Dive Brief:
- Columbia University trustees voted this week to divest from the private prison industry and ban future investment in companies that operate prisons.
- According to a press release from student organizers who had been pushing the issues since February 2014, Columbia had about $10 million invested in two major prison companies, Corrections Corp. of America and G4S, a British company. The school still has shares in G4S.
- The Huffington Post reports Columbia University trustees announced their divestment as part of the wider discussion about mass incarceration, and areconsidering divesting from fossil fuel companies as a stand against global warming.
Dive Insight:
The student organizers at Columbia point to more than a dozen prison divestment campaigns at colleges and universities across the country. While Columbia is the first major university to divest from such companies, the United Methodist Church divested from Corrections Corp. of America and GEO Group, another major prison company. The Gates Foundation has also divested from G4S.
Higher education institutions are regularly lobbied by students and other stakeholders to cut ties with industries or oppressive governments. Syracuse University divested entirely from fossil fuels earlier this year, following student protests. But then there is Swarthmore College, which announced it would not divest from fossil fuels, standing by its prioritization of financial gains over social objectives.