is bad for the other and the "tribal approach," which delves into the history of both nations to justify conflict. Neither of these viewpoints, he argued, leaves room for objectivity or potential consensus. [ . . . . ]

"If we are serious people for a two-state solution, then we have to build up both sides of the two-state solution," Makovsky said. "We found that the faculty was not attuned to these developments on the ground, that their thinking was stuck in a very confrontational age. What we want to do is bring the message to the students that you've got to be forces for coexistence."

In al-Omari's words, "You have to move beyond the tribal lines in a policy debate. Once you look at this as a policy issue, you always can find policy solutions." And as Makovsky puts it, "For the most part, what's needed is to basically treat the students as adults, not just PR targets."

The program of the “Center for Ethnic, Racial and Religious Understanding” at Queens College does just that. It is difficult but necessary. Founded by Professor Mark Rosenblum, it employs a methodology of “walking in the other side’s shoes.” As a once largely Jewish campus that now boasts a considerable Muslim population, Queens College might seem an unlikely place for dialogue but it has become an ideal one. Motivated by the tragedies of the Second Intifada and the 9-11 attacks, Rosenblum explained to the New York Times, he sought a way to bridge the widening gaps that were destroying education as well as human lives. In words that, again, could as easily be applied to Hampshire, he says, "It was hard to teach in a classroom where students had such preconceived ideas and had essentially become propagandists for their own side," he said. "It was quite nasty and ruthless.” 

His classes now require students to study and then “make the best possible case for the other side.” It works. "I did not expect anybody to change their position," he said. "My job is just to get you to feel a little bit of confusion by revealing that what you thought was a black and white struggle has a little more gray." Or, as one of the Muslim students put it, the class did not diminish his dedication to the Palestinian cause, but it did enable him to see the conflict in a new way: "People stop spreading legends and start talking the truth," he said. "It is so easy to hate people on the other side when you don't talk to them and you don't have to know them. But when you engage in discourse with them, you see they feel the way you do about your people. It's not so easy to hate them anymore." Classes ran overtime, and students who met in classes continued their dialogue after the semester was over.

In both cases, part of the message is: it’s easy to demonize when you’re dealing with abstractions and straw men. In dialogue, one has to deal with real people and real complexity.

Hampshire College is a leader in so many areas with accomplishments we could draw upon. Why not this one? The projects practically suggest themselves.

We have a distinguished Peace and World Security Studies Program. We have a large population of “international” students. Why could we not create a program in which Arab and Israeli students and scholars live and learn together and teach others? We are pioneers in sustainability and environmental science. Why could we not involve our students in efforts to address these issues in the Middle East, from energy to agriculture and water resources? As the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, based on cooperation between Arabs and Israelis, puts it, nature has no borders. After all, our new President was the leader of a major environmental organization. Could there be a better opportunity?

Now, contrast all this with “hotbed of anti-Israel fervor.” Is that all we have to show for all the years of “activism” around the Middle East conflict here? Should we allow ourselves to be defined by negation?

Is that really how we wish to be known?

Surely, we can do better.

Why not pro-Israel, pro-Palestine, pro-peace?

Why not? Really, why not?

Putting the Hampshire College Divestment Myth in its Grave

The anti-Israel “BDS” (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement seems to be at a tipping point. It confidently promises an unprecedented campaign in 2012, yet its efforts in the past year met with pushback and setbacks around the globe. Its choice of targets moreover grew increasingly petty, not to say, bizarre: hummus (made in New York)? chocolate shops in Australia? a symphony orchestra on tour? (1 vs. 2)  WTF?! The world finally seems to be catching on.

Plans for a national conference of the BDS movement, to be held at the University of Pennsylvania in February (1, 2), are already bringing bad news. The administration not only declared in advance that hosting the gathering did not constitute endorsement (standard operating procedure for all sorts of student events). It also took the notable step of explicitly condemning the BDS movement and affirming the importance of ties with Israeli academics.

Bummer.

The Penn activists claim to be “Picking up where the 2009 Hampshire conference left off.” They may wish to reconsider their chosen model. The rather lackluster original conference at Hampshire (1, 2, 3)  followed on the heels of the claim that the College had divested from “the Israeli Occupation of Palestine” earlier that year. Unfortunately, as everyone else in the world seems to know, that divestment claim is false. Call it what you will—misinterpretation, wishful thinking, hoax, fraud, lie—it didn’t happen, and that’s that. Hampshire College disposed of any remaining doubts when it presented its new socially responsible investing policy last month.

Jon Haber, who has followed anti-Israel divestment efforts closely, likens the so-called BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement to a vampire: (1) every time you think it’s dead, it comes back, a phenomenon that conveys (in accordance with its hopes and wishes) an air of invincibility. In fact, (2) its powers are more limited than it would like you to believe, because it can become a threat only when you allow it to cross your threshold. In Jon’s view, the BDS movement—which has scored no major or lasting victories in the course of a decade—has survived beyond its normal life only by virtue of the fact that its dedicated activists prey upon those who, whether deliberately or unwittingly, allow it to gain entrance to their organizations.

high time for institutions to wake up to the threat of BDS

This explains why the academically robust but financially anemic Hampshire College would prove such an enticing victim for the vampires: the endorsement of the first American institution of higher education to divest from South Africa would lend weight to the false assertion that Israel, too, practices “apartheid.”

That the College, following a divestment request by anti-Israel activists, made changes to its investment portfolio in 2009 is not in dispute. The dispute turns instead on the meaning of that action. The task of the historian, as Thomas Babington Macaulay says in the motto on the masthead of this blog, is not merely to establish the facts, but above all, to interpret them.

As is well known: the College, upon reviewing the fund in question, found that multiple companies were in violation of its socially responsible investment policy, and reallocated its assets accordingly. That standard (e.g. declining to invest in military products) was the sole rationale behind the action. The decision had nothing to do with Israel, affected a far greater number of firms having no association with Israel, and above all, rendered no verdict on Israel or its policies, whether within the “Green Line” or in the “occupied territories.”

No credible observer believes that divestment took place, for three very simple reasons: Divestment is a political action that therefore has meaning only if it is (1) deliberate and (2) accompanied by a public statement (3) on the part of an officially responsible body. When the College divested from holdings in South Africa, the administration and trustees publicly announced their action and stated the reasons. That contrast says it all.

A mere change in resource allocation makes no such statement. I once tried to illustrate this distinction by analogy:

If I sell my shares in Chrysler because I think it's a badly-run company that does not serve its stockholders, it's technically "true" that I have "relinquished" (to use the language of another recent student flier) my investment in a particular firm that profits from our irresponsible reliance on fossil fuels, but I have hardly "divested" myself—as a conscious and political statement (which is the only practical meaning that "divestment" can have in this context)—of participation in the carbon-based economy: especially if I continue to hold stock in Ford, Toyota, and Mobil.

The disinclination of Hampshire College to invest in certain areas does not necessarily render a verdict on their legality or morality:

• The College (although this is nowhere formally stated) does not invest in companies dealing in alcoholic beverages. Unlike tobacco, the latter do not necessarily cause harm when used responsibly. However, alcohol is neither a necessity of life nor an unmitigated good, and the College simply prefers to direct its resources to firms that, e.g. “Provide beneficial goods and services such as food, clothing, housing, health, education, transportation and energy.” (Policy, p. 2: Point 1) No rational person would conclude that, by declining to support the alcohol industry, we are endorsing prohibition—or even temperance. Hampshire College serves beer, wine, and liquor at some of its events—for example, dinners of the Board of Trustees, who approve the investment policy.

• The policy does not allow investment in companies that “Make nuclear, biological, or conventional weapons.” (Policy, p. 2: Point A) Nations have the right to self-defense. The US Constitution requires the government “to provide for the common defence,” and authorizes Congress “to raise and support armies” and “provide and maintain a navy.” No rational person would therefore conclude that our policy entails a rejection of the Constitution or the armed forces of the United States.

The decision taken in response to the divestment request had to do with military products, not their recipient: not Israel, not anyone else. If and when there is a Palestinian state, the College will likewise refuse to invest in firms that provide it with weapons.

Clear, one would think.

And yet the divestment myth refused to die. BDS advocates clung to it with a religious fervor, as if repeating it often enough could make it true.

They will find it more difficult than ever to maintain that position following the report on the new socially responsible investment policy last month.

Former President Marlene Fried:

there is clarity and unanimity on the Board that it did not make a decision to divest from the State of Israel, that it did not decide that Israel was in the same camp as South Africa.

Although the student questioner, fearing some semantic or conceptual confusion, correctly pointed out that the divestment claim involved the “Israeli occupation of Palestine” rather than investment in Israel, as such, it is a distinction without a difference in light of the above (as well as the stance of the BDS movement, for that matter)—and indeed, Fried responded by reaffirming the College’s rejection of the claim: “the Board does not believe that.”

There was no dissent from any member of the committee, and that includes Professor Emeritus Stan Warner, a well-known economist and political progressive, who was the faculty representative on the subcommittee on investment responsibility (CHOIR) at the time of the original divestment request, and who advised and educated student members about investment policy. Surely, if divestment had succeeded, he would know and be duty-bound to say so. But no, in the course of the nearly twelve-minute discussion of the issue, he was in fact the only member of the committee who did not speak to the controversy, as such, jumping in only briefly to answer a procedural question.

The College has made it clear, time and again: no divestment took place in 2009.

It has now affirmed that even more clearly at the end of 2011.

As they used to say in the olden days:

Q.E.D.
(1, 2)

Or, as we say nowadays:

Myth busted!

It’s high time that we put the divestment myth in the graveyard of history, where it belongs.

The Hampshire College Policy on Environmental, Social and Governance Investing: A Closer Look

• College unveils most ambitious socially responsible investing policy in the country
• Board reaffirms: College never divested itself of holdings in Israel, rejects parallel between South African apartheid and Israel

I. Overview

Last month, Hampshire College presented its new draft investment policy to the community for comment, with the expectation that the Trustees would approve the statement of principles by the end of 2011 and take up the full document at their quarterly Board meeting in February.

The policy is distinctive in two regards:  First, following the best practices in this evolving field, it emphasizes investments that actively do good rather than merely avoid harm. For that reason, the old phrase, "socially responsible investing," has yielded to "Environmental, Social and Governance Investing," or (because that is an unwieldy mouthful) "ESG," for short (1, 2).  (Both the old version and the new mandate what is to be encouraged as well as what is to be avoided—and in largely the same terms—but the new one frames the whole in a more comprehensive, positive, and up-to-date way.)

Second, it is an unusually vigorous attempt to implement these principles. As past President Marlene Fried explained, the consultants said that, "as far as they knew, our policy was the strongest and the most all-encompassing" in the country. Given that only about 15 percent of American institutions of higher education explicitly pursue socially responsible investing, Hampshire College thus again positions itself at the cutting edge  ( 1, 2, 3) of academia.

Interest in the policy, both on and beyond the Hampshire campus, was clearly heightened by the recent history of controversy over the College's investments in Israel. In 2009, anti-Israel student activists associated with the so-called "BDS" (Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment) movement falsely claimed that they had forced the College to divest from "the Israeli Occupation of Palestine" (an overview here; more detailed coverage here). It was an assessment of the overall investment policy at that time that prompted the review whose results are now before us. The current document, let it be said at the outset, contains nothing that singles out Israel, or any country, for that matter. Indeed, one of the most significant things to come out of the presentation was an unusually clear statement to the effect that the Board had not in any way or fashion divested from Israel, and what is more, explicitly rejected the analogy to South African apartheid that the activists here and elsewhere have repeatedly sought to draw.

 * * *

As promised, then, here is a closer look at the presentation and the document. The approximately 80-minute information session on December 13 consisted of an overview of the review committee’s approach and a walk through the document (with highlights and excerpts in PowerPoint), followed by a question-and-answer session. Although the full text of the new document was distributed in hard copy midway through the event, there was of course no way for all those in attendance to explore and fully assess the details off the cuff. (Note: For the sake of greater clarity and coherence, I have rearranged some portions of the presentation.)

Because of the intrinsic importance of the issue and the interest that it is already beginning to arouse outside the College, I have attempted to provide as much detail as possible. Readers may thus pursue this description as selectively or extensively as they wish: The above (I) conveys the essence of the plan. The middle and longest portions (II-V) elaborate on the details. The final portion (VI) takes up the question of investment involving Israel, which had garnered national attention but surfaced here explicitly only in the question-and-answer session.

(l-r:) Jonathan Scott, Marlene Fried, Beth Ward, Stan Warner, Ken Rosenthal

II. Personae and Process

Secretary of the College Beth Ward moderated the event and introduced the participants: Jonathan Scott (an alumnus, from the College’s first entering class, now member of the Board of Trustees and head of the Investment Committee), Ken Rosenthal (first Treasurer of the College, now Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees), Stan Warner (professor emeritus of economics, and long the faculty representative on the investment committee), and professor of philosophy Marlene Fried, who served as Interim President last year, while we conducted the search for a full-time president). Not present were the student and staff members of the committee: in the meantime, the former graduated, and the second took a position elsewhere.

Jonathan Scott began by attempting, as he put it, to frame the discussion at a high level of generalization. The baseline fact is that Hampshire’s endowment today stands at only about $ 31 million (about 26 million of that in liquid securities). This combination of low total and limited liquidity, he explained, “puts some constraints on this portfolio.” The College therefore has to invest chiefly in existing funds; i.e. adapting to or modifying their selection rather than creating its own from scratch. (On the other hand, by implication, I suppose one could discern an advantage in not facing the dilemma of substantial investments in more traditional fields and firms, more likely to violate rigorous ESG standards.)

He further emphasized that, although the College had suspended the old policy and investment committee during the review process, “we never suspended how we invest.” (Translation: Board members did not run out and suddenly begin investing in sweatshops and armament manufacturers in 2009.)

Hampshire’s socially responsible investment stance dates from 1977, when the College divested itself of holdings in South Africa. The unwieldy document governing investments, revised for the ninth time in 1994, combined the overall policy statement, the specific investing guidelines, and the rules and regulations governing CHOIR, which stands for the awkwardly named Committee at Hampshire On Investment Responsibility (Ironically, it takes a clumsy and infelicitous name to generate a convenient acronym. Talk about the tail wagging the dog. But in was the '70s, after all. Maybe administrators will one day just create names that make sense. One may hope.)


III. The Document

As Scott put it, the document was thus “more than out of date, it was absolutely confusing.”

Indeed, anyone who attempts to read through the old policy—even though, at 2083 words, it is about one-third shorter than the new one—would be hard-pressed to avoid that conclusion. Some portions are clearly no longer relevant. Some are more detailed than they need to be. Others lack sufficient detail or clarity. And above all, the structure of the whole, mixing principles and procedures, was less than user-friendly, as we say nowadays.

The first task of the review committee had therefore been to break it into its constituent elements, each of which has now been rewritten and can stand on its own and be modified according to appropriately differentiated procedures. Ken Rosenthal explained:

(1) The intention was, first, to generate a short general statement for trustee approval by the end of the calendar year. This “Policy on Environmental, Social and Governance Investing” (3 pages) possesses the highest degree of authority and will remain fixed for the foreseeable future. (Note: in what follows, upper-case “Policy” refers to this document, as opposed to the investment “policy” [lower-case] as a whole.)

(2) The “Investment Committee’s Working Guidelines for ESG Investing,” by contrast, are more detailed and thus likely to be “more fluid,” with a lower threshold for modification and approval. As Scott later put it, ““a policy is something you don’t want to take back to the board every three or four months.” He cited an example from his own experience in Pennsylvania: a generation ago, in the wake of Three Mile Island disaster, “no one, even conservatives, wanted to invest in nuclear power” but today, when weighed against coal in the age of global warming, that choice may look different. Thus, a general principle (appropriate to the “Policy” document) might be upholding fair labor practices. However, the more flexible, amendable working “Guidelines” would explain how to achieve that. (This is of course, a common principle, which was crucial to our recent work on the College’s Governance Task Force: organizations apply it every day when distinguishing between authoritative and relatively stable “bylaws,” on the one hand, and more flexible policy manuals and the like, on the other.)

(3) Finally, there is “CHOIR Composition and Procedures (2 pages),” which as the title implies, addresses the operations of the investment committee rather than substance.


IV. Dilemmas and Decisions

The overall challenge or dilemma is that the Board of Trustees, in the words of the Policy (p. 1) has a “fiduciary obligation” “to optimize the financial return to the college, both currently and in the future, in order to advance the long-term financial interests of the College and support its mission.” “At the same time, “It is a core value of Hampshire College, and consistent with its historical practice, that the College invest in a socially responsible way.”

(The introduction to the old policy, perhaps because it was then breaking new ground, spoke of ethical investing first, and fiduciary responsibility only after that. Whereas the new policy allots four paragraphs to the introduction, the old one confined it to a single one, distributing some of the issues among the guidelines, e.g. III.A-C.)

As Scott observed, even though “we care greatly about both those issues,” they “don’t necessarily go hand in hand.” Attempting to balance the two “generated—I won’t say, some friction—energy.” There were “some bumps on the road at first,” but thanks to good will and a common sense of purpose, the members of the team were soon able to come up with the proper approach, and then everything moved along as if “on a superhighway.” (The document [p. 1] does make the plausible but slightly strained argument that investments in firms with sound environmental and human rights practices can be best even judged on purely financial grounds: such enterprises ultimately have the best prospects for long-term survival and growth, and whereas those that shun these values “pose reputational, financial, operational and legal risks to the College’s investments” and thus its “future financial security.”)

He cautioned, “there is no such thing as a straight line down the middle,” there is no such thing as perfection—or purity.” Or, the words of the Policy:

“investing in a responsible way does not always offer self-evident decisions. In an investment world that is ever more complex and global in scope, it is not possible to be informed of every activity that a business undertakes. There are likely to be products and services that can be used in ways that are both responsible and contrary to a shared notion of responsibility.” (p.1)

For that reason, Scott explained, it is essential at the outset not just to create clear rules and criteria, but also to indicate how they can be pragmatically applied in real life. He illustrated dilemmas and choices from other cases. The Quakers, he noted, are famously against war. They could therefore have chosen not to invest in US Treasuries, given that some of this money supports the military. In the end, however, they concluded that their mission was more jeopardized by having securities at risk, and so they decided to keep their liquidity in Treasuries.

The College’s answer to the challenge of making such decisions is a “threshold” policy. The mere fact that a corporation is involved in some activity prohibited under the investment policy is not a red line. Rather than imposing an absolute ban, which, given the complexity and diversity of economic enterprises in the contemporary world could well prove crippling, the committee chose to “create thresholds for things that are quantifiable.” For example, the College would not invest in a major defense contractor, but there would be no obstacle to investing in a consumer-electronics firm whose production of a component for the military constitutes a minuscule part of its overall activity, measured as a share of revenues: in this case, five percent.

(The old policy was both more vague and more specific [ III.C.3 ]. It framed the issue with reference to the desire "to invest in a way that reduces this country's dependency on military spending." On the one hand, it spoke of military investment in reverse terms, promising to "favor companies not heavily dependent on the sale of weapons and those which are taking active steps toward converting from production for military purposes"; it provided no quantitative or other practical measure. On the other hand, it went into considerable detail in defining nuclear and biological weapons: presumably a reflection of the debates over Cold War arms control and the relative newness of regulating other non-conventional weapons; the treaty on biological and chemical weapons cited there dated only from 1973 [III.C.4 and Definitions and Notes].)

We are at the leading edge of a trend, Scott explained: “The whole idea of ESG investing is becoming more popular, with individuals,” but it is just taking off at the institutional level. That is due in part to the complexity and limitations that might cause large investors to shy away. Given the relatively small size of its endowment, Hampshire is perhaps well able to pursue such a policy. At the same time, most investments will necessarily be in standard, pre-packaged funds, i.e. given to a fund manager, with appropriate instructions. “If we had billions,” he said, “we could hire that manager” to create a customized fund. Instead, “the best we can do is to find a fund that approximates” our desires and then customize it by employing various screens to filter out particular investments that do not fit our policy. “I’ll stress that this policy is to give guidance to our managers.” The fund mangers then give their recommendations to the investment committee, which makes the ultimate decision.

“A big constraint,” he added, “is in the emerging markets, it’s extremely difficult to invest in emerging markets in ESG, especially when you have to be in a fund.” He further clarified: “the screening is of individual companies; we do not invest in countries, as such.” (This seemed quite a clear allusion to the controversy over Israel and divestment as well as an elaboration on the general geographical question.)

Scott conceded that the thought of trying to implement what is arguably the strictest policy in the US while maximizing revenues made even him a bit nervous. The consultants, however, are confident that it is practicable.


V. The New Policy and its Implementation

Stan Warner presented the substance of the new plan and its rationale. He started with some history: “It began with one issue, and I was there, marching with 400 students around the Red Barn [building housing financial administration offices, and in earlier years, the site of Trustee meetings; JW]. We were, he said, “a place that cared about social issues beyond the borders of the College. We were trying to end the Vietnam War, trying to impeach Richard Nixon, trying to end apartheid.” The “trustees listened to this and were responsive, with a bit of nudging”

Much has changed not only since 1977, but also since 1994, when the old governing document was adopted. The world has become more complex, and the notion of ethical investing has matured, as well. In keeping with the broader notion of social responsibility represented by the ESG concept, the study committee agreed, “we will not make substantive changes in the areas that we do not invest in.” The current task, Warner said, was thus not to dilute the old system, and rather, “to expand” it. That requires some effort, as no off-the-shelf package is likely to fit the bill. “We then have the challenge of finding funds that satisfy these [standards], we can’t invest in just one fund. We need some diversity in the portfolio.”

(1) The Policy is divided into positives and negatives: those activities that the College wishes to support and those in which it chooses not to invest.

The College will favor investments in businesses that emphasize one or more of the following characteristics:

1. Provide beneficial goods and services such as food, clothing, housing, health, education, transportation and energy. 
2. Pursue research and development programs that hold promise for new products of social benefit and for increased employment prospects. 
3. Maintain fair labor practices including exemplary management policies in such areas as non-discriminatory hiring and promotion, Worker participation and education, and in policies affecting their quality of work life. 
4. Maintain a safe and healthy work environment including full disclosure to workers of potential work hazards. 
5. Demonstrate innovation in relation to environmental protection, especially with respect to policies, organizational structures, and/or product development; give evidence of superior performance with respect to waste utilization, pollution control, and efforts to mitigate climate change risk. 
6. Use their power to enhance the quality of life for the underserved segments of our society and encourage local community reinvestment. 
7. Have a record of sustained support for higher education.

The College will not favor investments in businesses whose products, services, or business practices are inconsistent with the above characteristics, in particular avoiding businesses that:

• A. Make nuclear, biological, or conventional weapons. 
• B. Have significant operations in countries with serious human rights violations. 
• C. Engage in unfair labor practices.
• D. Discriminate by race, gender, ethnic origin, sexual preference, or disability. 
• E. Demonstrate substantially harmful environmental practices. 
• F. Market abroad products that are banned in the United States because of their impact on health or the environment. 
• G. Have markedly inferior occupational health and safety records. 
• H. Manufacture or market products that in normal use are unsafe. 
• I. Refuse to make their performance records concerning Guidelines 1 - 7 and A-H available upon reasonable request.

Elaborating on the negative, he made clear that the decision not to invest in a given field should not necessarily be taken to mean that the relevant activity is illegal or immoral. For example, although this is nowhere specified in the Guidelines, the College chooses not to invest in firms a major portion of whose business involves alcoholic beverages or so-called adult entertainment (pornography). The investment policy is a voluntary statement of values and resource-allocation preferences.

(2) The Guidelines, following the same structure and numbering as the Policy, in essence go on to explain some of the metrics and evaluation procedures. For example, on the positive side, workplace conditions can be measured by a combination of “policies,” “certifications” (OSHA and equivalents), “programs,” and “performance (e.g. statistics on employee injuries and fatalities measured against industry averages, etc.) (pp. 1-2: Point 4). On the negative side, a pattern of discrimination might be measured (p. 4: Point D) by such factors as fines, penalties, and legal settlements, or individual or class-action lawsuits involving the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Echoing Scott’s earlier remark, Warner affirmed, “we don’t divest from countries, we divest from firms.” “In some cases, with human rights violations, the process begins with countries and moves to funds. Closer scrutiny of investments in a particular country could be triggered if the latter had a particularly egregious human rights record might. He cited the examples of South Africa in the past, and countries practicing genocide, such as Sudan, today. Still, the point again was the firms and their practices. Thus, the prevalence of sweatshops in Indonesia might trigger a close review of firms there, but the outcome might be a decision not to invest in Nike and Gap—not a ban on investment in Indonesia.

Ken Rosenthal briefly explained proxy voting (Policy, p. 3), which adheres to the same principles as the old, namely supporting propositions that seek to eliminate or reduce "ESG injury," and opposing the reverse. The difference lies in the context: the old policy [III.D] envisioned the trustees as "voting their shares at meetings of stockholders by proxy." The new one explains that, "The College generally invests in funds, rather than individual companies, and usually has no opportunity to exercise the voting rights of shareholders because they are delegated to the manager(s)." The College simply instructs the manager(s) to cast any votes in accordance with its policy.

(The old policy [III.E], unlike the new one, contains a specific clause on "Divestment," authorizing sale "for other than financial reasons" if the "exercise of shareholders' rights . . . will not, within a reasonable period of time, succeed in changing a company's attitude toward a moral or social problem." Clearly, this is a political action, which pertains to an extreme and rare situation, such as the South African case. For example, one would not, generally speaking, seek to change the overall production of an arms manufacturer; one would instead simply determine that investment in this area was inconsistent with the policy and "delete" the company from the "master list of acceptable investment opportunities" [III.C.5]. Now that the College is invested chiefly in funds, most of which have moreover received a thorough screening in accordance with ESG policy, "divestment" in the former sense is typically not an option.)

(3) CHOIR, a subcommittee of the Investment Committee, is tasked with an advisory and reporting role concerning investment policy: chiefly, making recommendations to the former on the maintenance, revision, and application of the Guidelines; and keeping Board and community informed of its doings. (CHOIR, p. 1: Points A-B)

The committee decided to retain CHOIR as a separate standing body with the same membership (two representatives each from trustees, faculty, students, and staff, with the Vice President of Finance ex officio), but modified its procedures in a few important ways aimed at enhancing efficiency, transparency, and accountability: First, rather than coming together on an ad hoc basis, as in the past (II.E: "normally three or four times a year") CHOIR will have a regular annual meeting as a baseline (others taking place as necessary) and will report on a quarterly basis to the Board. Second, and as a corollary: now, as before, CHOIR “may initiate its own actions” but is explicitly required to solicit, take into account, and report on the full range of community information and advice when making its recommendations to the Investment Committee (old: II.B.4; J.1,3); new: Points B, F-H). The policy, appropriately enough, requires solicitation of "information and advice from individuals and groups" beyond the campus during the research and deliberation phase, but once a judgment has been rendered, focuses on "opinion" within the College walls.

What is distinctive today is the commitment to strengthen the role of CHOIR as a standing committee, with the expectation of regular and substantive dialogue with both Trustees and campus community.

Secretary of the College Beth Ward wrapped up the formal presentation by again reminding the audience that the College had never halted its socially responsible investing, and she closed by inviting public comment in the coming week. The question-and-answer session took up the final 25 minutes or so.



VI. The Israeli "Elephant in the Room"

Most of the questions, predictably, included details of implementation, some of which (also predictably) had in effect been answered in the course of the presentation.

A subsidiary concern, or at least, observation, involved the small size of the audience, and in particular, the low turnout; there were only three students, though they asked most of the questions. Given the attendance figure and the late date in the semester, the possibility of extending the comment period beyond the next week arose. The Committee showed itself open to suggestions but also offered the very logical response: what the Trustees wanted to approve now was the Policy document, which was brief, general, straightforward, and presumably uncontroversial. There would always be time for further comment on the other elements before the official February Board meeting, particularly because the process for revising them was simpler, given the lower threshold.

It was only now that the question of economic ties to Israel arose. In a way, that was only natural. The topic is nowhere to be found in the document, for reasons that should be obvious and were clearly indicated in the presentation: the College’s policies pertain to firms, and not to countries or particular political issues. There was, nominally, no need to speak of it. That said, everyone was aware of it as a subtext or background issue. As in the case of the original controversy, it is in some ways a “damned if you do, and damned if you don’t” dilemma: mentioning it risks giving disproportionate attention to a non-issue and thus detracting from the real topic. On the other hand, not mentioning it allows the impassioned advocates to imply (however implausibly) that the issue is being ignored for nefarious reasons.

An activist from Students for Justice in Palestine therefore clearly and politely raised the issue of what he called the “elephant in the room.” He had several related questions, beginning with process and procedures.

• He wanted to know, first, whether the transparency of the investment process would be retained? For example, would CHOIR still have access to lists of all investments?
-The answer from Mr. Scott: yes. (it is in fact found on p. 2: Point E)

• In particular, though, he noted that CHOIR had in 2009 had "voted on divestment" from six companies involved in "making weapons and selling them to the Israeli army and being used in the West Bank and Gaza": "did that happen?" Could the ad hoc committee tell us the status of those investments?
-Answer from Mr. Scott: not off the top of his head, especially as the composition of funds continually changes.

• Students on campus and activists elsewhere were frustrated that the College, allegedly because it came under intense outside pressure, had not made a statement affirming the change in policy and holdings. The activists believed that divestment had occurred, “whether or not the administration of Hampshire, or everyone at Hampshire feels that that was what happened.” Among other things, the questioner was therefore curious as to whether the issue has been discussed as part of the review process.

There followed several oblique and rather deferential responses, the common theme of which was: apart from the substance of the issue (which none of them deigned—or dared—to address), the incident had revealed how flawed the old policy and system was, and why clearer procedures and better communication were badly needed.

Finally, former President Marlene Fried (video below) jumped in to address the issue head-on: “I want to speak to the elephant. [ . . . ] I sort of came into this late, I was not the best informed or paying attention in 2008, but last year, I was paying a lot of attention [i.e. when, as interim President, she had to address the deteriorating climate on campus following the harassment of an Israeli student ( 1, 2) and the disruption of talk by an Israeli soldier; JW], so it is very clear that there is a real divide between what the ‘buzz’ out there is about what Hampshire did or didn’t do, and about what the Board of Trustees of Hampshire College believes that it did, and there is clarity and unanimity on the Board that it did not make a decision to divest from the State of Israel, that it did not decide that Israel was in the same camp as South Africa.”

Student: “But it did say: Israel [sic] occupation, and the students on the Board did [use?] Israeli occupation, which is very different than Israel [ . . . ].”
They had been hoping that the Board would state that it broke the College's alleged ties to the occupation (or words to that effect).

Fried: “The Board does not believe that. . . ."



(I have reserved a fuller account of the exchange for a separate post.)

With that, the matter should be settled. Still, it remains of some relevance, to the extent that it bears on both the substance  and practicality of the new document.

On the whole, the policy is bold and admirable. However, one clause—on its own terms and in light of the foregoing controversy—may give some readers pause. It pertains to what are called "Countries of concern." (Policy, p. 2: Point B) Among the investments that "The College will not favor" (Guidelines, pp. 2-3) are those in "businesses that":

· B. Have significant operations in countries with serious human rights violations. Countries of concern are those where there is substantial evidence of complicity in clear violations of civil and political human rights by the government in power, as evidenced by:

• Allegations or convictions resulting from serious impacts on the civil and political rights of any group of people.

a) This includes violations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, such as government-sponsored killings, torture and abuse, forced labor, forced displacement, abuse from the local military or police services, abuse of freedom of expression, and child labor.

• Controversies substantial enough to have become an international issue or to have international repercussions. A substantial international controversy can be gauged by whether there is:

a) An international divestment or boycott campaign by two or more major human rights groups;

b) Involvement by one or more governments (outside the host country government) or United Nations (UN) agencies publicly expressing concern about the state of human rights in a country of concern;

c) Widespread and/or prolonged coverage in the international press; or

d) Some form of intervention by UN or other regional/international human rights authorities.

Typically the majority of these factors should be met in order to identify a country of concern, and then an assessment of the company's activities in these countries performed. In most cases, retail or distribution of company products or humanitarian aid in a country of concern will not be problematic, however, grounds for restriction may include the presence of company-owned facilities- in a country of concern, contractual arrangements with government entities, or operations that clearly benefit the government (most frequently via revenue generation and often entailing infrastructural investments or natural resource extraction).

Clearly, this screen is intended to flag countries that are gross violators of human rights, such as Sudan or Myanmar. And there are many sensible and reassuring specifics. Language matters. Frequently, the document includes key qualifying terms signaling a high standard to be met; thus, for example: "serious human rights violations," "substantial evidence of complicity," "clear violations," "serious impacts," "two or more major human rights groups." There is reference to foundational documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Finally, it is reassuring to see that this is not a casual menu for the fickle: the presumed need for a country to meet "the majority of these factors" before becoming a target of concern sets an appropriately high bar. It is a prudent safeguard.

To put this all in context: the old policy (III.C.4.d) defined countries of concern simply as those "engaged in serious human rights violations" and described the prohibited corporate activities there as those that "serve to perpetuate, promote, and finance these conditions, as identified through a factual case by CHOIR." Lacking is any precision or granularity, indeed, any real definition at all. The new policy is thus vastly clearer than and superior to the old one. It cannot be properly judged without reference to the former.

Obviously, any policy document is subject to both innocent misinterpretation and misuse. It is worthwhile to ask whether there is anything we can do to limit those possibilities. The text, unlike human nature, lies within our control. One hopes that the Board, when taking up this document in February, will give that issue due consideration.

To return to the "elephant in the room," one could easily imagine anti-Israel divestment advocates putting together a case that was on the surface plausible even if it in fact lacked merit:

• "Convictions" in criminal courts for violations of human rights are lacking, but "allegations," whether substantiated or not, are legion. Just how, then, would this standard be applied?

• International divestment and boycotts? It would be difficult to claim that "two or more major human rights groups" [emphasis added] are spearheading such measures—clearly, the authors of the policy have in mind something like the coordinated boycott of Sudan or the equivalent—but anti-Israel advocates would no doubt produce the usual list of bit-players, which, to the uninformed, might at first seem persuasive. We may ask: what defines "major"? And even then, how do we judge their judgments? Even undeniably "major" human rights groups have of late come under sharp criticism for bias (1, 2).

• Widespread or prolonged press coverage: is mere quantity or duration sufficient? What about the merits of that coverage? The watchdog group CiFWatch documents, on a daily basis, the distortions and bigotry in the treatment of Israel and Jews in the once-respected Guardian: a flaw that the latter has finally and grudgingly begun to acknowledge (1, 2). And a recent scholarly study discovered evidence of extensive and systematic bias by Reuters—in violation of the news organization's own explicit norms.

• Expressions of concern by UN agencies? That is a rather low moral as well as practical bar these days. To cite but two examples: The UN General Assembly, in its 61st session (2006-7), condemned Israel 22 times, yet somehow never mentioned the genocide in Sudan (between 1950 and 2007, the entire Arab-Israeli conflict, including all-out international wars, cost 51,000 lives; the Sudanese civil wars, 1.9 million; source). As for the UN Human Rights Council, it has devoted 80 percent of its censures to Israel alone, which is ironic, given that its current members include China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, and Pakistan, not exactly paradises for human rights. Adding to the irony: Libya actually chaired the Council until its suspension in March of last year.

I offer the above merely as food for thought. (And I note that several of those standards or categories also appear elsewhere in the document, e.g. "significant controversies" as defined by legal actions, "criticism by NGOs," and "extensive media coverage" in the case of products injurious to human health or the environment [p. 4: Point F; see also p. 5: Point H].)

Naturally, any such document must strike the difficult balance between the specificity required for clarity and the breadth required for practicability. Much inevitably depends on the hypothetical "reasonable person" who will apply the standards.

The original divestment case was empty because divestment is an explicitly political act: The activists sought to win a symbolic victory by targeting primarily items of military production, which are, however, neutral in nature: they can be used for legitimate purposes (every state has the right of self-defense) or for illegitimate ones. The socially responsible investment policy does not distinguish between the two. Therefore, even the selling off of shares in every firm that has military dealings with Israel would objectively make no statement whatsoever regarding the legitimacy of the state or its policies, within the Green Line or in the territories. This is what so frustrates and infuriates the BDS activists: they want the College to admit to something that it by definition did not and could not do.

(To show you just how preposterous the whole business was: In 2009, the  anti-Israel divestment activists targeted ITT and Motorola because they supplied equipment to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Well, as it turns out, both firms also provided equipment or other assistance for Hurricane Katrina relief efforts—and, to complete the irony, the violent Jihadis on board the "Mavi Marmara" used Motorola devices to coordinate their attack on the IDF troops attempting to enforce the blockade of Gaza in 2010. These things are just not as simple as the activists would have one believe.)

My bet is that, if the new policy is implemented fairly and rigorously in the spirit in which it is intended, another anti-Israel divestment attempt would likewise fail.

-First, the new policy, even taking the aforementioned questions into account, arguably implements far clearer standards and sets a higher overall bar.

-Second, the more rigorous approach allows for a salutary and even clearer separation of human rights from narrowly political goals: Is your aim to apply socially responsible investment principles in general or to attain a specific political end? If the former, then the refusal to invest in all military production solves the problem. It makes no difference which country is involved; you can rejoice and move on. If the latter, however, then you've got a fairly tough case to make.

-Finally, the demands of transparency and communication would force the argument into the open. Last time, divestment advocates sought to achieve their victory behind the closed doors of committee and board meetings. This time, opposing views would be required to receive a full and fair hearing in the bright light of public opinion. It would be a compelling debate, I am sure.

The statements made at the presentation of the new policy make it clear, once and for all, that divestment never took place. The new policy makes it highly unlikely that it could occur in the future.

That policy will be a test of maturity for all parties concerned.

If SJP is wise, it will devote its efforts to more productive and less destructive activities. The issue of Palestine and Palestinian rights is a serious one, about which a serious conversation would be welcome. Attempting to draw attention to it through divestment is both a moral and a strategic error. Exploiting the resources and name of Hampshire College in order to do so is cynical and selfish. If, as in the past, the divestment advocates put their desires first and attempt to highjack the institution and its agenda by treating the College merely as a means to their narrow ends, that will be as revealing as it will be regrettable.

The College has registered a significant achievement by producing the most ambitious and rigorous ethical investment policy in the country. That is something that we should all applaud and support. That is where the spotlight should be focused and remain.

* * *

Resources

• "Hampshire College Policy on Environmental, Social and Governance Investing" (draft of 25 October 2011): the College has made it available here, but in the event that the draft is later replaced with another version, I have also uploaded the former here as both a Word document and a pdf.

• Hampshire College "Policy on Socially Responsible Investing" (version of 12 September 1994): as Word document and as pdf.

• Hampshire College information sheet: "Q&A: Draft Policy on Environmental, Social and Governance Investing," 13 December 2011

• Kevin Kiley, "Making Green by Going Green" [report on the new Hampshire policy], Inside Higher Ed, 16 Dec. 2011

• Chad Cain, "Hampshire College seeks socially responsible investing," Daily Hampshire Gazette, 19 Dec. 2011

• Hampshire College press release: "Hampshire College Adopts Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Investing Guidelines," 3 January 2012


[updated links]

Hampshire College Presents New Socially Responsible Investment Policy; Said Most Rigorous in the Country

(l-r) Jonathan Scott, Marlene Fried, Beth Ward, Stan Warner prepare for the presentation (not in picture: Ken Rosenthal)

December 13, 2011 

This afternoon, members of a Hampshire College ad hoc committee on socially responsible investing, formed in 2009, presented their long-awaited report to the community. The process, already drawn-out because of administrative transitions and other unrelated internal issues, was further delayed by the unusually early snowstorm this fall, which prompted the closing of the campus and evacuation of students. Although first scheduled for November 3, the meeting thus took place over a month later.

In part for that reason, attendance was low. Classes ended last week, and most students either had gone home or were working furiously on their final papers. There were barely two-dozen people (excluding the five presenters) in the large lecture hall—which, by contrast, was filled to capacity last February, when an Israeli soldier spoke about his experiences (or tried to), prompting one of the fiercest campus controversies (1, 2, 3, 4) over an issue that accounts for the great interest in what would otherwise be a matter mainly for the policy wonks and number-crunchers.

I counted only three students and three members of the faculty. The others present were from the staff or administration of the College. Again, the season had much to do with this. Still, the difference is telling: people will more readily turn out for a protest than a policy presentation.

The formal name is: Policy on Environmental, Social and Governance Investing (ESG).


I’ll be posting more extensively later about the entire document, but here’s the initial take-away. The content matched  what I predicted, and it on the whole looks very good.


• Process and Product

Part of the task was to break down an unwieldy older document (last revised in 1994) into more logically consistent components, separating overall policy from more specific guidelines and operating procedures. Nothing earth-shattering or controversial there.

The committee members at several points took pains to make clear, however, that even during the period of review, the College had never dropped its policy on social responsible investment practices. Rather, it had simply set aside the old oversight committee and the specific document that governed its operation.


• Principles

Most people will of course be most interested in the actual content, which can be summarized with relative ease.

In part because of its relatively small endowment, Hampshire conducts its investments through various existing managed funds, which contain stock in a number of enterprises. The College seeks funds whose holdings most approximate its values, but can in addition apply various “screens” in order to further refine what it actually invests in. In some cases, we use existing screens developed by other parties, but it is the ESG that ultimately constitutes the guidance for the fund managers.

Put briefly, the document treats investments from both the positive and the negative standpoint: things that we wish to support, and things that we do not wish to support. In the former category, for example, are firms that provide necessary goods and services in sustainable ways, firms that uphold human and environmental rights, firms that enhance the quality of life and social justice, or support education.

In the latter category are firms that either seriously violate accepted norms of justice and sustainability or simply engage in activities whose net effect is destructive or at the least might not be seen as a value that the college actively needs to support. Thus, for example: on the one hand, firms that practice discrimination or have poor labor, health, or environmental records, or on the other hand, firms that engage in military production, etc.

Merely participating in, say, some form of military production, however, is not necessarily enough to preclude an investment altogether, especially in an age in which a given firm may engage in a wide range of activities. The College can therefore assess individual cases using a “threshold” measure, i.e. taking into account the share of revenue that a firm derives from a given activity.

The basic policy fits on a page. The actual guidelines are five times as long.

In summary, the document arguably sets new standards of rigor and accountability. Consultants who have examined it call this policy “the strongest and most all-encompassing” that they know of. Hampshire College thereby assumes a leading national role in yet another area of higher education.

• Politics

Because controversy involving investment in firms doing business in or with Israel was the proximate cause that led to the review of the investment policy, this was arguably the topic that will be of the greatest interest to the outside world as well as many members of the College community, even though this question plays no role in the old or new policy, proper.

Although the committee members did not explicitly raise the issue themselves, they did on more than one occasion make statements that clearly addressed the matter, e.g.

“we don’t divest from countries, we divest from firms"

When a student explicitly raised the question, former Interim President Marlene Fried stated that the College’s views on what occurred during the 2009 divestment controversy and the interpretations were quite different. Bottom line:

“There is clarity and unanimity on the Board that it did not make a decision to divest from the State of Israel, that it did not decide that Israel was in the same camp as South Africa.”

That should be the end of that story—but you can bet that it will not be.

Pre-Occupied: Hampshire Anti-Israel BDS Activists Continue to Distort the Past, Look to the Future

It was bound to happen. I had been wondering how long it would be before the anti-Israel divestment (BDS) movement would attempt to claim its role in the Occupy Hampshire movement.

Although the issue appeared in the fliers and literature of the College’s Occupy activists, it had not been prominent in the larger scheme of things. When it came up at the rally here last month, it was almost as an afterthought: one individual brought it up during the open microphone time.

"Occupy Wall Street—Not Palestine!"

Snapshot:

In this version of what has become the standard "heroic" narrative, valiant activists, carrying forward the noble tradition of divestment from South Africa that their forebears had initiated, took on the College's equally sordid ties to Israel and won. The College, however, due to either lack of principle or lack of nerve, never acknowledged this, and rather, denied that the whole incident had taken place. Here, these actions are said to be in keeping with a general opposition to socially responsible investing.


Highlights/excerpts:

• introducing the notion of socially responsible investing, and Hampshire's tradition of activism. The term, he says, needs to be "unpacked": (0:35) "thinking about, like, where are we putting our money, and why are we putting our money there?"

• (c. 0:45) "um, it's something that, apparently, as, like, the administrations and the board have said, just, like, fundamentally disrupts the whole idea of a board, because our job is to make money . . . so why would I be thinking of socially responsible things?"

• (c. 0:57) regarding the socially responsible investment committee (CHOIR): "the administration never wanted it to be there in the first place"

• (c. 1:25) "in 2007 or so, students on campus brought it [=CHOIR: the socially responsible investment committee] back, specifically around S... [revealingly, starts to say: SJP, i.e. Students for Justice in Palestine] Palestine, because, a lot of you know, there is [?] Israeli occupation, a bunch of companies are making weapons for the Israeli Army and communications [scattered boos]."

• (c. 1:45) "eventually in 2009, this school was the first school in the US to divest from the Israeli occupation. [loud cheers and whistles] The school, immediately after that decided to deny that, the school denied that it was a political, it was not a political thing, it had nothing to do with Israel. They hired a socially responsible investment company just in order to depoliticize it. The school that doesn't believe in socially responsible investing, it hired a company to do screening, they didn't trust the students to do it. They used that screening to depoliticize it and say it had nothing to do with Israel."

The speaker goes on to claim that Islamophobia prevails on campus. [A glance at our courses and events suggests otherwise. In fact, Ralph Hexter, the President at the time of the divestment controversy, employed a personal research assistant whose field was Islamic history and culture, and who therefore taught those subjects at Hampshire: 1, 2.] The speaker goes on to characterize the policy review process as dishonest, disguised, and deliberately dragged out.

• (03:25) “I noticed, very subtly, on the Intranet [ . . . ] before the Snowpocalypse, that there was going to be a meeting about this new, supposedly we now have a new socially responsible investing, uh, comm…—not committee—but, like, written, written-out plan. The Snowpocalypse came, so it didn’t happen. I sent an email to Beth Ward, who is, um, the secretary of . . . I'm not sure [laughter; . . . ] she's, like, the spokesperson for the Board of Trustees."

[Ironically, Beth Ward, who has a long record of activism on behalf of peace and progressive causes, was in the audience, having joined the "Occupy" gathering a short time earlier. She can be seen in the green coat almost directly in front of the concrete pilaster bordering the windows of the building in the background.] Speaker continues:

(03:57): "Anyways, I just want you all to be aware that there is a new socially responsible investing, um, piece out there. We don't know what it is, it's been completely untransparent." Speaker again questions the character of the process.

(04:14) "So it's all just, like, a real mix. I've asked for when they're going to have a meeting about what this is. Hopefully, we'll be finding out soon, but you should, it's something, like, that's our ability to pressure the school to divest from things. We can also do it in popular campaigns, we need to be doing popular campaigns like this. But be aware that the school, again, is consistently trying to not let us know what it's invested in because it is invested in, not just in Palestine, it is invested in prisons, it is invested in, um, like, other wars all around us. So it's not just about Palestine, but that was one location again, when students get activated, they, that's what they start. So, um, I don't want to keep talking, but I think it's worth it still [?]."

(04:56) Chant: "Occupy Wall Street—Not Palestine!"

Summary:

The talk of course presents a highly tendentious narrative of what was by all accounts a rather tortuous process—complicated by the inveterate tendency of the institution to speak in bureaucratese and circumlocutions, and to respond with soft tones and blandishments rather than a loud voice and a fist on the table.

This is arguably the most famous academic “divestment” case in the United States, a situation remarkable mainly because this loud and persistent claim is based on a willful misreading of the facts. We live in a postmodern age of "truthiness," after all.

As should by now be well known: In February of 2009, after a long campaign, anti-Israel activists on campus formally asked the College to divest from a handful of companies that, they claimed, supported “the Israeli occupation of Palestine” and violated the College’s socially responsible investment policy.

The College, acting in accordance with its procedures, duly looked into the matter not on these political grounds, but in order to determine whether the firms violated that existing policy. The upshot: some of the holdings in question were found to be in violation of the policy, others were not. The College further discovered that several large funds contained numerous problematic items and agreed to relinquish such holdings accordingly. Finally, the College also found its existing socially responsible investment policy to be problematic and unclear and ordered a review that would lead to the drafting of a better policy. This is well documented. (further: 1, 2, 3, 4)

That was all. The College acted on the basis of its own regulations, targeted no country or particular type of investment, and made no political statement.

Unfortunately, the well-organized activists immediately announced to the world that Hampshire College, which had been the first to divest from holdings in South Africa, had now divested from "the Israeli occupation of Palestine." What better way to propagate the view that Israel practiced “apartheid”? It was that historical record that made the College such a prize and gave activists the hope that they might be able to punch above their weight. After all, the amount of money in our endowment—barely $ 31 million—is trivial in comparison with those of even our neighbors, such as Amherst and Smith, whose portfolios top a billion dollars.

The incident is not intrinsically remarkable: because nothing happened. Indeed, if it set a precedent at all, it was for the subsequent pattern of false claims of other divestment incidents, from banks to businesses. (Jon Haber has been documenting this meticulously for several years.)

* * *

To say that the College is not committed to ethical investing is as insulting as it is untruthful. It is true that there was initial resistance to the idea when it began, but that was in the 1970s (well before most of us were here, of course). Things have changed. I was the faculty member of the Board of Trustees a decade ago, so I can attest that we took the concept very seriously. The College was and has been committed to the principle that it is possible to satisfy the demands of both fiscal sustainability and social responsibility.

As for that review of the investment policy, there is nothing conspiratorial about it. Regarding the argument that the College didn't allow the students to "do" the screening. If the word "do" implies giving sole or ultimate authority to students: correct, that's not how things work. (I've just finished co-chairing the Governance Task Force, which undertook a comprehensive review of College policies and procedures.) But that is also a vastly oversimplified notion of the process. To be clear: the College would not leave that task entirely to staff or faculty, either. All three constituencies are represented on CHOIR (as on most Hampshire governance bodies), but professional expertise is sometimes required. When the initial review—prompted by the students—turned up numerous possible problems with the massive fund as a whole, the College, quite logically, brought in experts. And KLD, the firm that the College turned to, (a) is the leading firm in socially responsible investing practices and (b) found over 200 violations in the fund in question. Any member of the community—including a student or student group—is always free to bring forward a request for action or information regarding specific investments. This is exactly what happened in this case.

One reason that the subsequent review of investment policies and procedures took so long was that the campus was embroiled in various unrelated internal controversies involving everything from construction projects to admission policy, and, in the past year, was focused on the search for a new president. Even under the best of circumstances, the nitty-gritty work of internal research and policy development is carried out in committee and not in the public square. In any case, there has been public input on our overall values and policies, and the people leading the process are trusted members of the community. The meeting about to take place is in fact a public forum: It presents the new policy to the community so that anyone can offer comment in the course of the coming week. If it was announced only via the Intranet, that is simply because the daily email bulletins and corresponding web posts are always the place where official announcements are first disseminated.

No one who has not been involved in the review process or related administrative decisions can say what is in the document. According to my sources, at any rate, it will most likely present a very robust and rigorous policy, but not one that explicitly targets any particular country or political cause. This is of course as it should be: one does not design the overarching investment policy of an institution around a single case.

Anyway, we will soon find out: the results will be announced this afternoon at 3:30.

Almost as interesting as learning about the policy itself will be watching the spin that people try to put on it. Assuming that things unfold as described above, the BDS advocates will have two choices: express outrage, or claim victory and go home. That is, they will be disappointed if there is no explicit political statement or if certain holdings are retained. On the other hand, they may attempt to claim credit for having at least indirectly triggered the whole process. Hell, they may try to do both: take credit and yet demand more.

For nearly three years, the BDS activists have boasted relentlessly of their success. Their standard line has been that they succeeded, but that the administration—as as result of a mixture of its own cowardice and sinister pressure from outside pro-Israel groups—has refused to acknowledge defeat. This is the basis for the divestment myth that BDS faithful cling to and repeat like a Gospel narrative. More recently, though, they have given signs of perhaps trying to walk that story back a bit. At the 2010 graduation ceremony, an SJP activist (so oppressed by the system that he was chosen to be student commencement speaker) expressed frustration that the effort had not really succeeded. The above video simultaneously claims that "this school was the first school in the US to divest from the Israeli occupation" and that, still, "it is invested . . in Palestine."  Merely a slip of the tongue arising from extemporaneous speaking? Perhaps. But then why, if we already divested, does the flier—presumably prepared with ample care—challenge readers to "launch new divestment campaigns against Hampshire's ties to the Israeli occupation"?

So, which is it? Are we celebrating victory or still seeking it?

The BDS activists don’t know what they are talking about. Literally.

That should tell you something.


As for the results of that meeting on socially responsible investment policy? Stay tuned.

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Updates

Additional updates since original posting:  video transcription, flier image; minor edits.

Preliminary coverage of the investment committee report  here. Detailed report to follow. (now posted: here)