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  • These visuals of U.S. students protesting the ongoing Israel

  • Hamas conflict have been dominating the airwaves. In

  • April, Columbia University turned into the epicenter of the

  • student protest movement, which quickly spread to more than 100

  • universities, including prestigious names like Yale,

  • Harvard and UCLA. One of the primary demands voiced by the

  • student protesters is - DISCLOSE - DIVEST

  • Across a number of college campuses, all throughout the

  • United States, students have taken over quads and campus

  • buildings, building encampments, arguing that their institutions

  • should divest their endowments from Israel, basically meaning

  • divesting from weapons manufacturers that support the

  • Israeli war effort. divesting from businesses in Israel and

  • divesting from businesses that do business.

  • Endowment, the financial backbone of many educational

  • institutions have become a pivotal point of student

  • protest. The significance of these endowments cannot be

  • overstated. They are the lifeblood that keeps many

  • universities running. Simply put, a simple glance at their

  • endowment would reveal how rich these universities are.

  • Currently, Harvard University is leading the pack with a $49.5

  • billion endowment that's important

  • To understand what university endowments are and how they

  • operate. These are the results of philanthropic contributions

  • from alumni gathered over time and then invested to support

  • some of the operating costs of the universities. Tuition only

  • covers usually a minority of the operating costs, the majority

  • comes from the proceeds of imbalance.

  • So in just a few weeks, college students all across the country

  • are going to start graduating and the second they graduate,

  • they're going to start receiving letters and phone calls from

  • their institution asking them to give to their endowment. What

  • they'll do is they'll give sometimes a small amount,

  • sometimes if they're particularly wealthy, a large

  • amount to the endowment. And what that means is an endowment

  • manager will then take that money and invest it in a variety

  • of options- whether it's ETFs, or index funds or private

  • equity, or hedge funds. And then after time each year, spin down

  • the returns on that. So they'll gain some returns, take some of

  • it out of the endowment, use it towards the operating funds to

  • fund a new generation of students who will eventually

  • graduate, start getting asked for money, start giving money

  • and the whole cycle begins again,

  • These endowments have famously okay. So there is a very often

  • not any information publicly available about what is

  • happening to these funds. And that is in fact one of the

  • student demands as well.

  • It's really hard to know exactly how much money of these

  • endowments is invested in Israel. It's hard to know for

  • variety of reasons. First off, endowment managers aren't stock

  • pickers are not managing day trading through an E trade

  • account. What they're doing is building a comprehensive

  • institutional plan that involves ETFs, involves hedge funds,

  • involves private equity. With all of those funds, it's

  • difficult to know what in those funds at any given time, which

  • companies in those funds at any given times are doing business

  • with Israel.

  • Corporate filings don't provide clear information on which

  • companies have exposure to Israel, because corporations can

  • list their foreign operations under any geographic unit of

  • analysis that they prefer. So some companies may list Israel,

  • these are the offices we have, these are the sales we have, but

  • they might group Israel within the Middle East and North

  • Africa, or they might group Israel within Europe and Asia,

  • but they might group Israel just as in abroad. They can choose

  • the geographic unit of representation on which they

  • report there is no requirement that you report at the country,

  • or even regional level. And so that makes it very hard to

  • understand who has exposure.

  • Student activists, however, are taking a proactive stance by

  • compiling a list of prominent companies engaged with Israel.

  • For instance, students from Colombia are advocating for the

  • university to sever ties with Google, Amazon and Microsoft,

  • among others.

  • It's pretty easy to find out whether or not Amazon is

  • providing Amazon web services to the Israeli government because

  • the Israeli government announces that Amazon is providing Amazon

  • Web Services. Ditto, Microsoft and Google anyone who's been on

  • the ground in Israel knows you can order a Coca Cola or Pepsi.

  • I mean, the global economy is so intertwined with the American

  • economy, that American marquee companies are nearly every and

  • so it shouldn't be a surprise that students are identifying

  • companies that are engaged with Israel because most companies,

  • at least those that would be in theS&P 500 are those that we

  • think of as major major companies in the global economy

  • are probably doing business with Israel.

  • (Students protesting the university's investments in

  • South Africa)

  • When discussing if divestment works, student protesters often

  • cite the South Africa divestment movement in the 1980s. In this

  • nationwide campaign against apartheid, US students convinced

  • more than 150 universities to divest from the involved

  • companies. Coincidentally, Columbia University, the

  • epicenter of the ongoing student protests was the first Ivy

  • League university to divest from South Africa.

  • ( I ask you to give us your good wishes) 30 years ago, Nelson

  • Mandela was elected President of South Africa, functionally

  • ending apartheid. And part of the reason why South Africa was

  • able to achieve that massive political and social change was

  • because students all across the world and especially in the

  • United States were pushing for divestment. When they pushed for

  • divestment from South Africa, about 155 universities made some

  • action very few did a total divestment like what students

  • are asking for now. But 155 universities divested in some

  • way from South Africa. There's no clear evidence that

  • divestment from South Africa made any economic difference in

  • South Africa. But there's a lot of evidence that it made a

  • political difference, that the slow drip of headline after

  • headline after headline in the news agencies all across the

  • world, forced negotiators to the table and led to political

  • change rather than economic. So well divestment make a big

  • economic impact on Israel, probably not. When you divest a

  • fund somebody is buying it. But will it make political change?

  • We have some evidence that it is. Just last week, both

  • President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu mentioned

  • American college protests in speeches that shows that

  • students have their attention,

  • People that argue that divestment actually does work.

  • It's generally a case of shifting hearts and minds and

  • trying to make something morally unacceptable from the point of

  • view of social norms. And what I would say here is that on the

  • question of Israel and Palestine, that is very, very

  • difficult just purely on the basis of how divisive this issue

  • is.

  • Universities are reluctant to divest on any issue, because it

  • might lower the returns on their endowment, which would affect

  • their ability to serve the needs of future students. If we

  • introduce greater risk or lower returns in the endowment,

  • there'll be less funds available to cover the tuition, to cover

  • tuition assistance, to cover the running costs of the university

  • for students who may not even be born yet. There's a trade off

  • between meeting the demands of the students today and our

  • ability to meet the demands of the students in the future,

  • which isn't being taken into account by the students who are

  • demanding divestment. I think divestment is a shortcut. It

  • feels like you're doing something it feels like you're

  • demanding an action -sell the shares. And we think somehow

  • that's going to make a difference, but what we're

  • really doing is transferring ownership to people who care

  • less than us, and thus, we should think twice about whether

  • it really serves our purposes or serves our goals.

These visuals of U.S. students protesting the ongoing Israel

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Why Colleges Like Columbia, UCLA And Harvard Refused Demands To Divest From Israel(Why Colleges Like Columbia, UCLA And Harvard Refused Demands To Divest From Israel)

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    林宜悉 に公開 2024 年 05 月 17 日
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