Demand an Ethical Investment Policy
Where to email
Click Here or look at our example letters below:
Or address an email like this:
To: iuf@iu.edu
CC: bdot@iu.edu
Subject: Divest from human rights abusers
What to say
It should include:
- These Specifics
- IU Foundation should add a clause to its investment policy prohibiting investment in companies and countries that violate human rights.
- IU Foundation must disclose their investments to be transparent and accountable to their community
- Your perspective
- You could identify a value that you hold that IU’s investments in apartheid conflicts with
- You can talk about something you’ve learned at IU, and how it contradicts IU’s support for Israel and other human rights abusers
If you don’t know where to start you can read some of our example letters or read more background information on why we’re calling for this policy
Background
The Indiana University Foundation runs a large investment fund or endowment that it uses to fund university activities. The Foundation is tasked with managing assets so that they will get a certain level of financial returns. That way, the fund can pay out some small percentage of the entire fund without reducing the size of the endowment. In 2024, IUF managed an endowment of over $3.5 billion and disbursed over $194 million to fund university operations.
Universities around the country have relied more and more on financialization to fund themselves. As state and federal commitments to funding higher education weaken, Universities turn to other sources of income. At the same time that tuition and housing costs have increased faster than inflation, Universities have also come to rely heavily on attracting more gifts and investment in their endowments to keep their budgets balanced. In recent years, the total size of university endowments has ballooned rapidly, representing an ever increasing structural driver of investment in global capital markets.
University endowment investments are some of the most coveted sources of funding for all sorts of ventures. Endowments are different from other investors because they have very long term investing goals. They need to get a consistent high return every year so they can spend from the income and grow more. As such, they pursue diverse investment strategies. Endowments buy everything including public stock, private companies, real estate, and even more exotic custom strategies. The sheer amount of capital these funds mobilize have a profound impact on financial markets. Essentially, endowments put massive amounts of money into circulation. Fund managers have to work hard to find a place to invest it all for an acceptable return. They even have facilitated the creation of entirely new systems for investing in innovation like venture capital.
Israel’s occupation is fueled by its access to capital. While the US’s military aid is a crucial factor in allowing the Israeli Occupation Force to kill with impunity, Israel also depends on having an advanced highly capitalized economy to prop up the military. Israeli companies rely on American investment. Venture Capital, which already exists mostly to allow institutional funds like universities to diversify their investments, has played a large role in developing Israel’s military and occupation tech sector. Israel’s reputation as a “startup nation” is highly warranted.
Israel also relies on international bond markets to borrow money, especially in times of war. Israel’s debt to GDP ratio surged from 60% to 69% between 2023 and 2024. Sustaining Israel’s genocidal wars requires massive increases in spending while its economic output decreases. The only redeeming factor helping suppress borrowing costs is continued demand for Israeli bonds. Israel’s ability to finance their military mobilizations makes a huge difference in how long and in how many other countries they are willing to fight. IUDC has obtained documents from information requests showing that the IU Foundation buys Israeli bonds as part of its strategy. They likely invest in many other parts of the Israeli war machine, but they don’t disclose their investments to the public.
At IU, there are no ethical safeguards for how IUF disposes of its billions. On its website, IUF proclaims that it “prohibits discrimination, forbids harassment on any basis, and fosters a climate of respect, equity, and access.” Hopefully it achieves those aspirations inside its offices. But what does that mean for its investment policies? Can IU invest in companies that build tech to surveil Palestinians? Can IU invest in companies that build an apartheid system? Can IU invest in a states that dehumanize and kill thousands of people it occupies? The answer is yes, definitely.
Investment at IU is governed by its investment policy. The policy outlines various technical matters about how the university classifies and manages its money. IUF also has an ethics policy. Neither document even considers that investments can have ethical content. Human rights are not mentioned. Ethics is boiled down things like not embezzling and not investing corruptly. But given the crucial role that IUF plays as an institutional investor, this can’t be enough. Until now, IU has excused itself from the burdens of transparency and accountability for the projects that they fund.
Dodging accountability is surprising given IU’s history with divestment movements. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, IU students, faculty and community members recognized the appalling crime of Apartheid in South Africa and called on IU to divest. After sustained pressure, including an extended encampment in Dunn Meadow, IUF began reviewing its investments in companies and countries that sustained South Africa’s rogue project. In 1985, the Board of Trustees made a telling amendment to their investment policy.
The primary responsibility of the Board and its Investment Committee in investing and managing the University’s endowment securities is to maximize the financial return on those resources consistent with prudent risk considerations. … If a security is selected by the investment adviser which satisfies the University’s basic investment criteria and is also an investment in a corporation or other entity which does business in South Africa, such investment shall be subject also to the provisions of this policy statement, as follows:
1. The Board shall distribute this policy statement, making clear that Indiana University condemns apartheid and requesting that each Subject Corporation report in writing:
(a) whether it has subscribed to and follows the Sullivan Statement of Principles (4th Amplification) or its equivalent (and, if an “equivalent,” specifying which);
(b) to what extent and how it provides goods or services for use in the military or police forces of South Africa;
(c) to what extent and how it loans funds to the Republic of South Africa;
(d) the percentage of its total revenues derived from operations in South Africa
(continues) …
The divestment movement didn’t stop there. Over time, IU students made the case that such measures were not sufficient. IU wound the size of its direct investments down from over $5 million to around $900,000 by the year 1990. That same year, The Board of Trustees updated their policy to acknowledge some degree of moral responsibility for their investments in pooled mutual funds.
Indirect investments are those investments such as mutual funds or other commingled funds which are a group of stocks in which we may invest from time to time. By their nature we exercise no control over such funds; however, the criteria for selection of a fund will include its position relative to its investments in corporations which have business operations in South Africa.
The Board of Trustees chose to revoke these policies in 2013 in light of the end of Apartheid removing the reason for the policy. Thus, the IU Foundation considering opposition to apartheid in its investment decisions has a celebrated history.
The genocide and apartheid in Palestine are emergencies that demand action. IUDC identifies the IU Foundation as contributing materially to the ongoing sustainability of Israel’s occupation and slaughter to an even greater degree than the funding of apartheid South Africa. Our goal in 2025 is to make sure the community’s voice is heard just as loudly. We call on the IU Foundation to add a clause to its investment policy prohibiting investment in companies and countries that violate human rights. This clause would force the foundation to make a determination about each of its investments. If a company furthers settlements in the West Bank for example, the public will be able to hold IUF accountable for investing in it for the first time.
Our strategy is to make sure all decision-makers hear from so many of us that they can’t plead ignorance. We want to send thousands of emails, each from different community members and organizations. Speaking as one voice, we can put the ball in their court- to explain why investing in rights abusers is so important that they won’t act.