[Update (9/12, 6:20 a.m.)]
Adalah-NY, an advocacy group pushing for TIAA-CREF to divest stock holdings in Africa-Israel Investments Ltd., a company involved in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, issued a news release overnight stating that TIAA-CREF had in fact already sold the stock in question.
The Adalah-NY statement said that TIAA-CREF had posted a report indicating that the stock had been sold "sometime in the last 10 days," while a letter demanding divestment was being circulated to TIAA-CREF participants.
"Adalah-NY did not recognize that this new report came online in the last days," the statement said. "Adalah-NY takes full responsibility for providing out-of-date information to those who signed the letter, who recruited colleagues to sign, and who spoke with the media about the letter."
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[The original article follows.]
About 50 current and retired professors with retirement funds managed by TIAA-CREF have signed a letter calling on the pension giant to divest itself of holdings in Africa-Israel Investments Ltd., an international group that has built in some of the controversial Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
The letter is part of a larger campaign by a New York-based group, Adalah-NY, against Africa-Israel Investments for what Adalah described as human-rights violations made possible by the investment group's activities, said Alexis Stern, a member of Adalah-NY.
But this afternoon a TIAA-CREF spokesman said the pension company "no longer owns shares in Africa-Israel Investments Ltd." The spokesman, Chad Peterson, said that, "earlier this year, the CREF Stock Account had an extremely small investment" in Africa-Israel, but the holding has since been sold.
Later this afternoon, TIAA-CREF posted a statement on its Web site reiterating Mr. Peterson's assertions and noting that the "small number of shares" of Africa-Israel have not been part of the CREF account since June 30, when they were dropped from an emerging-markets index that the account tracks.
Joel Beinin, a professor of modern Middle East history at Stanford University, said that TIAA-CREF had a history of choosing socially responsible investments, and that other retirement and pension funds in Europe had recently divested from Africa-Israel.
"It's not a clean company in general," said Mr. Beinin, referring to Africa-Israel Investments.
Ms. Stern said Adalah-NY had not yet received a formal response from TIAA-CREF, formally the Teachers Insurance Annuity Association-College Retirement Equities Fund. In all, 86 holders of TIAA-CREF accounts signed the letter.
Comments
1. drjoes56 - September 11, 2009 at 04:50 pm
Please allow the TIAA-CREF professionals to do their job - maximizing return on investment. If any member is unhappy, divest yourself and take your money to another retirement fund.
2. jahowland - September 11, 2009 at 06:16 pm
Israel is the only democracy in the middle East, and Israel conducts itself in war with greater attention to morality than any nation in the world. Is this group asking for TIAA-CREF to divest from Saudi Arabia--the country that provided us with most of the hijackers on 9/11, whose anniversary we memorialize today? Is this group asking TIAA-CREF to divest from Sweden, whose foreign minister recently threw fuel on the fire of an anti-semitic blood libel that took up two pages in Scanadanavia's largest newspaper? (The article claimed that Israeli soldiers kill Palestinians to harvest their organs.) Is this group asking TIAA-CREF to divest from Venezuela, a country whose government encourages anti-semitism, a country where Jews are attacked on the street, and where a leading rabbi fears there will be another Holocaust? If not, then SHAME ON YOU for singling out Israel. This is just another example of fashionable left-wing anti-semitism in the academy.
3. dkriebel - September 11, 2009 at 11:12 pm
I agree with the previous posts. Most academics don't have the luxury of advocacy investment--what precious little retirement money we do have needs to be maximized. TIAA-CREF is there to help us survive in retirement, not to use our money for pet causes that many of us do not share. To think that any of us have the right to play politics with our colleagues' money is the height of hubris. That is the real immorality here. And if TIAA-CREF ever yielded to such a petition, they would be violating their fiduciary responsibilities to all those who rely on them. That would be the time to divest--in TIAA-CREF.
4. fossil - September 11, 2009 at 11:21 pm
I note that professors tend to be self-righteous in inverse proportion to their thoughtfulness. This particular protest/demand provides another example.
5. mcleods - September 13, 2009 at 12:59 pm
The professors who signed the anti-Israel petition have flunked what George Gilder calls "the Israel Test" in his book by the same title (2009, Richard Vigilante Books). I highly recommend that these professors read Gilder's book--and then retake the test for a higher grade.
Stephen G. McLeod, Ed.D.
6. jonhaber - September 13, 2009 at 09:01 pm
Just an FYI, it looks like the TIAA-CREF (like the Hampshire divestment story from earlier this year) is actually a hoax.
Find out more at www.divestthis.com.
7. jaysanderson - September 22, 2009 at 02:10 pm
More excellent filling in of otherwise blank web space. This is a non-story. Of allllll the professors invested in TIAA-CREF, 50 self-righteous blowhards DEMAND that action be taken. Give us a break. I like Israel and I'll sign a petition saying so.