Wow, so I just got around to reading The Justice today. I haven’t done it in a while.
They have an editorial up about the creation of the Committee for Endowment Ethics and Responsibility.
Never mind that this is a significant win for the Brandeis student body.
They seem to have no idea what the purpose of the Committee actually is.
Let me be brief – The Committee for Endowment Ethics and Responsibility exists to make sure that we’re not abusing our endowment, by, for example, investing in Sudan. Or maybe it’ll push the University to actually use its shares for Proxy Voting.
The Justice Editorial Board seems to think that CEER is going to try and advise the Board of Trustees on which hedge fund will give the best ROI. That’s simply wrong.
Look, Brandeis has a shameful history regarding its endowment . Students got the University to divest from South Africa, only to find out later that the Brandeis just re-invested right after.
We can’t depend on leaks from outraged faculty and staff. We need an independent panel conducting a review of the ethical implications of our endowment. CEER is the first step to that goal.
Man, that Justice editorial is farcical. How could they have published that without doing even the most basic research? That standard of journalism is so shoddy… Hopefully they will rescind the editorial and admit their buffoonery in the next issue; I couldn’t imagine ever taking them seriously in the future otherwise.