Anita's Angle: The Endowment and the Journalists

Tufts students may have a reputation for being outspoken, but we’re not the only school whose student journalists have ascended to national prominence because of their opinions. Anthony Scaramucci’s cease-and-desist letter earlier this school year, intended to intimidate The Tufts Daily into retracting an unflattering opinion piece about him, created a stir both on campus and in national headlines.Princeton’s school newspaper tangled with right-wing media outlets over the restructuring of their editorial board.And last week at Yale, David Swensen, chief investment officer and one of the most acclaimed investors ever, got into a particularly nasty fight with the student-run Yale Daily News over the holdings of Yale’s $27 billion endowment.

The Yale Daily News (YDN) published an article covering an event critical of the endowment’s holdings. Students at the event criticized Yale’s investment in the Boston-based Baupost Group, a hedge fund that holds Puerto Rican debt.They also took issue with Yale’s fossil fuel holdings as well as alleged investments in the private prison industry. Swensen was incensed upon reading the article. In a heated email exchange with the student paper’s editor-in-chief, he submitted a letter to the editor in response, defending the endowment’s holdings. During the editing process, the situation escalated and Swensen used his position of power to intimidate the editor-in-chief, calling her a “coward,” her actions “disgusting” and asking if she understood “simple English.”Swensen alleged that the YDN had failed to do its due diligence on the endowment’s holdings and that the reporter who wrote the news article had not contacted the Investments Office for more information.Editor-in-chief Rachel Treisman fired back, pointing out that the reporter had indeed communicated with the Investments Office before authoring the piece. Treisman was courageous to uphold the newspaper’s commitment to rigorous fact-checking and not let Swensen’s power or title intimidate her.

Censorship continues to be an issue of national prominence, especially given the Trump administration’s hatred of the media and intimidation tactics against journalists. Debates about freedom of the press and the media’s role in a healthy democracy are being held on a stage for all to see, and students have a crucial role to play in this discourse. Student journalists must continue the crucial fight against institutional powers that wish to silence them. Last semester, The Tufts Daily’s managing board pointed out that this newspaper has a “proud history of speaking truth to power.”Leaders of student newspapers should keep this philosophy in mind when grappling with tough issues, as Treisman did.

But while Swensen’s words were reprehensible for a professional representing the university, the situation is not entirely black-and-white. Swensen was right to point out that the university does not actually have any holdings in private prison investments. The students protesting extrapolated this conclusion from seeing that the university holds funds managed by BlackRock and Vanguard but did not realize that Yale’s holdings through these funds are not even investing within the United States, let alone in U.S. private prison companies. Ultimately, there are two sides to every story, and both school administrations and student journalists should be mindful that facts and details always make for a more convincing argument than angry rhetoric.