U of T’s University Affairs Board voted down a proposed change to the university’s policy for ridding its portfolio of unethical investments on Tuesday, Nov. 6. The revision would have put decisions in the hands of an advisory committee of presidential appointees. Currently, such decisions come from a committee of Governing Council members, drawn from each of its fi ve constituencies.
Student groups who have pushed for divestment expressed frustration at the proposed policy.
“The changes that they wanted to make did not address any of our concerns, they make things even worse,” said Kenneth Lee, co-president of Students Taking Action Now: Darfur.
STAND’s May 2007 divestment proposal asked the university to adopt policies banning investments with companies linked to the Darfur genocide, naming two companies—Total SA and Alcatel—operating in Darfur. According to Catherine Riggall, VP business affairs the advisory committee decided that these companies did not “meet the threshold for divestment.” U of T invests $6.5 and $5.6 million respectively in Alcatel and Total SA.
“I think we need to be careful about setting up pre-screening devices,” said Rigall. According to her, pre-screening stocks is a costly process. Keeping tobacco stocks out of U of T’s portfolio costs the university $20,000 a year.
Thomas Felix, co-chair of the Committee on Responsible Investment at U of T, also expressed disappointment with the proposal in an address to the UAB.
CRI-UT represents the University of Toronto Students’ Union, the Graduate Students’ Union and the Scarborough Campus Students’ Union, as well as the part-time and full-time employees’ unions and several student groups working for responsible investment.
“[The proposed committee] would be run solely by the president, which doesn’t seem like an adequate way of looking at stakeholder interests,” said Felix. Under the proposed system, GC would not have oversight of divestment decisions.
The University of Toronto Asset Management Corporation oversees U of T’s billions’ worth of stocks and holdings.
For divestment to take place, U of T’s Policy on Social and Political Issues with Respect to University Investments currently requires a petition with at least 300 signatures, to be reviewed by a five-person committee of governors before the university’s president approves or rejects the proposal.
Since its adoption in 1978, the university has made at least two notable divestments—from companies participating in the South African apartheid in 1988, and last year, from companies that profit from tobacco following action from E-butt, a campus tobacco control group.
The proposed changes also indicated that investments by UTAM should avoid very high risks while still aiming to maximize profits.
“Despite the fact that we have been continually trying to say that we would like to collaborate on the issue,” said Felix, “they seem resistant to any sort of move outside that which was created in 1978.”
In a May 30 letter, U of T president David Naylor expressed his intention of reviewing the policy and said no further petitions would be accepted until the new system was in place. STAND had already sent out its petition by this date, so the Darfur stock issue was still considered.
