Never mind the moral and intellectual collapse of American universities, as testified to by the widespread appearance of pro-Hamas and anti-Israel marchers on campuses across the land. Never mind the idiocy of these universities’ fixations on race, gender, and sexual orientation, their manic obsession with furthering Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (for evidence of this, look at the series of postings entitled “The Graves of Academe” at this site). No, let’s just focus on the financial degringolade that lies in wait for any university that promises to enforce a policy of BDS. More on this can be found here.
Colleges and universities will lose tens of billions of dollars collectively from their endowments if they capitulate to demands to divest from Israel and companies that do business with it, according to a new report released on Thursday by JLens, a Jewish investor network…
Titled “The Impact of Israel Divestment on Equity Portfolios: Forecasting BDS’s Financial Toll on University Endowments,” the report presents the potential financial impact of universities adopting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as a step toward its eventual elimination….
“Our research demonstrates that university endowments that divest from Israel could face significant financial consequences,” JLens managing director Ari Hoffnung said in a statement. “Lower investment returns could compromise a university’s ability to provide scholarships, fund research, and invest in campus facilities.”
The numbers are harrowing. Adopting BDS, according to the report, would incinerate $33.21 billion of future returns for the 100 largest university endowments over the next 10 years, with Harvard University losing $2.5 billion and the University of Texas losing $2.2 billion. Other schools would forfeit over $1 billion, including the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford University, and Princeton University. For others, such as the University of Michigan and Dartmouth College, the damages would total in the hundreds of millions.
“This groundbreaking report approached the morally problematic BDS movement from an entirely new direction — its negative impact on portfolio returns,” New York University adjunct professor Michael Lustig said in a statement extolling the report. “JLens has done a great job in quantifying the financial effects of implementing the suggestions of this pernicious movement, and importantly, they ‘show their work’ by providing full transparency into their methodology, and properly caveat the points where assumptions must necessarily be made. This report will prove to be an important tool in helping to fight noxious BDS advocacy.”…
“Additionally, the landscape of companies doing business in Israel is vast and ever-changing, making it challenging to compile a definitive list of BDS targets and that does not become quickly outdated,” JLens explained. “The list of potential BDS targets can expand at any time due to evolving geopolitical events and misguided activists campaigns. This dynamic nature of BDS targeting was exemplified during the editing phase of this research report, when BDS proponents expanded their calls for boycotts and divestments to include major corporations like Coca-Cola … this recent addition underscores the fluid nature of BDS campaigns and the potential for rapid shifts in targeted companies.”…
As The Algemeiner has previously reported, Brown University’s Corporation of trustees will soon vote on a divestment proposal based on the demands of a group which calls itself the Brown Divest Coalition (BDC). According to The Brown Daily Herald, Brown president Christina Paxson initially only promised the protesters a meeting with members of the Brown Corporation, but the students pushed for more concessions and ultimately coaxed her into making divestment a real possibility.
JLens says in its report that Brown would lose $309 million dollars if it chooses to accept the investment advice of its undergraduates. The mere possibility of it is already causing damage. Earlier this month, a trustee of the Brown Corporation, Joseph Edelman, resigned from his position, citing the upcoming vote….
Appeals to logic, to decency, to common senses, to history — none of those mean much in the Thoroughly Modern American University. But endowments — cash, stocks, bonds, cryptocurrencies, real estate, Old Master paintings, you name it — that’s what universities live and die for. So think about that, university presidents and trustees, before you make the wrong decision, by endorsing BDS, and lose hundreds of millions of dollars, or even billions, as a result.
SC says
As ye sow, so shall ye reap, or in this case not reap.
FYI says
I prefer to invest in Israel.
Lets’s face it,they are the tech guys/gals…as they have amply demonstrated
Note for Lefty pro BDS{Which i call BS}
Does that include all the Arab israelis who are happy with living in Israel?
You wouldn’t want to exclude anybody would you,in this great celebration of diversity which is amazingly exclusionary..?
Go on:get your swastikas-sorry pally flags ,the keffiyehs,your placards..and rush to the protest quick
“Geno-cide,Geno -cide,let’s go march the sun’s outside yaay”
Kosh's Shadow says
As a grad student alum from one of these (and I didn’t leave in the best of terms), I wish I had a lot of money to give to the school – only to tell them the very fact they are considering BDS instead of educating students the truth about Israel, the won’t get a [expletive] cent.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
The universities should lose those billions of 💸. In the meantime, the next US administration – assuming it’s not Kamala – should just curtail the number of F1 visas, particularly for Liberal Arts students coming here, and prioritize STEM only. That way, the universities will be squeezed even more. End state and federal funding to such schools, and most of their woke staff can start exploring tent cities in San Francisco
Mike says
The BDS campaign is, for the most part, self-righteous, virtue-signalling bullshit. If one really wanted to boycott Israel honestly, then one would have to completely give up computers and smartphones, since those devices contains many components with Israeli roots.
If one wants to go further and boycott everything that has Jewish origins or ownership, then one wouldn’t really be able to live. There are so many inventions, medicines, entertainment products and other things which were invented and/or developed by Jewish people.
Even the pager was invented many decades ago by a Jewish man named Al Gross.
somehistory says
Back in 1993, the FBI recorded a meeting held in PA, where nihad awad and some other mb members (in the U.S., they are hamas), talked about, planned how they would infiltrate “academia” and other institutions…like Congress…Enter i elmi, an r tlaib. ellison and carson.
nihad awad….the executive director of cair…was never charged in the ‘holy-land foundation’ trial. He is the one so “happy” about last Oct. 7.
hamas, a.k.a cair….is busy in the halls of “academia.” No one who actually “cares,” would support universities and colleges where hamas has such a stranglehold.
tgusa says
There is a lot of discrimination within the DIE movement. Up is down. Right is wrong. Dogs are cats.
These people are not at all original. The Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses began on April 1 1933. The left loves to label all who disagree with their cult as nazis while at the same time the left embraces quite a bit of what the nazis embraced.
The left will say, you all are nazis, you know. However, overlook and disregard our extremely nazi like behavior. Personally I think the left is a conglomeration of every rotten sob that came before them. A stinking mixed bag of a-holes the left are.
terry says
Beautiful! May it cost them even more! These pseudo -intellectual, anti-intellectual, and antichrist bastions of sub-par knowledge and academics, deserve to lose all funding, grants, endowments, and support! Maybe then these 10,000 times inflated tuitions, book costs, and fees would be brought down to reasonable cost’s- and forced to teach the branches of knowledge! Not agendas, falsehoods, or lies.
John Pepple says
Are those pushing for divestment willing to donate their own money for any losses? I bet not.
Namer says
Maybe its a good thing for the colleges and Universities to lose these tens of billions in endowments. It will bring them back to reality (maybe).
Jerome from Layton says
Some details of the analysis would be interesting. Under BDS, what companies would be sold? Possibly Lockheed? Then, who would be bought to replace the sales? This activity reminds me of the ESG concept that intends to starve petroleum and coal companies while promoting “green” energy and socialist government. ROI goes down in those portfolios, too.