Hampshire College did not divest from Israel related companies:
Hampshire College has made a strenuous, good-faith effort to explain its decision to exit a problematic mutual fund. We make this effort again, without equivocation: Israel was not the cause for divestment from the State Street fund. As you know, last spring, the student group SJP, which is sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, petitioned, as is its right, the community-based subcommittee (CHOIR) on responsible investing, which is a subcommittee of the investment committee, in turn itself a subcommittee of the finance committee of the board, asking that the college exit from one particular fund, State Street SSgA. The group claimed that six companies in the fund were supporting or profiting from Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories. The companies were said to be Caterpillar, General Electric, ITT, Motorola, Terex and United Technologies. CHOIR passed a recommendation concerning these companies to the investment committee, in accordance with the board’s procedures.
The investment committee, however, expressly rejected this narrow focus, and instead sought to apply our own socially responsible investment policies. This cursory review suggested multiple problems — none of them having to do with Israel — in the fund, and also revealed the implementation inadequacies of the policy. The committee then turned to an outside, independent reviewer, KLD Research & Analytics, the gold standard for socially responsible investment screening, to look closely into the fund’s components. KLD’s review vetted companies for several possible red flags, including employment discrimination, environmental abuse, military weapons manufacturing, unsafe workplace settings, and dealings with Burma or Sudan. Twenty-three equities were found to violate the military weapons screen; four dealt with Burma and three with Sudan; 70 were involved in significant employment discrimination controversies; 28 were found to exhibit poor environmental performance; and 197 were cited for employee safety issues. Some companies appeared