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Erika Na

Chinese companies that received investment from the endowment fund of a prominent American university will be investigated by the school’s in-house committee amid concerns about alleged human rights abuses in China.
The Yale Daily News, the Yale University student newspaper, reported on Wednesday that the committee would investigate whether the companies were suitable for such investment.
According to the report, university president Peter Salovey said that for a company to warrant divestment, it must be actively engaged in causing social injury.
According to the university’s website, the endowment fund is managed by the Yale Investment Office, which oversaw a US$42.3 billion portfolio as of June 30 last year.
It did not say how much had been invested in Chinese companies.
In its 2020 report, the investment office said it allocated 6.5 per cent of its portfolio to emerging markets.
Campus wars: how US-China strains played out at one US university
The decision is part of a broader backlash on American campuses over investing in China.
In August 2020, the US State Department asked American colleges and universities to divest their holdings of Chinese companies.
“The boards of your institution’s endowment funds have a moral obligation, and perhaps even a fiduciary duty, to ensure that your institution has clean investments and clean endowment funds,” Keith Krach, then undersecretary for economic growth, energy and the environment, wrote in a letter to the colleges.
Krach later said colleges and universities had been “really appreciative” and that the letter “was about the threat of authoritarianism from the Chinese Communist Party to academic freedom, to honouring human rights”.
Other colleges have also agreed to reassess their investment in China.
The Catholic University of America reportedly commissioned an independent audit of its endowment fund, after its student government passed a resolution in October calling on the university to either directly divest from “entities complicit in the repression of the Uygurs and procurement of benefit from their forced labour” or exercise its influence as an investor to “redirect companies from profiting from the genocide and forced labour”.
Earlier this month, US Representative Mike Gallagher said he was working on legislation that would “force American university endowments to either divest from China or give up the benefits they receive from the American taxpayer”.


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Yale University endowment fund to reassess investment in China

Yale University will reportedly take a fresh look at its endowment fund’s investment in China. Photo: Shutterstock

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(FILES) In this file photo taken on April 23, 2012 students walk across the campus of UCLA in Los Angeles, California. - Two Hollywood actresses including Oscar-nominated "Desperate Housewives" star Felicity Huffman are among 50 people indicted in a nationwide university admissions scam, court records unsealed in Boston onMarch 12, 2019 showed. The accused, who also include chief executives, allegedly cheated to get their children into elite schools, including Yale, Stanford, Georgetown and the University of Southern California, federal prosecutors said.Huffman, 56, and Lori Loughlin, 54, who starred in "Full House," are charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud. (Photo by KEVORK DJANSEZIAN / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / AFP)

graphic for online chinese students in america us issued f1 visas to mainland students ('000) 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 june 33.6 june 29.56 june 34 june 33.9 june (8 students) 2018 2019 2020 2021 methodology for calculating visa data changed in october 2019 to more accurately reflect visa application outcomes source: us bureau of consular affairs scmp

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Committee to look at whether investment directed to ‘suitable companies’, college newspaper reports
Recipient must be actively engaged in causing social injury to warrant withdrawal of funds, university president quoted as saying



Committee to look at whether investment directed to ‘suitable companies’, college newspaper reports.
