By Farrah Moos
If money talks, then we need to tell it what to say.
The recent New York Times article “UC Proxy Voting Skirts Review Guidelines, Documents Show” should sound the alarm for students and other stakeholders. Research confirmed that companies hired by the Treasurer’s Office of the UC Board of Regents voted hundreds of times against shareholder resolutions that promote the social and environmental advancement that students in the University of California have historically fought for and led.
With a more than $65 billion portfolio, a greater amount than the annual gross domestic products of many countries, the university’s stances on shareholder resolutions clearly speak for us as UC students, faculty, staff and taxpayers.
Because we are silent, the UC is able, through its investment power, to resoundingly endorse company policies that harm human rights, hurt the environment and protect shameful corporate practices.
While it may be impossible to scrutinize the specific activities of every company the UC invests in, proxy voting presents the unique opportunity for us to assert our collective social values and use our position as shareholders to encourage corporations to reduce financial risk, protect the environment and honor human rights.
In other words, we can and must vote in accordance with the social consciousness that is consistent with our mission.
Demanding a change in proxy voting practice is not only necessary but well within our rights as students. The New York Times article includes a quote from Thomas Joo, a professor of law at UC Davis, who argues that the financial security interests of retirement beneficiaries outweigh social responsibility. I would argue that this demonstrates a near-sighted vision and interpretation of investment.
As an investor, one looks to manage risk. By encouraging the companies we invest in to adopt policies that take into account factors such as global warming and sustainability, we guide them to manage risk and enhance their future endeavors.
“The beneficiaries,” or faculty and staff, of the retirement fund will in fact find their pension more financially secure in the long-term.
Furthermore, it seems that we are at odds with our own UC employees who are teaching, researching and working in service of the many positive social causes that lead us to a more just world.
Exercising our proxy voting power in a socially conscious way must be supported by UC employees on both moral and financial grounds. As students, we must raise our voices to advocate for such change.
Our fees go into the retirement pool each year and as students, we cannot allow routine business in the Treasurer’s Office and corporate profit motive to control our futures. It’s bad enough the banks have failed us so horribly. Why should we let the UC do the same?
The university’s proxy voting policies and actions reflect on us and on the people of California. We cannot let our efforts be invalidated and undermined through the negligence of the regents to adhere to their own proxy voting guidelines and be asleep at the switch. We must demand the regents pay attention to this issue, especially as they raise our fees to help pay for this issue.
As a member of UC for Responsible Investments, I urge you to raise your voice. Write a letter demanding the regents adopt a Committee on Investor Responsibility and advocate that students be added to the Committee on Investments, where we will keep an eye on the Treasurer’s Office and the practices that caused so much pain on Main Street.
Moos is a third-year student at UC Berkeley and a member of UC for Responsible Investments.