POLITICAL ACTIVISTS SET their sights on Michigan State University last fall.
Their objective: Push the school and a handful of other institutional investors to divest from a Renaissance Technologies fund. The reason: The firm’s then co-chief executive officer, Robert Mercer, provided funding to “several white supremacist organizations like Breitbart,” according to an online petition.
The pressure was more intense than usual but still … manageable. MSU Chief Investment Officer Philip Zecher says he received a few dozen emails urging the $2.7 billion endowment to pull its $50 million investment from the quantitative fund. Students, alumni, and others posted on social media and started a petition at Change.org.
On Nov. 2, Mercer announced he would step down from his leadership role at Renaissance, saying in a letter to staff that he considered discrimination on the basis of race to be “abhorrent.” Less than two weeks after the campaign began, the push at MSU abruptly stopped.
RESOLVING DIVESTMENT CAMPAIGNS isn’t always going to be as easy. Calls continue for colleges to divest from fossil fuels and for pension funds to sell out of gun-related investments. After three members of the California State Teachers’ Retirement System were killed in the Las Vegas mass shooting in October, the state’s treasurer called for the pension system to divest from retailers and wholesalers that sell firearms and accessories such as bump stocks. And following the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that killed 17 in February, some Florida teachers were surprised to learn that their state retirement funds are invested in firearms makers. It’s only a matter of time before institutions will be asked to drop investments over other matters, such as opioids or debt in Puerto Rico.
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