Campus protesters are using publicly available data to identify investments with ties to conflicts and urging schools to divest from them. By examining securities filings like 13 F filings, they can see where college endowments are invested in public stocks such as Amazon and Google. The protesters aim to influence schools to divest from companies with contracts related to conflicts, in this case, the war between Hamas and Israel. However, it is noted that the information students can access in these filings represents only a fraction of the schools' complete investment portfolio.
Protestors at universities across the country have been demanding that their institutions divest from companies that are tied to Israel or the war in Gaza, a demand universities have long rejected as antisemitic.
On today’s Big Take podcast, Sarah Holder talks to Bloomberg higher education reporter Janet Lorin and California reporter Eliyahu Kamisher about what’s really inside endowment funds and why universities are unlikely to yield to the calls of disclose and divest.
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