Last spring, with the support of concerned alumni like us, Middlebury students made their fourth major attempt since 1970 to persuade the college that its institutional investing should reflect concerns about issues such as peace, human rights, environmental justice and corporate social responsibility.
Unsurprisingly, Middlebury’s Board of Trustees did not agree. We were glad to see, however, that proponents of divestment related to the ongoing war in Gaza resolved to continue their fight because, as one organizer said, “We are in it for the long run.”
That long-term perspective is exactly what’s needed. Campaigning for institutional shareholder activism in U.S. higher education has always been a multi-generational marathon or relay race — never a one-year sprint. While divestment campaigns at Middlebury and other colleges have varied in focus, they have all been driven by ethical and moral concerns: to slow climate change, address racism or curb corporate malfeasance.
We can speak from personal experience about these efforts because of our past involvement in organizing movements related to the college’s investments. Over the past 50 years, a common denominator of these recurring efforts has been initial resistance from Middlebury trustees.
If divestment opponents think this rebuff of reasonable student, faculty and alumni demands will deter future controversies, they are mistaken. The last five decades of divestment debates at Middlebury have inspired much lifelong activism and political engagement. Veterans of past campus campaigns are still questioning and challenging companies whose pursuit of enormous profits endangers workers, consumers, the environment and military conflict resolution.
In 1970–71, we helped rally student and faculty support for a pioneering attempt to make General Motors — then the nation’s largest corporation — more socially responsible. As consumer advocate Ralph Nader recently recalled, this “Campaign GM” had three common-sense goals: “get GM to produce safer cars, less polluting cars, and more fuel-efficient cars.”
Institutional investors such as Middlebury were also asked to vote in favor of expanding the auto maker’s board to include representatives of the public. Felix Rohatyn ’49, a nationally known investment banker and governor of the New York Stock Exchange, led the Board of Trustees in opposition to this idea.
As reported by The Campus in 1972, Rohatyn ridiculed the idea that reform-oriented proxy contests and shareholder activism at annual meetings could ever be effective.
In a debate with students about Campaign GM, he argued that investors with a conscience should find firms that were already “good corporate citizens” and buy their so-called “clean stocks.” He did not consider Middlebury to be among those conscientious investors.
While this Nader initiative did not succeed, colleges and universities, religious organizations, and public employee pension funds faced growing pressure to rid their portfolios of stocks that made them complicit with government or corporate misbehavior, at home and abroad.
For example, in the mid-1980s, Middlebury was one of 155 educational institutions urged to divest from companies with holdings in South Africa. After protest encampments sprung up around the country, the college joined many other colleges and universities in doing so. This and other forms of pressure helped South Africa’s Black majority finally end the violent, racist and oppressive system of white minority rule known as apartheid.
With these precedents in mind, the environmental group 350.org — born at Middlebury in 2008 — became part of another on-going divestment effort aimed at fossil fuel companies. Since then, foes of “Big Oil” have raised substantial public awareness of the industry’s negative impact on the environment and the related dangers of climate change and greenhouse gas pollution. Left unchecked, fossil fuel use will destabilize world civilization within the lifetimes of today’s college students.
A student-led fossil fuel divestment campaign by the Sunday Night Environmental Group (SNEG) and Divest Middlebury — with support from alums, 350.org and 350Vermont — was initially met with strong resistance from the administration and trustees. In 2013, the trustees rejected their divestment proposal.
But with leadership from then-President Laurie Patton and a new push by students, the trustees reversed their decision. In early 2019, as part of Energy 2028, the board unanimously voted to divest from virtually all fossil fuels.
This ongoing 15-year process affected $55 million worth of corporate stock holdings, in an endowment of nearly $1.6 billion as of last June. Globally, the wildly successful international divestment campaign has been embraced, in some form, by 1,600 entities with assets totaling over $40 trillion.
When the banner of divestment was raised again last spring, by students protesting the U.S.-backed war in Gaza, their demands quickly gained the backing of a Student Government Association (SGA) referendum and alumni support, via an online petition that we and over 1000 other former students signed. Middlebury’s anti-war encampment eventually disbanded, in exemplary fashion, with an agreement that set the stage for follow-up discussions between students and trustees last summer and fall.
Yet those talks deadlocked this fall over the feasibility and desirability of severing Middlebury’s financial ties to military contractors aiding a continuing war in the Middle East. “The college announced that it would not be taking any actions towards divestment from war profiteering, claiming it only maintains minimal investments in companies suggested for a review,” The Campus reported.
Since President Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, threats to our political democracy have become very real in Washington, D.C. It’s a good time to remember what kind of organizing work, over the long haul, will be necessary to counter the greatly expanded influence of big money in politics and policymaking.
Corporate misconduct, which adversely affects millions of Americans, will increase, not decline, as federal agencies designed to protect citizens from harm are hobbled or dismantled by the Trump administration.
Americans opposed to this deregulatory agenda will not just be a mounting court challenges and grassroots protests directed at those currently running the federal government. If they have a campus, community, labor or religious organization connection to institutional investing, they are busy scrutinizing portfolios to identify firms and entire industries receiving the green light to engage in socially irresponsible behavior, with fewer legal constraints than before.
So look for more, not less, campaigning for socially responsible investing as one of many ways that we can make our voices heard in the Trump era.
Steve Early was an editor of The Campus, a student government officer, and campaigner against the Vietnam War while at Middlebury. He later went to law school and became a union organizer and contract negotiator, labor journalist and, more recently, author of five books about labor, politics and veterans’ affairs.
Greg Dennis was also an editor of The Campus editor and student activist against the Vietnam War. He has written about environmental issues for over 50 years and has been actively involved in the climate movement since its inception. The co-authors can be reached at Lsupport@aol.com.
