SPJP Marches to Demand Investment Transparency

At 12:40 p.m. on Tuesday, six students marched up to the Investment Office with a list of 40 companies they identified as ethically objectionable, demanding to know whether the College is or has invested in any of them before. Students for Peace and Justice in Palestine, or SPJP, who organized the initiative, researched companies that not only contribute to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, but also ones involved in fossil fuel, tobacco and arms production.

Suzanne Welsh, the Vice President for Finance and Treasurer of the College, was expecting the students, who greeted and immediately handed her the prepared list of companies.

Danny Hirschel-Burns ’14, member of SPJP, spearheaded the meeting, and told Welsh that SPJP, along with many other student organizations on campus, wanted to know if Swarthmore has invested in companies like Motorola, Caterpillar, Philip Morris USA, Wal-Mart and ExxonMobil — all of which are, in their view, implicated in human rights violations across the world in some way or another.

Swarthmore, however, does not disclose its investment portfolio except to the Committee on Investor Responsibility. Welsh explained that the College hires a firm to handle part of the endowment, which the firm in turn, invests.