If Harvard’s Endowment is Ethically Invested, It Should Show Us the Receipts

Harvard likes to claim it can’t choose sides. But by opting for secrecy, it already has.

At the beginning of October, University President Alan M. Garber ’76 rejected Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine’s proposal to review the University’s investments for ties to human rights abuses.

Instead of overtly calling for divestment, the proposal advocated for a “human rights investment policy statement” and a task force to audit the Harvard Management Company’s portfolio. And yet, Garber refused. Regardless of one’s position on divestment from Israel, establishing mechanisms to investigate whether the University’s endowment is complicit in human rights abuses is common sense.

HOOP’s proposed measures focus on accountability and transparency. Of course, there are legitimate obstacles to complete disclosure — some of Harvard’s investments are externally managed. But disclosure need not be absolute. A report providing credible insight into the endowment— a breakdown of the investments by region and sector — would be a good first step.

Nevertheless, Garber’s approach is at odds with the University’s own previous ethical investment policies.

In 2014, The University committed to the United Nations-supported Principles for Responsible Investment, a pledge to consider environmental and social issues in financial decision making. And in their 2023 PRI filing, the Harvard Management Corporation named Environmental, Social, and Governance goals as one of the three pillars of its supposedly “sustainable” investment approach.

If disclosure reveals investment in firms with direct ties to human rights violations, divestment seems like the moral next step — not to mention the natural response to the University’s ESG commitments.

Such an approach wouldn’t be a radical departure from precedent. In 2005, Harvard divested from certain companies, citing “deep concerns” over complicity in the Darfur genocide. Similar decisions were made for investments in fossil fuels, the tobacco industry, and South African apartheid.

The University’s defense of its position, oddly enough, hinges on neutrality. In an email to HOOP organizers, Garber wrote that the University “will not use its endowment funds to endorse a contested view on a complex issue that deeply divides our community.”

Harvard’s past choices to divest acknowledged a fundamental truth that Garber seems to miss: Investment is never neutral. To remain invested in entities violating human rights is a contested and overtly political stance that fails to align with Harvard’s own stated values.

It’s admittedly impossible to maintain total neutrality when investing billions of endowment dollars. But some investments are certainly less controversial than others — think agriculture versus weapons manufacturing.

By minimizing entanglement in morally dubious industries, divestment can be used as a tool to keep Harvard neutral, rather than embroiling it in “complex issues.”

While HOOP’s political agenda is apparent, their proposal provides an opportunity to create a universal human rights standard to evaluate all the University’s investments — not just those in Israel.

So, Garber, drop the pretense. It’s time to pull back the curtain on the endowment.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

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