The Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility (ACIR) opened the floor to thoughts from the university community after the release of their Fall 2024 Report, last Wednesday.
Led by ACIR Co-Chair and Assistant Professor of Strategic Design and Management, Jen van der Meer, the meeting focused on their motion to divest the university endowment from military companies involved in active humanitarian violence in Gaza, Israel, and the West Bank.
With hopes to represent a large community interest, the ACIR used the “current moment in time” as the framework during their decision-making, and looked to other universities’ approaches to divestment to create guidelines on managing the future of current investments.
Many attendees of the meeting gave positive feedback on the report and the Committee’s acknowledgement of The New School’s history with social justice and concern for active violence. But, there were also many questions from attendees surrounding the topic of investments in fossil fuels and non-military corporations associated with the Israeli economy.
Meer explained that when the Committee looked into the structure of divestment for these areas, they were unable to present a successful financial argument. Meer stated, “Investments in these companies will be lucrative,” for possibly up to the next five to ten years.
“When people are told in any university that this is not possible, it’s structurally not true, it’s just extremely costly,” Meer said.
The ACIR intends to see how their most recent report is received by the Board of Trustees and Investment Committee before tackling other challenges related to divestment, stating that moving forward too quickly and addressing multiple topics of concern in one report can pose a financial risk.
However, the ACIR said that they will continue to actively monitor companies involved in military activity, including Alphabet (Google), CACI International, Cemex, HPE (HP), and AXA. ACIR also stated in their report, that they want to find alternatives to fossil fuel-related companies, focusing instead on renewable energy and benefits to the environment.
Still, Meer reassured attendees that other outlooks for divestment are not unachievable. After speaking with the Head of Sustainable Investing for J.P. Morgan’s Private Bank in the U.S., Preeti Bhattacharji, they found that with continued research, the ACIR would get a better understanding on how to approach considerable opportunities of funding that align with the values and mission of the university.
Concluding the meeting, the ACIR urged New School constituents to reach out with any feedback, questions, and concerns in order to represent the community’s point of view. They also stated that they plan to release other reports in the future.