The best disinfectant

For an elite university, Duke received a pretty shocking grade this year. While Duke students toiled to earn A's in their classes, their University received a D in endowment transparency in the 2009 College Sustainability Report. Duke's poor ranking in this category is simply explained-no information on the endowment's holdings or proxy voting record are available to the public or the Duke community.

So why is a transparent endowment important? As members of the Duke community, we deserve to know how the University's money is being used. As the events of the past year have shown, no institution is immune to unsafe investment and secrecy provides no protection from the whims of the market. And, of course, there's the issue of ethics. We know Duke is voting with its wallet... the question is, what is it voting for? If Duke is invested in corporations that use sweatshop labor, contribute to global warming or practice discriminatory hiring, members of its community have the right to know.

The Duke Management Company, which oversees the investment of the University's endowment, explains that secrecy is necessary in order to maintain high returns. And Duke certainly does do that. Over the past 10 years Duke ranks second in the nation for overall investment return, behind Yale only. But is secrecy really the only way to receive high returns? Surely, no college with a large endowment could earn a healthy return on their investment while being open about their holdings. Not exactly. Take Dartmouth. In 2007, the Big Green reported a 21.6 percent increase of their endowment-compared to Duke's 25.6 percent-despite a policy of full disclosure of investment holdings and proxy voting records for shareholder resolutions. For three years running, the College Sustainability Report Card rewarded them with an A- overall, citing their endowment transparency and shareholder engagement as top in the nation.

Maybe it's time for Duke to start measuring up in this category. In 2004, Duke established the Advisory Committee on Investment Responsibility after students demanded that Duke divest from a variety of sources, including Big Tobacco and Sudan. However, the ACIR process is long and difficult to navigate, as if it were intended to discourage students from questioning the endowment's holdings. It took two years after Harvard and other schools divested from Sudan for Duke to follow suit. And this is only a minor problem compared to the fact that without endowment transparency, students don't even know what to ask ACIR to review.

Students pride themselves on the Community Standard. Our university should follow a similar standard of "honesty, fairness, respect and accountability." After the Aramark and RLHS budget scandals, we know that a lack of transparency can cause serious issues for the Duke community. They say sunlight is the best disinfectant, so let us open the endowment to public view and shed some sunlight on the darkest corners of our deepest pockets.

Ben Bergmann, Trinity '11, is the president of Duke Democrats. Yishan Cheng, Trinity '10, is the president of the Environmental Alliance. Benjamin Douglas, Law '10, is a co-chairs of Duke Against War. Alex Michalko, Fuqua '10 and Nicholas '10, is the president of the Duke University Greening Initiative. Alex Robel is a Trinity junior. Aaron Sandel, Trinity '10, is the president of Duke Students for the Protection of Animals. Var Shankar, Trinity '10, is the president of Duke Moot Court. Kevin Song, Trinity '11, is the president of Blue Devils United. Gregg Tourville, Trinity '11, is the president of Students for a Democratic Society. Andrew Zonderman Trinity '10, is the president of Duke Students Against Sweatshops. More information can be found at www.dukeendowmenttransparency.info.