On the same day that the Yale Daily News touted the superior performance of Yale’s investment portfolio over Harvard’s —” Yale still lags behind in absolute dollars, but its endowment increased by a higher percentage than Harvard’s this year —” more than 100 members of the Yale and New Haven communities came together for a fire-breathing news conference to denounce some of those very investments.
Members of GESO, the organization pushing for union recognition for graduate students and teachers at Yale, studied the university’s portfolio. They found that Yale, through its investment manager, has invested $1.5 million in Corrections Corporation of America, the biggest private prison company in the U.S. (Click here to read the research report.)
Speakers highlighted abuses committed at CCA prisons, and the fact that as a for-profit company, its bottom line grows as its prisoner population increases.
Barbara Fair of the New Haven area prison reform group, People Against Injustice said, “I hear so much about Yale saying they’re invested in our community, they want to be good neighbors, and then when I hear that, behind the scenes, they’re invested in the prison industry, I’m very discouraged about that, because the prison industry is devastating our community —” it’s taking the lives of our kids.”
Roger Vann, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut, spoke as a veteran anti-apartheid activist —” and personally as a father.
“America’s criminal justice system and the prison industrial complex are the new apartheid,” Vann said, “and just as Yale’s past investments in South Africa were wrong, their investments in CCA are wrong as well, and they need to divest.” He added, “As the father of two black boys, I obviously would choose Yale over jail [for them] any day. But based on the report released by GESO today, it appears that Yale’s bottom line could get a boost, if my boys ended up in either place.”
The report calls for Yale to divest of CCA stock and invest the $1.5 million in education and other programs to serve New Haven youth. Yale spokesman Tom Conroy said that was a leap in logic, and defended the university’s investment rationale —” which is to make as much money as possible. “Yale has a superb investment team that has a great deal of expertise, and chooses professional and responsible outside investment managers,” he said. “Any investment that Yale makes is made in an ethical and careful manner. There are always going to be investments that somebody objects to, but that doesn’t mean they are improper investments or that Yale did anything inappropriate in making those investments.”