At their April 27 meeting last spring, the Board of Trustees Investment Committee, on the recommendation of the Students for Responsible Investing with the support of other activist student groups, voted ‘yes’ on a resolution put forth by Walmart shareholders that urged Walmart to add gender identity to its Statement of Equal Employment Opportunity. We, the Students for Responsible Investing, would like to take this opportunity to applaud the decision of the committee, as this is the first time the Investment Committee has agreed to vote on a shareholder resolution that our group has brought to their attention. Their vote on this issue not only shows a commitment to defending the rights of gender-variant individuals, but it is also an encouraging sign that the College’s core values and beliefs extend into our investment policies.

Our large endowment gives us the power to enact real social change as investors—our status as a mission-based institution forces upon us the responsibility to use this power. We hope that the College does not take this responsibility lightly and that the Investment Committee will continue to listen to the recommendations of Students for Responsible Investing in the future. If we do not do this, then we as an institution and as a community are not living up to our reputation or our promise to be a socially-just institution.

If you have any questions or would like to be involved in the process of choosing issues to present to the Trustees this year, please email [sri]. If you happen upon a Trustee in the near future or choose to write them a quick email or letter, please thank them so we can be sure they continue to act as socially responsible investors!

—Blake Kast ’10, Jared Rubinstein ’10, Kelly Bosworth ’10, Latona Giwa ’09, Jamie Fassett-Carman ’12, Dimitar Dimitrov ’12, Colleen Osborne ’13