The Harvard-To-Prison Pipeline Report

The Harvard Prison Divestment Campaign October 2019

The Harvard-To-Prison Pipeline

Acknowledgments Thanks to all the members who worked on the report, including: Jarrett Drake, Xitlalli Alvarez, Joanna Anyanwu, Anna Nathanson, Amanda Chan, Paul Clarke, Zoe Hopkins, Amber Ashley James, Ismail Buffins, Pat Tomaino, and Joe Pinto.

A huge thank you and shout out to Caroline Filice Smith for designing this A Report By beautiful report, especially in a time The Harvard crunch, and to Sarah Kantrowitz for her Prison Divestment design input and advice. We could not Campaign have created such a wonderful research October product without your time and talent. 2019 the harvard-to-prison pipeline report confinement, surveillance surveillance confinement, discipline and control of control and of discipline racialized, classed and and classed racialized, nation-state that relies, nation-state relies, that governance. That is, a That is, governance. and other systems of of systems other and punishment through through punishment popularly conceived conceived popularly as a punitive form of form of as apunitive The carceral state is state The carceral most often (though (though often most gendered subjects. subjects. gendered not exclusively) on exclusively) not 00 | 00 1 sectors, including but extending far extending includingbut sectors, these ineachof the businesses of fects We also highlight the devastating ef sectors. of in the avariety PIC across has holdings at of least $3millionworth demonstratesThis report that Harvard, What We Know divestment. of andurgency and elevate the efficacy tures onavailable based information, struc entanglementsfinancial with its the Harvard’s PIC, of outline and scope we take dive into a deep the definition and the carceral state. prisons of theorganizers, abolition seek carcerated incarcerated andpresently following formerly the guidance of in leaders who,students and community (PIC). We are agroup committed of toties the prison-industrial complex Harvard’s to sever that seeks financial paign is areparatory justice initiative The Harvard Prison Divestment Cam EXECUTIVE SUMMARY document. document. enumerate inthis and businesses we corporate entities holdings from the divest Harvard’s Company immediately Harvard Management We demand that the 1 In this report - - - - persons. for current andformerly incarcerated nation against andcreate opportunities Endorganizers, discrimi and scholars. formerlyemploy incarcerated people, andconcentrations)departments, that (e.g. institutes, centers, scholarships, academicprojects funded Develop lice. harms that on prisons do not rely and po ative ways to eliminate structural social initiative to research andteach cre 4 tral mass of incarceration. victims whocommunities have the cen been and and oversight to people accorded with mandates timed funds, of bution structure for the appropriate redistri Establish anaccountability complex. the prison-industrial by impacted rectly and Boston that di people are by led ganizations, andinitiatives inCambridge fundsdivested towards or companies, 3 thereafter. ency, prior to divestment andregularly in the interests transpar of community endowment holdings to the Harvard 2 on the prison-industrial complex. existence depends whose companies ment holdings in all funds with stock in 1 We Demand that Harvard: the prison-industrial complex. from to fully divest the university first show how Harvard canand must be privatebeyond prison operators. We Publicly andrelease disclose endow Launch a cross-school, campus-wide across-school, Launch Apportion a significant percentage of percentage of asignificant Apportion Provide anauthenticated of copy ------the harvard-to-prison pipeline report

Left A breakdown of the $3 million Harvard has invested in the prison- industrial complex. See Section 2.1.

$ 70,416 $ Weaponry

Transportation $ 1,222 $

$ 19,968 $ Probation

Telecoms $ 16,502 $

$ 24,528 $ Private Prison Operators Prison Private

Prison Labor Prison $ 13,164 $

Money Transfer Money $ 5,814 $

$ 24,440 $ Food and Commissary and Food

$ 31,010 $ Death Management Death

Construction $ 9,776 $

$ 863,723 $ Banks

Bail Bonds Bail $ 30,500 $

Analytics and Surveillance and Analytics $ 1,645,674 $ the harvard-to-prison pipeline report the harvard-to-prison pipeline report P.01 P.04 P.07 P.13 P.17 P.31 P.37 P.39 P.46 P.49 P.51 The Prison Industrial Complex Industrial The Prison harvard's legacy Sources from those impacted by harvard's investment in the prison-industrial complex The Efficacy of Divestment a time-tested form of political action divestmenta plan for repair and reinvestment Conclusion why abolition?why harvard, slavery, and eugenics The Numbers the $3 million invested in the prison-industrial complex industry profiles Human on the Reflections of Incarceration Costs a definition 01.1/ 01.2/ 01.3/ 06.1/ 05.1/ 04.1/ 04.2/ 04.3/ 03.1/ 02.1/ 02.2/ Contents 01 | FROM PRISONS TO ABOLITION

What is the Despite the popular misunderstand- Prison-Industrial Complex? ing, the prison-industrial complex does the harvard-to-prison pipeline report We follow educator and organiz- not only include private prison oper- er Rachel Herzing’s definition1 of the ators like CoreCivic, GEO Group, and prison-industrial complex as “the over- G4S. Rather, it encompasses a slew of lapping interests of government and state and non-state entities including industry that use surveillance, polic- federal, state, and local governments; ing, and imprisonment as solutions to weapons manufacturers; bail bonds- what are, in actuality, economic, social, men; analytics and surveillance and political ‘problems’.” In the US, it technology manufacturers; financiers; is a system that has ensnared almost pharmaceutical corporations; telecom- 2.3 million people2 in 1,719 state pris- munications companies; and police 1 Herzing, Rachel. "What Is ons, 109 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile and guard unions. Notably, the prison the PIC?" Prison Culture. correctional facilities, 3,163 local jails, industrial complex also includes actors Published October 12, 2010. and 80 Indian Country jails as well as involved in the persecution of migrants, in military prisons, immigration deten- including Immigration and Customs 2 Sawyer, Wendy, and Peter tion facilities, civil commitment centers, Enforcement, Customs Border Patrol, Wagner. “Mass Incarcera- state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons and the National Guard. tion: The Whole Pie 2019.” Mass Incarceration: The in the U.S. territories. It also holds an Whole Pie 2019 | Prison additional 4.5 million people under cor- Policy Initiative. Published March 19, 2019. rectional control on probation or parole.

1 follow the dollar (how harvard profits from, and relies upon, the prison-industrial complex)

Prisons a state government makes a contract with a private prison corporation to build and operate a prison

Contracts this prison contract then generates many more contracts with a slew of state and non- state entities, including:

bondsmen analytics companies surveillance tech manufacturers financiers weapons manufacturers pharmaceutical corporations telecommunications companies police and guard unions

Shareholders investors in these companies profit from rising stock values e.g. the Harvard Endowment.

Profits this money then gets used to finance Harvard’s operations, including:

campus buildings student events salaries stipends scholarships & more investments

1 "the best prison is the one that doesn't exist."

- Jarrett M. Drake

3 Why Abolition?1 01.2/ a vision for a just future

The Harvard Prison Divestment Cam- reliant on prisons to stimulate its broken 1 paign is an abolitionist group seeking economy, create jobs, and superficial- Kushner, Rachel. “Is Prison to rid the world of cages and police. ly address social problems. Powerful Necessary? Ruth Wilson Gilmore Might Change Though abolishing the prison-industrial governments breathe out prisons and Your Mind.” The New York complex will not happen overnight, a powerful actors, like the President and Times, April 17, 2019.

world without prisons is possible. But Fellows of Harvard, breathe in profits— 2 in order to manifest this world, we must all at the expense of Black, brown, and Prison Culture. “Prison Culture Transformative first end our culture of punishment and poor people. Justice.” Prison Culture.

violence and instead, build a society RSS March 12, 2012. report pipeline harvard-to-prison the 2 rooted in transformative justice and The Harvard Prison Divestment Cam- 3 care. paign’s call for divestment from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. prison-industrial complex is motivated "Towards more humane Despite some well-intentioned calls by an unapologetic vision for abolition. prison systems." 3 Accessed September 29, for more “humane” prisons and more That is, we organize and agitate for a 2019. “community”4 policing, a world that world without human caging, confine- 4 uses cages and police to fix social is- ment and surveillance—for an end to all Lombardo, Crystal. “Pros sues5 will never be just and can never carceral institutions and punitive men- and Cons of Community Policing.” Vision Launch. fully heal the problems it creates. As talities and measures that uphold and Published June 6, 2016. activist Angela Y. Davis explained over justify our current, devastatingly unjust, 5 three decades ago, “Prisons do not system of social control. Principally, we You might ask: “But what disappear problems, they disappear take aim at racial capitalism. We believe about rapists? What about murderers?” The human beings. Homelessness, unem- that by investing in education, men- prison-industrial complex ployment, drug addiction, mental ill- tal health resources, and community does not help to curb rape, assault, or any other ness, and illiteracy are only a few of the violent crime. Those who problems that disappear from public are curious can find more resources at the African- view when the human beings contend- American Intellectual ing with them are relegated to cages.” 6 Historical Society (AAIHS)’s blog Black Perspectives: https:// Despite the fact that prisons exacer- www.aaihs.org/prison- bate, rather than alleviate, social prob- abolition-syllabus-2-0/. lems, our culture’s punitive mindset has 6 Davis, Angela. "Masked rendered many people unable to even Racism: Reflections on imagine a world without prisons. As ra- the Prison Industrial 7 Complex." Colorlines: cial capitalism and mass incarceration Race, Culture, Action 1, no. have developed, the world has become 2 (1998): 11.

3 4 based care rather than incarceration, It’s Not Just About Private Prisons we will create a better, more sustain- In the United States, prisons appear in able, and more just world. many iterations, from youth facilities to immigrant detention centers, to feder- There is ample evidence, including al penitentiaries. We believe that #All- some8 advanced by scholars at Har- CagesAreConnected.11 Therefore, our vard,9 that policing and incarceration demands to divest extend well beyond are institutions made by and for white cutting ties to the private prison indus- supremacy. In the United States, pris- try. We acknowledge and applaud stu- ons confine poor Black and brown dent divestment movements at other people and compound the gendered universities and colleges that have suc- and ableist violence faced by women, cessfully divested from private prisons. Trans, queer and disabled people of The growth of private prison operators 7 color. Prisons are engines for violence such as GEO group and CoreCivic is in- Rodríguez, Dylan, against people facing gender oppres- extricably tied to the massive growth of Dorothy E. Roberts, Nancy Leong, and sion— particularly incarcerated women, immigrant detention, to cite one issue in Richard Thompson genderqueer, and Trans people. Thus, the public light. Moreover, the historical Ford. “Racial Capitalism.” Harvard Law Review, June it is unsurprising that prison abolition traces and anti-Black lineage of convict 20, 2013. has been principally advanced by Black leasing to the private prison industry 8 feminists, incarcerated women, and and the blatant exploitation of incarcer- see: "Angela Davis: Freed queers. ated people today is undeniable. How- by the People." The Lia and William Poorvu ever, we problematize the position that Gallery, Schlesinger In our original petition, which was circu- private prison operators are exceptional Library, Harvard University. lated and signed by thousands of Har- in their profiteering and cruelty. Those vard affiliates, we trace the continuation who operate and expand publicly run 9 the harvard-to-prison pipeline report Perry, Imani. “'From of a violence that is indisputably an- prisons and youth facilities are equally the War on Poverty to ti-Black and rooted in slavery. Harvard culpable. the War on Crime,' by Elizabeth Hinton.” The continues to profit from the caging and New York Times, May 27, forced labor of Black people through We are abolitionists because abolition 2016. its investments in the prison-industrial is the only way. Abolition is a radical 10 complex, through which the legacies of liberatory framework, a strategy and a Angela Davis explained the connection between slavery persist. After the Civil War, the vision necessary for racial justice, gen- the institution of slavery 13th Amendment’s abolition of slavery der justice, climate justice and disability and the prison-industrial complex in Chapter 2 “except as punishment for a crime” fa- justice. Our world is in need of profound of her book, Are Prisons cilitated efforts by Southern elites to transformation. Abolition is the process Obsolete? preserve slavery—through the passage of imagining the world necessary to 11 of the Black Codes, convict leasing pro- make prisons obsolete and bringing #AllCagesAreConnected is an abolitionist grams, and Jim Crow-era laws—that that world into being. We refuse to campaign run by Boston- would eventually evolve into the mod- struggle for anything less. based group Deeper Than Water. Learn more ern prison system. The fight for the ab- about their campaign at olition of slavery lives on in the fight for https://deeperthanwater. 10 org. the abolition of prisons today.

5 5 01.3/ Harvard, Slavery, and Eugenics the continuance of a violent past

Scholars and activists have traced the Harvard, Slavery, and Slave Trade: development and expansion of mass Like many American universities found- incarceration and mass criminalization ed in the nation’s early history, slavery to the historical origins and objectives played a vital role in Harvard’s existence of chattel slavery as a means of forced and rise to prominence during the 17th labor, social control, and subjugation. to early 19th centuries.2 Slavery was le- Subsequently, these same purposes gal in Massachussetts until shortly after 1 Davis, Angela. Are Prisons were advanced through convict leasing, the American Revolution, and it was Obsolete? New York: the Black Codes, Jim Crow, and now, commonplace for Harvard faculty and Seven Stories Press, 1 3 2003. the modern prison-industrial complex. leadership to own enslaved people. Both institutions were born out of pun- Among these figures were presidents the harvard-to-prison pipeline report 2 Beckert, Sven, et al. ishment and violence, both have served Increase Mather and Benjamin Wad- Harvard and Slavery: as weapons of social, psychological, sorth. During this period, there were Seeking a Forgotten History. Cambridge: and civic control, and both have victim- four enslaved people living and working Harvard and Slavery ized Black people. at Wadsworth House: Bilhah, Venus, Ti- Research Seminar, 2011. 4 tus, and Juba. 3 Since its founding in 1636, Harvard has Ibid. been complicit in and benefitted from These patterns of slave ownership at 4 the institution of slavery; and through Harvard did not go without objection. Harvard University. "Harvard and Slavery." its investments, it continues to per- Resistance among enslaved people and Accessed Oct 1, 2019. petuate and profit from the legacies of public conversations in Massachusetts, 5 slavery reflected in and maintained by particularly among Harvard intellectu- Beckert, Sven, et al. the prison-industrial complex. In order als, challenged the morality and legal Harvard and Slavery: 5 Seeking a Forgotten to address and disrupt the enduring implications of slavery. However, co- History. Cambridge: entanglements between Harvard and lonial leaders, many of them trained at Harvard and Slavery Research Seminar, 2011. the institution of slavery, we must un- Harvard, simply responded by intensi- derstand and grapple with Harvard’s fying restrictions for enslaved people.6 6 Ibid. violent and anti-Black history.

7 1636./ 1726./ 1838./ 1860./ Harvard Benjamin Harvard Louis Agassiz, is founded Wadsworth President shuts Harvard’s leading purchases Venus, down a debate scientist, pens On the the first of four on the abolition of Origin of Species slaves to live at slavery Wadsworth House president of Harvard. of president Yard,the is named as in living students black opposed and eugenics for who advocated Lawrence Lowell 1906./ the harvard-to-prison pipeline report pipeline harvard-to-prison the in law. sterilization eugenic enshrining decision Supremepens Court Wendell Holmes Jr. professor, Oliver law Harvard and Former Overseer Buck v. Bell 1927./ Hall. Langdell slaved outside en it people to those plaque dedicated unveils President Drew Faust 2017./ -

President Lawrence Bacow refuses to divest from the prison- industrial complex. 2019./ Harvard and Divestment

7 8 In 1783, enslaved people in Massachu- Parker were Harvard graduates and setts were emancipated.7 However, this faculty, Harvard leadership was broadly did not end Harvard’s ties to the pecu- antagonistic to such efforts. For ex- liar institution. During the 19th century, ample, in 1838, the Harvard Divinity people who made their profits from the School’s philanthropic society planned slave trade and related cotton trade a debate on the abolition of slavery that like Israel Thorndike, James Perkins, never took place because it was prohib- Peter C. Brooks, Benjamin Bussey, and ited by then President Josiah Quincy.10 Abbot Lawrence were among Har- Ultimately, like its present leadership, vard’s biggest private donors.8 In fact, former Harvard leadership failed to demonstrate the moral courage to stand against oppressive, anti-Black Since its founding institutions. in 1636, Harvard has been complicit in Science, Social Darwinism, and and benefitted from Slavery: the Eugenics Movement the institution of at Harvard slavery; and through In the years leading up to and after the the abolition of slavery, another its invesments, iteration of dominance, control, and 7 Mass Gov. it continues to captivity rose to prominence at Har- "Massachusetts vard. In the late 18th century, Western Constitution and the perpetuate and profit Abolition of Slavery." intellectualism came to embrace an- Accessed Oct 1, 2019. from the legacies of thropological and scientific practices the harvard-to-prison pipeline report 8 slavery reflected in widely recognized as racist today. Beckert, Sven, et al. These various pseudoscientific theo- Harvard and Slavery: and maintained by Seeking a Forgotten ries, including unilineal evolution and History. Cambridge: the prison-industrial social Darwinism, culminated in a push Harvard and Slavery Research Seminar, 2011. complex. for racial eugenics, which called for the improvement of humanity through the 9 11 Ibid. elimination of non-white genotypes. the combined donations from these 10 Ibid. five slave profiteers alone made up 50 Harvard’s leading scientist at the time, percent of the individual donations to Louis Agassiz, was central to the de- 11 9 Kevles, D J. "Eugenics the university between 1800 and 1850. velopment and proliferation of racial and Human Rights." Mirroring its contemporary ties to the eugenics. Much of Agassiz’s research BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.) 319, no. 7207 (1999): prison industrial complex, Harvard’s and teachings at Harvard sought to 435-38. support for the institution of slavery lend “scientific” credibility to the fiction 12 was centrally motivated by financial of the biological superiority of the white Beckert, Sven, et al. incentives. race.12 Agassiz’s Diversity of the Origin Harvard and Slavery: Seeking a Forgotten of the Human Races, which argues that History. Cambridge: While a number of anti-slavery leaders Black people were not of the same Harvard and Slavery Research Seminar, 2011. like Charles Sumner and Theodore species as white people, was frequently

9 used to justify slavery in the years leading up to the Civil War.13 Agassiz used How can Harvard polygenism to explain what he viewed claim to interrogate as the biological inferiority of Black people. Writing about what he called the its historic complicity “negro disposition,” Agassiz wrote that in slavery when it is Black people had a “peculiar apathy, a engaging in practices peculiar indifference to the advantages afforded by a civilized society.” 14 that carry on that legacy in the present Important to Agassiz’s legacy of sci- day? entific racism are the photographs he used as “evidence” for his claims. Today, Harvard is facing a lawsuit from legacy of dehumanization that Black Tamara Lanier, a direct descendant people experienced during captivity, of an enslaved person named Renty but they are still charged with a similar whom Agassiz photographed as part

kind of violence as they remain in the report pipeline harvard-to-prison the of his anthropological studies of Black hands of the Peabody Museum, which people.15 The photograph, now in the makes a profit from these images meant Peabody Museum, is central to the to prove racial inferiority. agenda of reparative justice that the Harvard Prison Divestment Campaign The age of eugenics at Harvard stretch- seeks to advance.16 Not only are these es long past Agassiz’s time at the types of photographs part of the violent 13 Pandian, Kevin. "Louis Agassiz (1807-1873)." Revised March 2, 2011.

14 Beckert, Sven, et al. Harvard and Slavery: Seeking a Forgotten History. Cambridge: Harvard and Slavery Research Seminar, 2011.

15 Burke, Minyvonne. "Woman sues Harvard claiming it is exploiting images of her 19th- century slave ancestors." NBC News, March 20, 2019.

16 Svrluga, Susan, and Mara Reinstein. "Harvard accused in lawsuit of retaining and profiting from images of slaves." The Washington Post, March 20, 2019.

9 10 university and into the Jim Crow Era Frank W. Taussig, in his book Princi- of the 20th century. Harvard President ples of Economics, wrote “the human Charles W. Eliot was famously anti-im- race could be immensely improved in migration, maintaining that immigration quality, and its capacity for happy living was a threat to the purity of the white immensely increased, if those of poor race.17 Eliot’s eugenicist agenda also physical and mental endowment were included a call for the sterilization of prevented from multiplying. Certain people who were “feebleminded,” dis- types of criminals and paupers breed abled, or “criminalistic.” While Eliot’s only their kind, and society has a right overt calls for sterilization and other and a duty to protect its members from eugenicist practices may seem extreme the repeated burden of maintaining and now, they were not out of sync with the guarding such parasites.”21 university’s culture at the time. As early as 1894, Harvard graduates had founded a eugenics organization called the Immigration Restriction League.18 A Call to Action In recalling the history of Harvard Uni- Edward M. East, a Harvard professor, versity, we have demonstrated that the became famous for his virulent an- promise of the abolition of slavery has ti-miscegenation views based on the not yet been fulfilled. Our campaign is idea that that “the negro is inferior to the a continuation of the abolitionist fight. wh i te .” 19 Eliot's successor, A. Lawrence By demanding Harvard divest from Lowell was also a vociferous advocate the prison-industrial complex, we are for eugenics and prohibited black calling the university to account not students from living on Harvard Yard only for its present position, but also to the harvard-to-prison pipeline report during his tenure.20 Another professor, answer for its past failures.

17 Cohen, Adam. "Harvard’s Eugenics Era." Harvard Magazine, March-April 2016.

18 Wong, Matteo. "The Har- vard Alumni Who Fought to Keep Immigrants Out." The Crimson, Oct 18, 2018 .

19 Cohen, Adam. "Harvard’s Eugenics Era." Harvard Magazine, March-April 2016.

20 Ibid.

21 Ibid.

11 Harvard has ostensibly apologized for its complicity in perpetuating slavery. Under the Presidency of Drew Faust, Our Harvard formed a group of faculty histo- campaign is a rians to more thoroughly uncover other ways in which Harvard may have been continuation of complicit in slavery in the past. Faust also wrote an article in the Harvard the abolitionist Crimson in which she claimed that “in more fully acknowledging our history, fight. By Harvard must do its part to undermine the legacies of race and slavery that demanding continue to divide our nation.”22 But Harvard cannot claim to interrogate its Harvard divest historic complicity in slavery while upholding white supremacy in the present from the prison- day. The University cannot legitimately commemorate the memories of en- industrial report pipeline harvard-to-prison the slaved people on this campus while its endowment supports the incarceration complex, we and degradation of Black people and communities. It cannot assert that it is are calling confronting the past, while it is so blind to its racism right now? Harvard’s apol- the university ogy for its legacy of slavery is vacuous unless it makes decisions that actively to account manifest a commitment to dismantling not only for the systems of oppression that are rem- nants of slavery and white supremacy. its present It needs to do more than tack a com- position, but memorative plaque onto a building. It needs to do more than talk about its also to answer ugly past. It needs to restore and repair, to confront the ugliness of its actions for its past in this contemporary moment. It needs to hold itself accountable for its past failures. through real action. Harvard needs to put its money where its mouth is and divest from the prison-industrial complex now. 22 Harvard University. "Harvard and Slavery." Accessed Oct 1, 2019.

11 12 02 | The Numbers The $3 million invested in the prison-industrial complex, from the 1% of the endowment we know about

The $18,000 Myth importantly, our research shows that On Thursday April 18th, Harvard Bacow’s stated numbers are false. President Lawrence Bacow told two organizers with the Harvard Prison The Harvard Prison Divestment Cam- Divestment Campaign that the Uni- paign’s research shows that the versity’s endowment holds roughly university’s investments into the pris- $18,000 worth of investments in compa- on-industrial complex total at the very nies connected to the prison-industrial least close to $3 million. Even this num- complex. ber barely scratches the surface of the University’s actual holdings. Below we Bacow’s statement is significant for a explain our methodology1 for determin- number of reasons. First, it marks the ing which companies meet the criteria first time that any Harvard president for the prison-industrial complex before admitted that Harvard is invested in outlining our research process into the 1 prisons at all. Second, Bacow remained endowment to make connections with Using the definition of the steadfast in his opposition to divestment the named companies. prison-industrial complex of even such a minuscule amount. This the harvard-to-prison pipeline report provided in Section 1.1, we then identified, is an institution whose yearly budget is The Harvard Endowment read, and fact-checked a range of publications greater than the state budget of Dela- To understand how the Harvard en- listing specific companies ware and recently forgoed an $186,000 dowment is connected to these core whose business models rely heavily on human gift from Jeffrey Epstein, who used his companies of the prison-industrial com- caging, control, and position of power to perpetuate grave plex requires a basic understanding of confinement. See the top sources we used to harm against children. Lastly and most what an endowment is. According to its identify our list of target most recent report, the Harvard Man- companies at the end of this report. agement Company (HMC)–which is the non-profit organization responsible for 2 Harvard’s Endowment is The first and most managing the university’s endowment– $39.2 Billion stated that the endowment was valued basic demand we 2 We Know About the at $39.2 billion as of June 30, 2018. You $425 Million that is have of the university may hear or read on occasion that Har- Publicly Invested is to disclose the vard has “$40 billion in the bank.” That’s And the $1.2 Billion actually untrue. The 2018 HMC annual Held in Cash specifications of its report states as much: just 3% of that We Know Nothing private portfolio. $39.2 billion, or roughly $1.2 billion, is About the Remaining $38.775 Billion held in cash.

13 96% Private Holdings $38.775 Billion

P an op tic on P ri so n , J . B e n th a m

17 8 7 the harvard-to-prison pipeline report pipeline harvard-to-prison the

3% Cash $1.2 Billion

1% Public Holdings $425 Million

$3 Million of which is invested in the PIC *if taken as a representitive sample of the 96% of the endowment which remains private, then Harvard potentially has $291 million invested in the PIC

Above: A breakdown of the Harvard Endowment.

13 14 The remaining $38 billion is invested receive direct taxpayer subsidies from into a range of financial entities. In gen- local, state, and federal governments. eral, these entities fall into two large Each and every U.S. taxpayer helps to 3 Private Holdings categories: public (or exchangeable) fund Harvard. Second, Harvard’s par- Asset Classes holdings and private (generally non-ex- ticularly troublesome history with its Private Equity Private Debt changeable) holdings. To the best of our endowment, recounted in Section 1.3, Hedge Funds estimation using the most recent avail- demands transparency. In its past, the Real Estate Natural Resources able data, we approximate that Harvard university has invested in and benefit- ‘Other’ invests just $474.6 million (1%) of the ed directly from the transatlantic slave 4 endowment into public holdings and a trade, South African apartheid, and the An ETF is essentially staggering $37.5 billion (96%) into pri- crisis in Darfur. If the university wants a bundle of different stocks, bonds, and vate holdings. to hold the trust of its faculty, staff, stu- other securities that a dents, donors, and neighbors, then it customer (like HMC) can buy as a single security, We have more questions than answers must produce its receipts. rather than investing in about the 96% of the endowment in- hundreds or thousands of individual companies. vested in private holdings; these asset What the university does disclose about To find the specific classes are relatively unregulated (com- its endowment, in accordance with fed- companies that comprise the ETFs in which pared to public assets) and frustratingly eral law, is its public holdings, which are Harvard is invested, obscure.3 Our frustration, we note, is also known as securities. The connec- we first retrieved the ETFs’ unique numbers shared by Kat Taylor, a Harvard alum- tions we have identified between the (known as CUSIPs) from nus and former member of the Harvard endowment and the prison-industrial the HMC’s most recent SEC filing of FORM Board of Overseers who resigned her complex so far come exclusively from 13F. After pasting the seat in March 2018 to protest the en- the university’s public portfolio holdings, CUSIP numbers into a search engine, we dowment’s opacity. Thus, the first and which, as noted above, amount only to navigated directly to most basic demand we have of the uni- $474.6 million, or 1%, of the endowment. each respective fund’s the harvard-to-prison pipeline report website and downloaded versity is to disclose the specifications The public portfolio, which is disclosed the spreadsheet (usually of its private portfolio. While the 2018 via quarterly filings with the U.S. Se- a .csv file) that lists the fund’s portfolio. The ETF HMC annual report provides percent- curities and Exchange Commission, is portfolios are important age allocations into these various asset available through the commission’s ED- because they typically indicate, among other classes, specific firms and funds remain GAR database. As reflected in the most types of data, not only undisclosed. recent filing from February 8, 2019, the the names of companies but also the weight (in endowment’s public portfolio includes a percentage) allocated Opponents to disclosure often argue mixture of direct stock investments into to each company from the fund, a number that Harvard’s status as a private uni- a few companies (e.g., Facebook, Mic- that can and does vary versity should shield it from such a rosoft, Google, and Apple), investments slightly from day-to- 4 day. We followed these demand. However, this opposition in exchange-traded funds (ETF’s), and steps for all of the ETFs occludes two salient factors. First, investments in gold.5 in Harvard’s holdings, capturing spreadsheets Harvard and every other technically and the weight private, non-profit institution of higher While the university asserts that it does allocations as of February 19, 2019. education in the U.S. receive billions not hold direct stock in prison compa- of dollars in public funding every year. nies, this statement is technically true, 5 Public Holdings The Internal Revenue Service classi- but misleading. Harvard only directly 60% Direct Stock fies Harvard and its private peers as invests in eight corporations: the afore- 2% Gold 38% ETFs “public charities” for a reason: they mentioned four tech giants plus Aduro

15 Biotech, Magenta Therapeutics, Neon mere 1% of the endowment that is pub- Therapeutics, and T. Rowe Price. Com- licly disclosed, Harvard has invested bined, Harvard pours $283 million into approximately $3 million in some of the these companies, roughly 60% of its companies most complicit in the pris- public portfolio. It devotes 2% of the on-industrial complex. portfolio to gold shares, apportioning the remaining $178 million (or 38%) to exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

Several of Harvard’s ETF investments include companies profiting from the prison-industrial complex. Our calcu- Based on our lations show this figure to approximate calculations from close to $3 million. After combining all the mere 1% of the of these ETF portfolio data into one large data set, we simply cross-checked endowment that is this listing against a targeted list of publicly disclosed, roughly 100 prison-industrial complex Harvard has invested report pipeline harvard-to-prison the companies. approximately $3 President Bacow’s peculiar reference million in some of to Harvard investing only $18,000 in the companies most private prisons (which again, are only a small part of the prison-industrial complicit in the prison- complex) simply does not fit the facts. industrial complex. Based on our calculations from the

15 16 02.2/ Industry Profiles profiteering from pain

The Harvard Prison Divestment Cam- paign has demanded divestment from Harvard is invested in the prison-industrial complex since the private prisons, but beginning—not just divestment from private prisons. On April 18, 2019, Pres- these investments ident Lawrence Bacow side-stepped make up only a the larger question about Harvard’s fraction of the 3 million propagation of the prison-industrial complex and directed his focus on only dollars we know is private prisons. Harvard is invested in invested in the larger private prisons, but these investments prison-industrial make up only a fraction of the 3 million dollars we know is invested in the larg- complex. er prison-industrial complex. And while the abuses by private prison operators often attract the most media attention, repercussions, Mr. Brown will likely they make up only a fraction of the have no choice but to go into debt to the harvard-to-prison pipeline report misery inflicted on people by the pris- a bondsman, a company that will pay on-industrial complex. his bond in exchange for a substantial percentage of the bail amount.

Bail Bonds While bail bonds companies often Take the example of Mr. Brown.1 He pretend to be “mom and pop shops,” has been arrested and he has no mon- multinational insurance companies ey to post his bail. He can call a family dominate the industry, underwriting member but they likely don’t have the each bond in exchange for a share of funds either. The median bail amount the profit extracted from people like represents 8 months of income for the Mr. Brown. Trapping people like Mr. average defendant. Though he has not Brown in debt has become incredibly been convicted of a crime, the effects lucrative. The bail bond industry cur- 1 of his arrest can be catastrophic. In rently runs around $2 billion of revenue To respect the privacy per year. According to the ACLU, only of incarcerated people, addition to being separated from his we are protecting loved ones, Mr. Brown will likely lose nine bail insurance companies in the their identities and United States reap the vast majority of amalgamating different his job and, if he is a renter, his hous- examples together. ing. In order to avoid these disastrous these profits. Harvard currently invests

17 the story of Mr. Brown (as told through harvard's investment in the prison-industrial complexA)

Bail Bonds Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. Tokio Marine Holdings Inc. Telecommunications CenturyLink Unisys TKC Holdings Money Transfer Western Union Prison Labor Construction 3M Company Ferrovial SA Avery Dennison Hochtief Lincoln Electric Banks Death Management Bank of America Centene Corporation Goldman Sachs Universal Health Services SunTrust Banks Inc Food & Commissary U.S. Bancorp Summit Food Services Wells Fargo Probation BNP Paribas Constellation Software Analytics & Surveillance Providence Service Corp Amazon Weaponry Harris Corporation AeroVironment Honeywell International Inc. Axon Enterprise Inc. L3 Technologies Sturm Ruger & Co Motorola Solutions Vista Outdoor Stanley Black & Decker Inc. General Dynamics Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. BAE Systems Tyler Technologies Private Prison Operators Methode Electronics Inc. CoreCivic Gemalto GEO Group NEC Corporation NICE G4S A Mitie Group Plc. Smiths Group Companies currently Transportation invested in by Harvard Serco organized by their Greyhound Lines role within the prison- Sodexo industrial complex.

17 in at least two of these nine companies those found to be innocent, the debt — Tokio Marine and Fairfax Financial owed to bail bonds companies can be a Holdings Limited — through the Van- long-lasting burden. But for those who guard FTSE Developed Markets ETF. are convicted, Tokio Marine and Fairfax are only the first of a long line of pred- The May 2017 report, “Selling Off Our atory companies that will profiteer from Freedom: How insurance corpora- their incarceration. tions have taken over our bail system,” outlines the consequences of the shockingly exploitative industry: At any given time, Just over two decades ago, most people arrested for felonies were released with- 70% of the people out having to pay bail. But today, millions caged in jail have not of people must pay bail in order to avoid detention in jail while their case is un- been convicted of any derway, though they are still innocent in crime. They are legally the eyes of the law. If they cannot pay the amount set for their bail, they remain in innocent, but they jail for their inability to pay. Many plead guilty regardless of the case against them are still vulnerable and suffer the long-running consequenc- to exploitation by es of convictions in order to be released. predatory companies To come up with the money for release, like Fairfax and Tokio far too many people and their families are lured into exploitative arrangements Marine while they with bail bond corporations that typically the harvard-to-prison pipeline report charge a nonrefundable fee of 10 percent await their trial. of the full bail amount. Many are trapped in a cycle of debt and fees related to their payments, and even people whose charges are dropped or who are determined to be innocent do not get their Telecommunications money back.2 Let us return to Mr. Brown. Now a prisoner, Mr. Brown needs to call his daughter At any given time, 70% of the people for her 9th birthday. Because the state caged in jails have not been convicted has caged Mr. Brown, he cannot cele- of any crime. They are legally innocent, brate his daughter’s birthday with her in but they are still vulnerable to exploita- person. Prison is no place for a little girl, tion by predatory companies like Fairfax especially on her birthday. So, he calls and Tokio Marine while they await their her, like any loving father would. trial. Using the threat of continued im- But phone calls aren’t free in prison. In prisonment to squeeze money out of fact, private, for-profit phone compa- pre-trial detainees, these insurance nies charge prisoners to speak to their 2 giants are able to boost their quarter- own loved ones. CenturyLink is one of ACLU. "Selling Off Our ly earnings, which now flow into the these companies. It charges $3.75 for Freedom." Published May 2017. pockets of investors like Harvard. For a 15-minute phone call in Alabama. For

19 Mr. Brown, that 15 minutes might cost market provides some $1.2 billion in him 15 hours of work, where prisoners profits to prison phone providers. As an work for as little as 25 cents per hour. investor in CenturyLink through the iS- hare Core S&P 500 ETF, Harvard - like CenturyLink is the third largest tele- Alabama DOC - shares in the profits communication provider in the United extracted from incarcerated people and States and a corrections telecom their families. Through the same ETF, provider. It strikes contracts with ten Harvard also invests in Unisys, a private different states to charge prisoners for global tech company based in Pennsyl- phone calls by the minute in addition vania that also provides prisoner phone to other fees and taxes. CenturyLink services to prisons and jails. promises hefty commissions to the Al- abama Department of Corrections in order to win contracts. The Prison Pol- Money Transfer icy Initiative (PPI) noted in their 2012 Having cornered the market in for-profit report: calls from prisons, many telecoms have joined financial services companies to Prison phone companies are awarded profit from prison-based payment sys- report pipeline harvard-to-prison the these monopolies through bidding pro- tems. They arrange for hidden profits in cesses in which they submit contract proposals to the state prison systems; in third-party payment systems such as all but eight states, these contracts in- Western Union. Often, the prisoners and clude promises to pay “commissions” — in their loved ones cannot afford to have effect, kickbacks — to states, in either the bank accounts so they rely on services form of a percentage of revenue, a fixed like Western Union and MoneyGram to up-front payment, or a combination of the two. Thus, state prison systems have no transport money. For a $25 payment to incentive to select the telephone com- a telecoms company, Western Union pany that offers the lowest rates; rather, charges an atrocious $10 to $12. And correctional departments have an incen- then Western Union shares some of tive to reap the most profit by selecting these fees with the telecoms providers the telephone company that provides the highest commission.3 in order to evade FCC regulations that otherwise attempted to prevent this ex- In 2018 alone, CenturyLink provided ploitation. The Harvard endowment is invested in Western Union through the $3,912,675.63 in kickbacks to the state 3 of Alabama. In order to maintain profit- iShares Core S&P 500 ETF. Kukorowski, Drew. "The price to call home: ablility and keep Alabama DOC happy, state-sanctioned CenturyLink raises the price of phone monopolization in the Prison Labor prison phone industry." calls to exorbitant rates. These telecom A Prison Policy Initiative companies know that incarcerated In order to keep up with the debt and Report, September 11, 2012. people are a captive market and they fees piled up by bail bonds, telecom, have no choice, but to use the over- and financial service industries, Mr. 4 Brown likely has to find a job in the se- PPI released a 2019 priced services to keep in touch with February report, which their loved ones and their lawyers.4 Ac- verely underpaid prison labor industry. can be found here: Prison labor is unregulated and, as a https://www.prisonpolicy. cording to some estimates, this captive org/phones/state_of_ result, reliable information about the phone_justice.html

19 20 major users of prison labor can be diffi- listing of its Corporate Members...Al- cult to obtain. though the relationships between these companies and the NCIA are not disclosed, we assume there is a mutually The National Corrections Industry As- beneficial relationship between each sociation (NCIA) is an international company and prison labor. Some compa- nonprofit association of companies nies may benefit directly by hiring inmates in the correctional industry. It is the to make products or provide services (or group that monitors the Prison Indus- hiring subcontractors who do so), others may be providing supplies to prison labor try Enhancement Certification Program industries for inmates to use to create (PIECP). Prisons that want to use prison products, and others on this list appear labor can sometimes do so under this to be companies dedicated solely to pro- program. But given that the NCIA board viding products to prisons themselves of directors are usually prison industry (officer clothing and weapons, inmate bedding, inmate recreational materials, officials and leaders, the NCIA is es- etc.).5 sentially charged with monitoring itself. NorthStar Assets, which advocates for The PIECP requires that prisoners be socially responsible investing, explains paid the “prevailing wage” or the wages the complex relationship between NCIA that a non-incarcerated worker would and prison labor: make for the same job in the same re- gion. But supplier companies easily [T]he National Corrections Industry As- circumvent these regulations through sociation (NCIA) has a publicly available various schemes. For example, the the harvard-to-prison pipeline report

5 Goodridge, Julie, Schwartzer, Mari, Jantz, Christine, and Leslie Christian. "Prison Labor in the United States: an Investor Perspective." NorthStar Asset Managment May, 2018.

21 company can employ the inmates as Death Management “trainees” instead of “employees” and And what if he is injured on the job? pay a lower wage. Factory labor can be dangerous, which brings us back to Mr. Brown. One of And this is only if the prisoner is in the Lincoln Electric’s machines crush Mr. PIECP program at all. Only about 5,000 Brown’s hands when he is assembling a prisoners work under the PIECP. In welding tool part. His fingers are swol- comparison, 1.37 million prisoners work len and badly crooked. For weeks, he in state prisons external to the PIECP had been asking the correction officers and 16,891 in federal prisons. (CO) to see a doctor to get treatment. They ignored him for weeks and then Furthermore, prisoner labor programs, finally took him to a hospital — a mere both in and out of the PIECP, have five minute drive from his cell. The drastic payroll deductions, which force doctor informed him that he had two prisoners to pay for their own “room fractured fingers among other injuries, and board” and other legal obligations. and he would need to tape his fingers A PIECP laborer could earn as little as daily so they could heal properly and $1.45 an hour. Non-PIECP laborers in take painkillers as needed. His doctor report pipeline harvard-to-prison the state and federal prisons could earn as gave him a roll of tape so he could do little as $0.04 an hour. Mr. Brown, even if this himself. When he returned to the he is lucky enough to be a PIECP labor- prison, the COs took his tape and threw er, is working for pittance wages. it away in front of him, without giving a reason. Mr. Brown went to the prison While Mr. Brown may not make much clinic that next day. They sent him away from his employment, this web of with no tape and no medication, dis- modern-day slavery and exploitation missing his complaint as nothing. Mr. of prisoners is very profitable for em- Brown filed complaint after complaint, ployers. Three companies in particular, but every day is a battle for him to get Avery Dennison, 3M, and Lincoln Elec- basic health care. tric, stand out as Corporate Members in the NCIA. The notable WorthRises Private healthcare companies such Report, a report written for investors as Universal Health Services and the who want to avoid investing in the Centene Corporation strike contracts prison-industrial complex, also names with state departments of corrections Avery Dennison and Lincoln Electric with the promises of cutting costs of as companies that prop up the pris- healthcare and delivering kickbacks on-industrial complex through the use to the state. Reporting on correctional of prison labor.6 Harvard is invested in healthcare providers reveals a crisis Avery Dennison through the iShares level shortage of staff inside facilities, Core S&P 500 ETF, in 3M through the patterns of delayed and inadequate 6 iShares Core S&P 500 ETF and the care, and contracts that disincentivize Worth Rises, "The Prison- Industrial Complex: Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF, companies from sending incarcerated mapping the private and in Lincoln Electric through the iS- people to hospitals for treatment. With sector players," April 2018. https://worthrises.org/ hares Core S&P Mid-Cap ETF. profit as the largest incentive and picreport2019.

21 22 the humanity of the prisoners on the off the truck, a stench he describes as backburner, these private healthcare unbelievable. The food is inedible and “providers” rack up many complaints unsanitary. Mr. Brown’s account of his about their neglectful practices. kitchen facility echoes national trends. The growing privatization of food ser- One of the biggest costs for these com- vices in prisons and jails has decreased panies is the salaries for doctors and the quality and quantity of food offered nurses, so companies like Centene in correctional facilities. seek to minimize such costs by keeping prisons understaffed. Therefore Many states now outsource their kitch- incarcerated people can’t get access to en operation—staffing, equipment, and medical professionals on the inside and food preparation—to companies like are routinely denied access to hospitals Summit Food Service and Compass on the outside. Over half a million in- Group Plc. Summit Food is no excep- carcerated people are under the care of tion to the complaints regarding lack of for-profit correctional health care every food quality and reports of starvation. day. While companies earn billions from striking up attractive contracts, incar- And because the food is so inedible, and cerated people are left with substandard the kitchen so unsanitary, Mr. Brown care, sometimes resulting in life-threat- only eats in the chow hall a few times ening emergencies and death. In 2016, a week. He survives on an almost dai- for example, a subsidiary/joint venture ly diet of off-brand ramen noodles. Mr. of the Centene Corporation, Centurion Brown purchases his noodle “meals” was sued in three different wrongful from the commissary, which is run by death suits. One prisoner died of a brain groups like Summit, Compass, and So- the harvard-to-prison pipeline report hemorrhage because they were refused dexo. Commissary contracts are also adequate medical care. Various class very lucrative, with some state con- actions have been brought on behalf tracts reportedly as high as $160 million. of prisoners with Hepatitis C who can- Commissary prices are exorbitantly not get treatment for it. MHM Services, high, up to 5 times the retail price on the another subsidiary of Centene, has outside. Prison commissaries are a $1.6 starved and neglected its patients— billion industry annually, while states or in other cases, medicated patients against their will. The money that Harvard pockets Food & Commissary Prisoners’ health is often worsened by from companies like the substandard food provision ser- Providence is the vices inside prisons. Mr. Brown used to result of threatening to have a job working in the prison kitchen. In his time there, he sees rat corps- send poor people back es, maggots, expired and rotten food, to jail. even when it came freshly unloaded

23 get millions in kickbacks. Harvard also it charges parolees monthly to be su- profits through their investments in So- pervised. People pay the state for their dexo and in TKC Holdings, the parent own surveillance and Providence and company of the commissary compa- its shareholders make a pretty profit. ny the Keefe Group, via the Vanguard Providence charges 'supervision fees.' FTSE Developed Markets ETF. When probationers cannot pay these fines and fees, Providence notifies the state so the probationers are sent back Probation to prison. If Mr. Brown were ever to finish his sen- tence, his nightmarish experience with It is not uncommon that Providence the mass incarceration system would charges higher fees than the proba- not end there. Over 4.5 million people in tioners earn in actual income. One the United States were on probation in Human Rights Watch report tells the 2016. Likely, he would have to undergo story of a Georgia man: “Thomas Bar- probation, where the state surveils his rett pled guilty to stealing a can of beer every move and he must submit to the from a convenience store and was fined power of his parole officer—otherwise, US$200. He was ultimately jailed for report pipeline harvard-to-prison the risk getting sent back to the cage. To fa- failing to pay over a thousand dollars cilitate this surveillance, companies like in fees to his probation company, even Constellation Software and Providence though his entire income—money he Service Group help. These tech compa- earned by selling his own blood plas- nies provide corrections technology, like ma—was less than what he was being an algorithm that attempts to predict charged in monthly probation fees.” 10 the likelihood that people will commit crime in the future. These algorithms Another Georgia man, 64-year-old, have an air of sophistication, but they Vietnam War veteran Van Houston had amount to little more than sophistry. 24 months of probation for a DUI. With One corrections officer described this his fees to the court and to Providence, 7 Angwin, Julia, et algorithm as a “giant corrections pinball his monthly payments totaled $216, al. "Machine Bias." machine[.]”7 Ellora Israni, Harvard Law which came out to more than a third of ProPublica, May 23, 2016. School Class of 2019 and former Face- his income. Over the course of 24 years, 8 book software engineer, warns of an he would owe more than 10 percent of For those interested in how technology algorithm called COMPAS: “States trust his entire annual income to Providence. compounds racism, that even if they cannot themselves un- see: Benjamin, Ruha. Race after Technology : pack proprietary algorithms, computers In 2015, the civil rights group Equal Abolitionist Tools for the will be less biased than even the most Justice Under Law sued Providence New Jim Code. Medford: Polity, 2019. well-meaning humans, But shifting the for sending people back to jail despite sentencing responsibility to a comput- a Supreme Court ruling that it is illegal 9 Human Rights Watch. er does not necessarily eliminate bias; to incarcerate someone for not being "Profiting from Probation." it delegates and often compounds it.” 8 able to afford to pay these fees. Prov- February 5, 2014. Providence is a probation company with idence “even refused to let destitute 10 an “offender-funded”9 business model. probationers complete their required Human Rights Watch. "Profiting from Probation." This is a industry-term meaning that community service hours without first February 5, 2014.

23 24 likelihood, Mr. Brown is Black, given the So the more TASERs racism that the criminal legal system the police buy to is built upon. And Harvard profits off of police brutality as well. All the ways assault children, the that the police abuse, maim, and threat- better returns Harvard en their mostly Black victims, provides makes. sources of cash inflow for various actors in the prison-industrial complex and that money ends up in the pockets of institutional investors like Harvard. paying a community service fee[.]”11 In 2011, filed a class action lawsuit12 against For example, in recent years, there have Providence alleging the extortion of been calls for the police to use TASERs fees out of probationers using falsified instead of guns, as a well-intentioned drug tests and sexual harassment. but deeply naive solution to police brutality. Although Axon, its seller, claim The New Yorker13 covered the story TASERs are safe and non-lethal, studies 11 of one mother who was $13 short on suggest that Axon is not to be trusted14 Dewan, Shaila. "Private her “supervision” fees. She had to beg Probation Company and that giving police officers an addi- Accused of Abuses in her family and friends for money in an tional weapon doesn’t actually reduce Tennessee." The New attempt to scrounge up the dollars be- York Times, Oct. 1, 2015. police gun violence.15 fore the 5pm deadline—otherwise, she 12 would be sent back to jail over a mere Hall, Ben. " Rutherford Co., Despite this evidence, Axon is heavily PCC Settle Class Action $13. These are the type of stories that expanding. And Harvard is invested in Lawsuit Over Private shareholders like Harvard prop up by Probation Fees." News Axon through the iShares Core S&P Channel Five Nashville,

the harvard-to-prison pipeline report investing in companies that profit from Sep 19, 2017. Small-Cap ETF. So as Axon increases this exploitation. Harvard is invest- quarterly growth and attracts new cus- 13 ed in Constellation Software through tomers, Harvard pockets returns on its Stillman, Sarah. "Get the iShares Core S&P 500 ETF and in Out of Jail, Inc." The investment. Harvard profits whenever Newyorker, June 16, 2014. Providence Service Corp through the Axon sells a TASER. For example, the iShares Core S&P Small-Cap ETF. The 14 increased presence of police officers in Gilbert, Curtis, Caputo, money that Harvard pockets from com- schools means that police officers are Angela, Geoff, Hing. panies like Providence is the result of "When Tasers Fail." APM TASERing and assaulting students.16 Reports, May 9, 2019. threatening to send poor people back So the more TASERs the police buy to to jail. 15 assault children, the better returns Har- Franck, Thomas. "There’s ‘no evidence’ Tasers vard makes. reduce police use of firearms, new study Weaponry And when it comes to gun violence, shows." CNBC, Oct 22, And even if Mr. Brown were to surpass 2018. we can find blood on President Bacow the exploitative probationary system and the Corporation’s hands. Harvard is 16 of surveillance and micro-control, he Klein, Rebecca. "The Oth- invested in the iShares Core S&P Small- er Side Of School Safety: would still likely face a lifetime of police Cap ETF, so the endowment money is Students Are Getting brutality, a leading cause of death for Tasered And Beaten By invested in both Sturm Ruger & Co and Police ." Huffpost, Sept Black men in the United States. In all 8, 2018. Vista Outdoor. Sturm Ruger provides

25 guns and Vista Outdoor provides the only has $18,000 invested in private ammunition. Harvard is invested in the prison operators. As we noted in Sec- Vanguard FTSE Developed Markets tion 2.1, our analysis indicates that this ETF, which includes BAE Systems. BAE figure is wrong. His estimate includes also provides services to the police and that Harvard is invested in private pris- national security agencies. For exam- on operators such as CoreCivic, GEO ple, BAE won a lucrative $600 million Group, G4S, Mitie Group Plc, and Serco. contract17 to provide laser-guided rock- He and the Harvard Management Com- ets to the US Navy. pany forget that Sodexo is also a private prison operator—a curious mistake for Sometimes, police brutality can be people who are supposedly amongst expensive for the city, who can face a the best financial asset managers in the hefty settlement expense or litigation world. costs when the victims sue. But thanks to banks like Goldman Sachs and Bank Construction of America, both of which are included Bacow’s focus on private prisons and in the iShares Core S&P 500 ETF, con- repeated refusal to discuss the larger jured up Police Brutality Bond. Just as report pipeline harvard-to-prison the it sounds, cities sell municipal bonds in order to cover police brutality-related costs. According to this report from Action Center on Race & the Economy (ACRE),18 the city of Chicago, in the years 2008 to 2017, borrowed $709.3 million to cover police brutality settlements. In this time period, the investors earned $1 billion in interest, costing the taxpayers $1.71 billion total. ACRE explains, 17 Bae Systems. While legal system assumes that hefty fi- "U.S. Navy awards nancial consequences for police violence $600 million multi-service serve as a deterrent to abusive polic- contract for laser- ing, this does not appear to be the case. guided rockets." Instead, settlements and judgments—in- Published Oct 19, cluding those a city or county can’t pay 2016. without going into debt—appear to be an 18 acceptable cost of the business of po- Goodwin, licing for cities and counties across the Alyxandra, country. 19 Shepard, Whitney, Sloan, Carrie. "Police Brutality Bonds." Action Center Private Prison Operators on Race & the President of Harvard University Law- Economy. rence Bacow has stated that Harvard 19 Ibid.

25 26 20 prison-industrial complex illustrates custom-built for Corrections Corporation Kilgore, James. "Five of America in Georgia’s Wheeler and Cof- Corporations You’ve his lack of understanding of the scale Never Heard of Are of the problem at hand. Private pris- fee counties at an estimated total cost of Making Millions From $80 million.20 Mass Incarceration." ons are relatively small players in the Truthout, 2015. industry, yet are popular enough for Despite all of this booming pris- 21 construction contractors to bid on on-construction business, should a Ibid. those lucrative contracts. Companies shareholder, direct or indirect, demand 22 like Ferrovial SA and Hochtief jump at to pull out of such profiteering, Turner Goodwin, Alyxandra, the chance to construct a prison. One Shepard, Whitney, and would only lose 3 percent of its yearly Carrie Sloan. "Police reporter describes Turner Construction, revenue.21 Brutality Bonds." Action a subsidiary of Hochtief: Center on Race & the Economy. Despite prisons and jails not being their 23 core business, they are still virtually Banks "The Banks that Like everything under global capital- Finance Private Prison omnipresent in the sector. Turner did con- Companies." In the Public struction management for a 6,000-bed ism, things cost money. Private prison Interest, 2016. facility in Bunker Hill, Indiana, participat- companies need big lines of credits ed in an $800 million overhaul of several 24 with banks in order to get the capital to state prisons in Pennsylvania in 2009, led President Bacow, at an literally get a prison up off the ground alumni event in Chicago work on jail construction in Forsyth Coun- in the summer of 2019, ty, Georgia ($100 million), Fort Bend and running. Policy center In The Public publicly scoffed at our County, Texas ($75 million), Johnson City, Interest released a report in November demands to divest from Amazon. He asked the Kansas ($50 million), Kenton County, 2016 called “The Banks That Finance audience if they ever Ohio ($41 million), as well as on two jails Private Prison Companies,” and named shopped at Amazon. This is a common tactic six banks as the largest bank financiers with Bacow and other of CoreCivic and GEO Group’s debts: university presidents; when someone Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, the harvard-to-prison pipeline report challenges the institution, BNP Paribas, SunTrust, U.S. Bancorp, they flip the question into one of individual choices. and Wells Fargo. It is a logical fallacy and a false equivalency that Bacow should know Harvard is invested in all six, through better than to stoop. the iShares Core S&P 500 ETF and in The question is not what every individual the BNP Paribas through the Vanguard contributes to Amazon; FTSE Developed Markets ETC. Of the question is whether Harvard, one of the most course, these banks made news when powerful institutions JP Morgan decided to no longer finance in the world, likely the most power academic private prisons in March of 2019 and institution on planet the others soon followed. These banks’ Earth, sitting on centuries of accumulated wealth decisions to divest exemplifies how and an endowment that simple a procedure it can be—if Jamie is soon to grow to be over 40 billion dollars Dimon, the CEO of the largest bank in will do something to the world, can do it, surely President challenge its provision of cash flow to encourage Bacow can take our demands seriously and profit from Amazon’s too. role in caging, abusing, and killing poor brown migrants.

27 According a report published by the Amazon, along with companies like Action Center on Race & the Economy, Gemalto and Unisys,26 provide the IT in- Bank of America, BNP Paribas, SunTrust, frastructure for the government to track U.S. Bancorp, and Wells Fargo had “(1) and keep databases on immigrants. extended revolving credit to [CoreCiv- “These technologies expand the reach ic] and GEO Group, and (2) provided of immigration enforcement by enabling the two companies with term loans, ICE to accumulate, query, and mine and (3) underwritten the two compa- large amounts of biographic, biometric, nies’ bonds."22 Lauren Brooke-Eisen, and personal data for the purposes of the author of Inside Private Prisons: An identifying, monitoring, and targeting American Dilemma in the Age of Mass immigrants for deportation and remov- Incarceration and also a senior fellow at al,” according to the American Friends NYU Law’s Brennan Center for Justice, Service Committee (AFSC).27 explained that private prisons became Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) These big-swinger companies include in 2013 and as a tax consequence, they Gemalto and Unisys, both in which rely on banks for quick and large influx- Harvard is invested, through the Van- es of cash flow.23 So banks like Bank of guard FTSE Developed Markets ETF for report pipeline harvard-to-prison the America extended such lines of credit Gemalto and iShares Core S&P Small- to CoreCivic and GEO Group, scraped Cap ETF for Unisys. Companies like up their easy money, and passed it the NEC Corporation, in the Vanguard along to investors like Harvard. Even FTSE Developed Markets ETF, track though these banks have now divested immigrants’ biometric information. The from extending credit to private prison Smith Group, also in the Vanguard operators, it speaks volumes that they FTSE Developed Markets ETF, provides 25 Romano, Benjamin. did so for many years without any con- x-ray technology and vehicle inspection "Protesters in Seattle cern from the Harvard President nor its technology to the Customs and Border petition Amazon to stop selling technology to ICE." Fellows. Protection. NICE Systems, in the same The Seattle Times, July ETF, is using technology built to milita- 15, 2019. rize Israel's illegal segregation barrier to 26 Analytics & Surveillance also control the US-Mexico border. Even Investigate. "High- 28 Tech Surveillance of Investments in companies supplying infamous Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona Immigrants." Accessed prisons with surveillance technology was a client of NICE Systems. Weapons Oct 1, 2019. are a significant part of Harvard’s hold- manufacturers like General Dynamics, 27 ings in the prison-industrial complex. in the iShares Core S&P Small-Cap Ibid. 24 29 Amazon, for example, provides facial ETF, provide manpower to aid in the 28 recognition technology,25 which aids militarization of the US border. Rivas, Jorge. "Department of Homeland Security ICE in their relentless detention of im- The AFSC describes Unisys: and ICE End Sheriff migrants in prisons, commonly run by Arpaio's 287(g) Contract." Color Lines, Dec 15, 2011. CoreCivic and GEO Group. Now, this In 2016, CBP awarded Unisys a three technology can detect the emotion of year $229.7 million contract to implement 29 biometric checks at U.S. ports of entry Dayen, David. "How fear in people’s faces. Harvard is invest- and exit in order to confirm the arrival Private Contractors ed in Amazon through the iShares Core Enable Trump’s Cruelties and departure from the United States of at the Border." The Nation, S&P 500 ETF. all travelers. In response to President June 20, 2018.

27 28 Trump’s 2018 Executive Order 13780, the Israeli army used Merkava tanks “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Ter- that had L3 engines to attack Pales- rorist Entry into the United States,” the tinians in Gaza. The 2012 attack killed Biometric Entry-Exit project awarded to Unisys was expedited. Unisys was ac- 101 civilians, 33 of which were children, cordingly awarded an additional contract according to the RAND Corporation.31 to implement systems that would allow Another Israeli attack in 2014 using for supplementing documents such as Merkava tanks killed 1,462 civilians, 551 passports with biometric information for of whom were children. Harvard made travelers entering and exiting the United States.30 money from the sales of these weapons. Harvard is invested in Harris and In this way, Harvard is a benefactor in L3 through the iShares Core S&P 500 Trump’s crackdown on undocument- ETF. Motorola also provides technology ed and documented immigrants. The to the Israeli army and is included in the world is witnessing the horrors of ICE iShares Core S&P 500 ETF. In August 32 and the United States government in of 2019, AeroVironment, of the iS- terrorizing migrants and separating hares Core S&P Small-Cap ETF, won a families indiscriminately. Little do most $45 million contract from the U.S. Army people know, these horrors are very Security Force Assistance Brigades to profitable for investors like Harvard, provide “Tactical Unmanned Aircraft where people work very hard to keep its Systems.” AeroVironment also builds image squeaky clean in the public eye. drones, which is a tool that militaries Keeping databases on people in order use to execute civilians and commit to track them before deportation re- other war crimes. quires technology and Harvard invests in those tech companies in the name of the harvard-to-prison pipeline report expanding the $40 billion endowment to supposedly fund Harvard students' education. It’s hard to believe that an institution like Harvard, with its sterling reputation, And it is not just oppressed people profits off of these wrongdoings in the within the United States borders who world. But they do. are feeling the surveillance state's grip on Harvard’s investments. Companies It doesn’t have to be this way. The Cor- 30 like Harris Corporation and L3, who are poration, under the guidance of Bill Investigate. "High- Lee, the Chairperson of the Corporation Tech Surveillance of planning to merge to create a gargan- Immigrants." Accessed tuan global weapons company, provide Committee on Shareholder Responsi- Oct 1, 2019. surveillance technology and weapons bility, and President Lawrence Bacow, 31 to Israel’s army. For example, in 2012 both have the power to direct the Har- Cohen, Raphael, et al. vard Management Company to change "From Cast Lead to Protective Edge." Rand its investments and divest. Corporation, 2017. It doesn’t have to be 32 AeroVironment. "Tactical this way. Aircraft Systems." Accessed Oct 1, 2019.

29 29 03 | Reflections on the Human Costs of Incarceration from those1 impacted by Harvard’s investment in the prison-industrial complex the harvard-to-prison pipeline report

1 "Letter to Harvard" Ron L. is currently incarcerated at the Massachusetts Correctional Institute at Norfolk.

" Truth" James K. is currently incarcerated at the Massachusetts Correctional Institute at Norfolk.

"Dear Ma, I'm Sorry" Ashley Lipscomb is a MDiv student at Harvard Divinity School.

31 the harvard-to-prison pipeline report pipeline harvard-to-prison the

31 32 the harvard-to-prison pipeline report

33 the harvard-to-prison pipeline report pipeline harvard-to-prison the

33 34 the harvard-to-prison pipeline report

35 the harvard-to-prison pipeline report pipeline harvard-to-prison the

35 36 04 | THE EFFICACY

A Time-Tested Form divested from the tobacco industry of Political Action in 1989;3 and in 2005 and 2006, Har- During the course of our campaign, we vard divested from certain companies have been asked why we are pursuing involved in oil production4 in Sudan divestment rather than other forms of during the genocide. 1 Rodman, Melissa, political action. The answer is simple. and Yehong Zhu. " Divestment is a time-tested form of Arguments for divestment are primarily Calls for Divestment: A Retrospective." The political action. While consumer boy- moral in nature (i.e. that it is unethical to Crimson, May 27, 2015. cotts have been around since the 18th profit from industries built on injustice 2 century and contributed to the Brit- and immiseration). But there are strong Harvard Universtiy. ish abolition of the slave trade and the arguments for the strategic efficacy of "Shareholder Responsibility movement for civil rights in America, di- divestment in effecting radical political Committees." Accessed the harvard-to-prison pipeline report vestment, which is an investor boycott, change. In the anti-apartheid struggle, Oct 1, 2019. gained political currency during the divestment sucessfully indicted those 3 global struggle against apartheid South who participated and collaborated with Lewin, Tamar. "Harvard and CUNY Shedding Africa. In the 1980s, activists forced the apartheid state. By the late 1980s, Stocks in Tobacco." The states, municipalities, corporations, and the apartheid government, once seen New York Times, May 24, 1990. universities to stop doing business with as an important U.S. ally in the Cold apartheid South Africa and divest from War, was widely regarded as a pariah 4 "Harvard announces all South African companies. Though state, while Nelson Mandela, once des- decision to divest Harvard itself failed to fully divest,1 the ignated a terrorist, had become a global PetroChina stock." The Harvard Gazette, April 4, global divestment campaign is cred- icon for peace and social justice. 2005. ited with helping pressure the white 5 minority government into holding the Stigmatization of the industry often has Rueb, Emily S. country’s first democratic elections and indirect economic effects on targeted "JPMorgan Chase Stops Funding Private thereby ending apartheid. companies. In response to escalating Prison Companies, and pressure from organizers with the Cor- Immigration Activists Applaud." The New York Harvard itself has acknowledged the porate Backers of Hate campaign, JP Times, March 6, 2019. effectiveness and ethical merit of di- Morgan Chase announced5 in March https://www.nytimes. 2 com/2019/03/06/ vestment through its public comments 2019 that it would no longer bank the pri- business/jp-morgan- and past actions. In 1989, the university vate prison industry. Chase competitors prisons.html

37 OF DIVESTMENT

Wells Fargo, Bank of America, BNP Pa- ribas, Suntrust, and Fifth Third Bancorp quickly followed6 suit. Because the private prison industry depends heavily on

borrowed money to survive, divestment report pipeline harvard-to-prison the has had significant impact on the private prison industry. After JP Morgan’s announcement, GEO Group stock de- clined 16%.7

Divestment also aims to impose direct economic costs on the targeted industries. While some have questioned the efficacy of divesting from stocks, the rise of investing through mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) is fundamentally shaping how change can be affected through investments. By refusing to invest in funds that include corporations in the prison-industrial complex, Harvard - as a significant institutional investor - can force the investment industry to end its vulgar de- 6 pendency on incarceration. Ludwig, Mike. "Big Banks Are Divesting From Private Prisons, Thanks This shift would deprive the prison in- to Anti-ICE Activism." dustry of capital secured through the Truthout, July 23, 2019. issuance of new shares and discourage 7 the founding of new companies or ven- Stockler, Asher. "Private Prison Company GEO tures geared towards profiteering from Group Says Activists Pose prisons. Risk To Bottom Line." Newsweek, May 8, 2019.

37 38 04.2/ A Plan for Divestment

In the summer of 2019, a year after our disaster. Case in point: Harvard has the campaign was formed, prison divest- ignominous distinctionof being the very ment news abounded in the media. In last university to divest from compa- quick succession, SunTrust, Bank of nies doing business with the apartheid America, BNP Paribas, and Fifth Third regime in South Africa. Bancorp joined JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo pledging to no longer finance private prison companies. Case in point: Harvard The New York State Senate passed has the ignominous Senate Bill 5433, which would prohibit distinction of being the state-chartered banks from “investing in and providing financing to private very last university to prisons.” And at summer’s end, the state divest from companies of California banned private prisons al- doing business with together. It was clear that momentum was gathering for prison divestment. the apartheid regime

the harvard-to-prison pipeline report in South Africa. We greeted this news with mixed emotions. On the one hand, we were overjoyed for our fellow organizers Not only did the University only partial- around the country. We knew that ly divest from apartheid SA, but it did each new high-profile divestment de- so when the gesture was all but mean- cision would not only move us closer ingless. The fight had been fought and to the horizon of abolition, but also won. Harvard simply realized it would strengthened our one case for divest- not be prudent to go down in history ment. Divestment is not only a moral as supporters of Hendrik Verwoerd and necessity, but eminently possible and P.W. Botha. financially feasible for even the most profit-hungry institutions. On the other And while times have changed and uni- hand, we knew that Harvard can be es- versity presidents have come and gone, pecially unyielding, even in the face of this brand of moral neglect seems to be overwhelming evidence and withering an indelible feature of the institution. public condemnation. We don’t run with Harvard President Bacow demonstrat- the pack, Harvard likes to boast, even ed this when he low-balled Harvard’s if the pack is running away from moral investments in the prison-industrial

39 39 complex to HPDC organizers in April consideration given to pressing issues 2019. In Section 2.1, we have shown how of social, environmental, and corporate this figure, presented by Bacow, is false governance. And Harvard has acknowl- and misleading. But we noted at the edged that the political valence of some time that logic could have taken Pres- of its investments merit divestment. In ident Bacow in one of two directions: addition to its partial divestment from this is so low, we may as well divest; or, apartheid, it divested in from the tobacco this is so low, there is no need to divest. industry in 1989; and in 2005 and 2006, Harvard divested from certain compa- We know which direction he chose as nies involved in oil production in Sudan there have been no good-faith efforts during the genocide. To claim now that to engage our demands. Instead, his its investment portfolio is not political actions suggest that Harvard believes and should not be subject to political it has a right to profiteer from caging considerations is dishonest at best. Black, Brown, and poor people. However, assessing the second and Knowing that we would continue facing third claims we knew would require this type of resistance from Harvard more financial expertise than we our- leadership — a kind of narcissism that selves possess. Fortunately, we reached admits no flaws and permits no criticism out to a national network of respon- - we consulted with a team of investors sible investment experts for opinion. to investigate two of Harvard’s three Additionally, we consulted with several claims about the impossibility of divest- people who have experience with large ment. Those truth claims, in summary, investment portfolios about the validi- are: ty of Harvard’s claims. Although, from the harvard-to-prison pipeline report our position we see no compatibility Those truth claims, between abolition and the structures of in summary, are: financial capitalism, we entertain their 1./ Divestment would politicize an en- challenges to the stated points for the dowment that is not political and cannot sake of addressing the fallacies of these sustain politicization; claims on their own terms. We also con- 2./ Divestment would threaten the insti- sulted with several people who have tution financially; and, experience with large investment port- 3./ Divestment of funds that are managed folios about the validity of Harvard’s externally and consist of instruments claims. According to these investors, whose composite funds are fluid (funds the news for Harvard is not good. The of funds) is unfeasible. second and third claims about divestment’s feasibility and its potential to This first claim can be easily demol- bring on economic insecurity simply do ished by Harvard’s own past words and not hold up. What follows is a summa- actions. Harvard is - after all - signato- tion of their findings: ry to the United Nations’ Principles for Responsible Investment, which holds that fiduciary decisions be made with

41 The Feasibility of Re-structuring analysis of leading socially respon- the Endowment sible investing equity indices in 2017 Early on in our consultation with the found no statistical difference in return racial justice investors, one of them told compared to broad market bench- us in no uncertain terms: marks, while another study comparing screened socially responsible invest- “It’s unfortunate that Harvard continues to ment with conventional indices found give obsolete arguments for why the en- that responsible investing does not dowment can’t be restructured. The truth is that universities can ethically restruc- result in lower returns. Far from being ture their endowments and many have. a drain on performance, in fact, experts Harvard really should be a leader in this say that avoiding harmful industries is movement rather than being so far behind sound risk management.2 The decisions the curve.” of large banks like JPMorgan Chase to cut ties with CoreCivic and GEO So what would it take to ethically Group partly reflected their determina- re-structure Harvard’s endowment so tion that the private prison sector had that it no longer includes investments become to risky. Private prison stocks in the prison-industrial complex? swung wildly between the Obama and report pipeline harvard-to-prison the Trump administrations, and future legal As we have detailed, the complex is changes would bring more volatility and immense and far-reaching. It encom- risk. Overall, leading research suggests passes innumerable industries and that responsible business practices and 1 shaped fundamentally contemporary SRI are linked to better financial perfor- Gunnar Friede, Timo Busch & Alexander society. As such, it can seem daunting 3 mance. That’s why smart investors are Bassen (2015) ESG and to consider divesting from all compa- paying new attention to social and envi- financial performance: nies that benefit from human caging. aggregated evidence ronmental issues. That includes a wave from more than 2000 But there are ways to sever its major of big investors (now totalling $6 trillion empirical studies, Journal of Sustainable Finance & limbs, stem its profitability, and clear 4 in assets) that have divested from risky Investment, 5:4, 210-233. the path towards abolition. Doing so oil companies. involves identifying companies of fore- 2 Stringer, Scott M. and most concern, which we have provided And while the investment industry is Javier H. Valdés. "More above, and slating them for divestment. Cities and States Should thick with technical and legal complex- Divest From Private ities that might seem to be obstacles to Prisons." The New York Times, July 30, 2018. Feasibility is also a matter of cost. divestment, Harvard with its immense Here there is also reassuring news. resources can draw on the expertise 3 These responsible investment experts Clark, Gordon L., Andreas of its neighbors. As one racial justice Feiner, and Michael Viehs. stress that divestment screens can be investor put it, “socially responsible "From the Stockholder managed and rebalanced to prevent to the Stakeholder: investing (SRI) is everywhere in the How Sustainability a decrease in performance. Indeed, industry right now, and Boston is the Can Drive Financial analysis of the aggregated evidence Outperformance." SSRN world capital.” Harvard need only cross Electronic Journal, 2014. of 2,200 empirical studies found that the street to find the expertise neces- 4 responsible investment perform just as sary to execute a plan for divestment. 1 Carrington, Damian. well as traditional investments. Other "Fossil fuel divestment studies back these findings. A TIAA funds rise to $6tn." The Guardian, Sept 10, 2018.

41 42 What’s more, the size of Harvard’s not achieved along with a reason and portfolio allows it significant power in a plan of action or intention for the fol- making what the investment industry at lowing year. large might be considered the uncon- ventional demands. Having led so many For mutual funds and other co-mingled innovations in modern nonprofit en- vehicles where Harvard is a minority dowment management, Harvard is well investor and cannot dictate screening, positioned to convene peers, service Harvard must make and report on best providers, and other actors in order to efforts to find alternative funds/vehi- bring new innovations. “External fund cles. In this, Harvard can work with managers and investment consultants consultants and gather peers who can be directed to do things,” one in- might similarly want to invest in such vestor said, “And funds of funds can be products. Harvard can help convene a screened. These are not unthinkable market for new pooled products that steps.” In fact, they are becoming more screen out companies profiting from the and more commonplace. prison industrial complex. This would be a gradual process, but considering Harvard's position, it would not take The Process of Divestment very long to embark on the first steps. The plan to divest, therefore, begins with a strategic divestment plan or process. Moreover, this process would occur in First, Harvard, directly or more likely the name and with the express goal via the HMC, would approach its fund of transparency. As the asset owner, managers. These are internal (HMC) Harvard has the right and the power money managers or external shops to insist on transparency from its fund the harvard-to-prison pipeline report that manage funds on behalf of the uni- managers, and to pass that transparen- versity. Harvard would first instruct its cy on to its grateful community in the managers to locate problematic invest- form of public reporting. This reporting ments - guided by a list of companies process would take place on at least of concern determined in collaboration an annual basis, ensuring that compa- with the Harvard Prison Divestment nies of concern do not creep back into Campaign. Managers would be in- Harvard’s indirect investments and that structed to report to Harvard on those companies that become newly entan- investments so that the university can gled in the prison-industrial complex review and publish them annually. Once are adequately divested from. the extent of Harvard’s investments is established, fund managers would While we seek to avoid the stock and proceed with divestment — proceeding bonds of companies that profit from carefully but expeditiously on a “best the PIC, companies, to be clear, are just efforts” basis. Fund managers would one asset class of concern. But we also execute Harvard’s overall instruction seek to avoid involvement via venture to divest in good faith, and each year capital, private equity, and other asset report on progress — this includes classes. Divestment of these assets disclosing any divestments that were would be largely similar to the process

43 outlined above, in which Harvard itera- tively instructs fund managers of their divestment expectations, receives and “A wall reviews annual reports on their progress, course-corrects each year where necessary, and publishes information is just a to ensure transparency and account- ability to the broader community. wall and The above is not a prescription. It is the institution’s obligation and prerogative nothing to pursue divestment in good faith and in keeping, to the best of its ability, to the full scope of its obligations, oppor- more at all. tunities, and constraints. Rather, our purpose in laying out a blueprint for di- IT CAN BE vestment is to dispel the myths that it is impossible. We hope that Harvard’s report pipeline harvard-to-prison the reticence will soon yield to courage and BROKEN that it will trust in its ability to divest. D O W N .” not- Assata Shakur

43 44 45 Repair and Reinvest 04.3/ reinvestment is an opening to the path to reparative justice.1

At the start of Black History Month two disclose and divest, but we also demand years ago, the Black Student Union at that it reinvest in the communities that California State University, Los Ange- have borne the burden and violence of les, asked the school to divest from incarceration, enslavement, policing then–private prison contractor Wells and control since the founding of this Fargo. The BSU also demanded that school in 1636. the money be reinvested into funding the recruitment of black prospective Our calls for and commitment to rein-

students to the campus, developing a vestment have led to the birth of our report pipeline harvard-to-prison the living-learning residence community “Just Reinvestment Fund.”3 Through for black students, and implementing the Just Reinvestment Fund, we called mandatory coursework beyond the on alumni to stop donating to Harvard white-western canon, and race and until it takes meaningful steps toward ethnicity studies for the entire student these demands, instead redistributing body. its wealth to local organizations, including the Boston Ujima Project,4 that This focus was critical. In addition to are working toward building wealth for divestment, reinvestment is critical for black, brown, and poor communities. uplifting communities that have been harmed by systems of oppression. We need reinvestment to build the liberato- We demand that Harvard 1 A version of this chapter ry, supportive communities where each disclose and divest, was originally published of us can thrive. For example, as com- but we also demand in The Nation. munities rally to close jails and prisons, 2 local governments2 sell so-called that it reinvest in the Lau, Maya. "In landmark move, L.A. County will “modernized prisons” plans to build communities that have replace Men’s Central essentially the same monuments to vio- Jail with mental health borne the burden and hospital for inmates." The lence that historically led to community Los Angeles Times, Feb devastation. Prison profiteers sell ankle violence of incarceration, 13, 2019.

monitors as “more humane” alterna- enslavement, policing 3 tives, all while expanding the tendrils of Center for Econmic and control since the Democracy." Just who is under state surveillance. Reinvestment Fund." founding of this school in Accessed Oct 1, 2019.

Our demands, therefore, are explicit- 1636. 4 ly twofold. We demand that Harvard Boston Ujima Project. Accessed Oct 1, 2019.

45 46 In Boston, the Ujima Project, a recipient where relational co-building occurs of money raised through the Just Rein- daily. In doing so, they are seizing their vestment Fund, is practicing in real time right to self-determination, acknowl- what a self-determined “community edging the often-devalued labor of economy” looks like. Part of the Ujima marginalized people, and redefining Project’s work includes showing the “wealth” outside of exploitation. marked difference between represen- tative democracy and deep democracy: These new, non-exploitative, and dem- In the former, a local government builds ocratic economic systems will hold a park and then, in order to get buy-in, together the world without prisons, asks the community to vote on wheth- without borders, and without violence— er the benches should be painted red but they need support. For centuries, or blue. In contrast, deep democracy the most powerful figures in our econo- engages the community at the start, my have systematically benefited from, asking: Do you even want a park? If and then divested from, the commu- so, what would you like to be included nities built by black, brown, poor, and in a park? If not, what should go there working-class people. instead? Oppression bars communities from By formulating these questions and resources to facilitate the dreaming engaging neighbors to answer them— needed to contemplate liberated futures. through community-wide assemblies, For us, divestment and reinvestment workshops, and creative mechanisms are tactics in service of a long-game vi- to facilitate voting—Ujima embodies the sion of abolition, which is the process of process of building new decision-mak- redefining safety away from police and the harvard-to-prison pipeline report ing structures—the scaffolding of a prisons, but also moving into new sys- people’s economy. Alongside more tems of relationship with one another. than 450 voting and solidarity members rooted in Boston’s black, brown, The creation of the Just Reinvestment and working-class neighborhoods, the fund recognizes that the journey to Ujima Project aims to model an econ- reinvestment is as important as the omy that can begin to heal generations destination. For reinvestment to ac- of structural racism, and make way for curately reflect relationships on the a future where all community members ground, it has to be locally based, dem- can not only survive but thrive in the ocratically self-governed, and rooted city they call home. in community values and mutual aid. The processes appropriate for any Many communities, like the one that given community will need to be de- has formed around the Ujima Project termined collaboratively—and those in Boston, are building out systems of decisions can be made only through self-governing cooperative economics deep relationships. We thus ask that that allow us to practice our politics Harvard work with and hear the voic- in real time, building community land es of communities that its investments trusts, worker coops, and time banks in the prison-industrial-complex have

47 harmed. Instead of gentrifying these environment, disrepair of an econo- communities, its vast resources can be my based in violence, disrepair of our used to empower them. relationships with each other and with ourselves. Typically, our system of wealth distribution reproduces hierarchy. Most Reinvestment is an opening to the philanthropists set charitable priorities path to reparative justice. As such, based on personal interest. Neither is a reinvestment conversation cannot the current system of tax distribution be disconnected from reparations. designed to help those most in need: Many people, including presidential the government increased spending on candidates, struggle to understand rep- criminalization to $180 billion per year arations, despite the fact that black and in this country, rather than allocating indigenous communities have been de- sufficient funding for social investments manding and explaining it for centuries. in housing, education, and health care. What politicians often miss is that reinvestment as reparatory justice is not Yes, we are calling for Harvard Universi- just about moving money; it requires ty to reinvest and for alumni and donors redesigning our whole society’s rela- report pipeline harvard-to-prison the to engage in this work. This universi- tionship to resources. ty has gained power through stolen wealth, but it can act as an agent of the As young people, we see that the world ethical and civic leadership it claims to is at a turning point. We can heal our espouse by repairing the harm it has relationships with ourselves only as profited from through allocating re- we heal our relationships with each sources for the work that heals the core other—and that cannot happen when of the intergenerational exploitation it we are resourcing our separation with has perpetuated. walls, borders, and systems of control and domination. Through reinvestment, We have inherited a society in which we are choosing to turn toward non- we bear witness to the unaddressed exploitation and the liberation of all harms every day—the disrepair of our people.

47 48 05 | CONCLUSION

Harvard’s Legacy Harvard can be a leader in the fight It is time this to end the prison-industrial complex. institution While peer universities like Columbia1 and Georgetown2 have already moved demonstrate some away from investing in private prisons, of the courage of Harvard would be the first university to its students and set divest from prisons (private and public), youth facilities, immigrant detention itself on the long path and a broad range of companies that towards justice. help expand the role of these violent institutions in our society. The scale of Harvard’s holdings and its reputation would signal that Harvard is committed as an important institutional investor to more than just self-preservation by could affect a historic change in higher taking a concrete step to address its education and beyond. historical failures. the harvard-to-prison pipeline report Recently, Harvard has acknowledged We have laid out in this report in de- its historical culpability in upholding tail the scope and horror of the prison and profiting from the system of slavery. industrial complex, the scale and spe- However, beyond a commemorative cifics of Harvard’s entanglement with plaque, the university has done little to it, the feasibility of divesting from it, substantively address slavery’s perni- and the necessity of reinvesting to re- cious legacies and continued to inflict pair harm done. In writing this report, harm on the descendants of enslaved we - as students - have dedicated our

1 people (as we have thoroughly noted in time, labor, expertise, and imagination Chan, Wilfred. " Columbia Section 1.3). In recent months, scandals to the vision of a more just and liberated becomes first U.S. university to divest from involving admissions and the high pro- world. We have done for Harvard what prisons." CNN, June 24, file crimes of donors like Jeffrey Epstein the institution should have long ago 2015. and the Sackler family have reignited done for itself. 2 abiding doubts about whether Harvard Pankova, Elizabeth. "Board Of Directors is committed to the common good. We demand Harvard Announces Continued Divestment from the prison-industrial Avoidance Of Investment disclose, divest, and In Private Prisons." The complex and reinvestment in the com- Georgetown Voice, Oct munities most impacted by its violence reinvest. 14, 2017.

49 the harvard-to-prison pipeline report pipeline harvard-to-prison the

49 50 06 | SOURCES

Section 1.1 — The Prison Industrial Complex Herzing, Rachel. "What Is the PIC?" Prison Culture. Published October 12, 2010. http://www.usprisoncul ture.com/blog/what-is-thepic/. Sawyer, Wendy, and Peter Wagner. “Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2019.” Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2019 | Prison Policy Initiative. Published March 19, 2019. https://www.prisonpolicy. org/reports/pie2019.html. Section 1.2 — Why Abolition Davis, Angela. "Masked Racism: Reflections on the Prison Industrial Complex." Colorlines: Race, Culture, Action 1, no. 2 (1998): 11. Kushner, Rachel. “Is Prison Necessary? Ruth Wilson Gilmore Might Change Your Mind.” The New York Times, April 17, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/17/magazine/prison-aboli tion-ruth-wilson-gilmore.html. Lombardo, Crystal. “Pros and Cons of Community Policing.” Vision Launch. Published June 6, 2016. http://visionlaunch.com/pros-and-cons-of-community-policing. Perry, Imani. “'From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime,' by Elizabeth Hinton.” The New York Times, May 27, 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/29/books/review/from-the-war-on-poverty- to-the-war-on-crime-by-elizabeth-hinton.html. Prison Culture. “Prison Culture Transformative Justice.” Prison Culture. RSS March 12, 2012. http://www. usprisonculture.com/blog/transformative-justice. Rodríguez, Dylan, Dorothy E. Roberts, Nancy Leong, and Richard Thompson Ford. “Racial Capitalism.” Harvard Law Review, June 20, 2013. https://harvardlawreview.org/2013/06/racial-capitalism/. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. "Towards more humane prison systems." Accessed Sep tember 29, 2019. https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/towards-more-humane-pris the harvard-to-prison pipeline report on-systems.html. Section 1.3 — Harvard, Slavery, and Eugenics Beckert, Sven, et al. Harvard and Slavery: Seeking a Forgotten History. Cambridge: Harvard and Slavery Research Seminar, 2011. Burke, Minyvonne. "Woman sues Harvard claiming it is exploiting images of her 19th-century slave ancestors." NBC News, March 20, 2019. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/wom an-sues-harvard-claiming-it-exploiting-images-her-19th-century-n985456. Cohen, Adam. "Harvard’s Eugenics Era." Harvard Magazine, March-April 2016. https://harvardmagazine. com/2016/03/harvards-eugenics-era. Davis, Angela. Are Prisons Obsolete? New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003. Harvard University. "Harvard and Slavery." Accessed Oct 1, 2019. https://www.harvard.edu/slavery. Kevles, D J. "Eugenics and Human Rights." BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.) 319, no. 7207 (1999): 435-38. Kutler, Stanley I. Dictionary of American History. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2003. Mass Gov. " Massachusetts Constitution and the Abolition of Slavery." Accessed Oct 1, 2019. https:// www.mass.gov/guides/massachusetts-constitution-and-the-abolition-of-slavery. Pandian, Kevin. "Louis Agassiz (1807-1873)." Revised March 2, 2011. https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/ agassiz.html. Svrluga, Susan, and Mara Reinstein. "Harvard accused in lawsuit of retaining and profiting from im ages of slaves." The Washington Post, March 20, 2019. https://www.washingtonpost.com/edu cation/2019/03/20/harvard-accused-lawsuit-seizing-profiting-images-slaves/. Wong, Matteo. "The Harvard Alumni Who Fought to Keep Immigrants Out." The Crimson, Oct 18, 2018. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/10/18/immigration-restriction-league/.

51 Section 2.2 — Industry Profiles ACLU. "Selling Off Our Freedom." Published May 2017. https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_ document/059_bail_report_2_1.pdf. AeroVironment. "Tactical Aircraft Systems." Accessed Oct 1, 2019. https://www.avinc.com/solutions/ tactical-isr. Angwin, Julia, et al. "Machine Bias." ProPublica, May 23, 2016. https://www.propublica.org/article/ma chine-bias-risk-assessments-in-criminal-sentencing. Bae Systems. "U.S. Navy awards $600 million multi-service contract for laser-guided rockets." Published Oct 19, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/police-shoot ings-2018/. Cohen, Raphael, et al. "From Cast Lead to Protective Edge." Rand Corporation, 2017. https://www.rand. org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR1800/RR1888/RAND_RR1888.pdf. Dewan, Shaila. "Private Probation Company Accused of Abuses in Tennessee." The New York Times, Oct. 1, 2015. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/02/us/private-probation-company-ac cused-of-abuses-in-tennessee.html?_r=0. Dayen, David. "How Private Contractors Enable Trump’s Cruelties at the Border." The Nation, June 20, 2018. https://www.thenation.com/article/private-contractors-enable-trumps-cruelties-border/. "Fatal Force." The Washington Post, accessed Oct 1, 2019. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graph ics/2018/national/police-shootings-2018/. Franck, Thomas. "There’s ‘no evidence’ Tasers reduce police use of firearms, new study shows." CNBC, Oct 22, 2018. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/18/theres-no-evidence-tasers-reduce-police- use-of-firearms-new-study-shows.html. Gilbert, Curtis, Caputo, Angela, Geoff, Hing. "When Tasers Fail." APM Reports, May 9, 2019. https://www. apmreports.org/story/2019/05/09/when-tasers-fail. report pipeline harvard-to-prison the Goodwin, Alyxandra, Shepard, Whitney, Sloan, Carrie. "Police Brutality Bonds." Action Center on Race & the Economy.https://www.acrecampaigns.org/pbb. Hall, Ben. " Rutherford Co., PCC Settle Class Action Lawsuit Over Private Probation Fees." News Chan nel Five Nashville, Sep 19, 2017. https://www.newschannel5.com/news/newschannel-5-inves tigates/rutherford-co-pcc-settle-class-action-lawsuit-over-private-probation-fees. Human Rights Watch. "Profiting from Probation." February 5, 2014. https://www.hrw.org/re port/2014/02/05/profiting-probation/americas-offender-funded-probation-industry. Investigate. "High-Tech Surveillance of Immigrants." Accessed Oct 1, 2019. http://investigate.afsc.org/. tags/high-tech-surveillance-immigrants. Klein, Rebecca. "The Other Side Of School Safety: Students Are Getting Tasered And Beaten By Po lice ." Huffpost, Sept 8, 2018. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/school-safety-students-police- abuse_n_ 5b746a4ce4b0df9b093b8d6a. Kilgore, James. "Five Corporations You’ve Never Heard of Are Making Millions From Mass Incarceration." Truthout, 2015. https://truthout.org/articles/five-corporations-you-ve-never-heard-of-mak ing-millions-from-mass-incarceration/. Kukorowski, Drew. "The price to call home: state-sanctioned monopolization in the prison phone indus try." A Prison Policy Initiative Report, September 11, 2012. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/phones/ report.html. Rivas, Jorge. "Department of Homeland Security and ICE End Sheriff Arpaio's 287(g) Contract." Color Lines, Dec 15, 2011. https://www.colorlines.com/articles/department-homeland-securi ty-and-ice-end-sheriff-arpaios-287g-contract. Romano, Benjamin. "Protesters in Seattle petition Amazon to stop selling technology to ICE." The Seattle Times, July 15, 2019. https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/protestors-peti tion-amazon-to-stop-selling-technology-to-ice/. Stillman, Sarah. "Get Out of Jail, Inc." The Newyorker, June 16, 2014. https://www.newyorker.com/maga zine/2014/06/23/get-out-of-jail-inc. "The Banks that Finance Private Prison Companies." In the Public Interest, 2016. https://www.inthepub licinterest.org/wp-content/uploads/ITPI_BanksPrivatePrisonCompanies_Nov2016.pdf. "The Prison-Industrial Complex: mapping the private sector players," Worth Rises, April 2018. https:// worthrises.org/picreport2019.

51 52 Section 4.1 — The Efficacy of Divestment "Harvard announces decision to divest PetroChina stock." The Harvard Gazette, April 4, 2005. https:// news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2005/04/harvard-announces-decision-to-divest-petrochi na-stock/. Harvard Universtiy. "Shareholder Responsibility Committees." Accessed Oct 1, 2019. https://www.har vard.edu/shareholder-responsibility-committees. Lewin, Tamar. "Harvard and CUNY Shedding Stocks in Tobacco." The New York Times, May 24, 1990. https://www.nytimes.com/1990/05/24/us/harvard-and-cuny-shedding-stocks-in-tobacco. html. Ludwig, Mike. "Big Banks Are Divesting From Private Prisons, Thanks to Anti-ICE Activism." Truthout, July 23, 2019. https://truthout. org/articles/big-banks-are-divesting-from-private-prisons- thanks-to-anti-ice-activism/. Rodman, Melissa, and Yehong Zhu. " Calls for Divestment: A Retrospective." The Crimson, May 27, 2015. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/5/27/divest-retrospective-reunion-1990/. Rueb, Emily S. "JPMorgan Chase Stops Funding Private Prison Companies, and Immigration Activists Applaud." The New York Times, March 6, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/06/busi ness/jp-morgan-prisons.html Stockler, Asher. "Private Prison Company GEO Group Says Activists Pose Risk To Bottom Line." News week, May 8, 2019. https://www.newsweek.com/private-prison-company-geo-group-says-ac tivists-pose-risk-bottom-line-1420371. Section 4.2 — A Plan for Divestment Carrington, Damian. "Fossil fuel divestment funds rise to $6tn." The Guardian, Sept 10, 2018. https://www. theguardian.com/environment/2018/sep/10/fossil-fuel-divestment-funds-rise-to-6tn. Clark, Gordon L., Andreas Feiner, and Michael Viehs. "From the Stockholder to the Stakeholder: How Sustainability Can Drive Financial Outperformance." SSRN Electronic Journal, 2014. Gunnar Friede, Timo Busch & Alexander Bassen (2015) ESG and financial performance: aggregated evidence from more than 2000 empirical studies, Journal of Sustainable Finance & Investment, 5:4, 210-233. Stringer, Scott M. and Javier H. Valdés. "More Cities and States Should Divest From Private Prisons." The New York Times, July 30, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/30/opinion/private-pris the harvard-to-prison pipeline report ons-immigration-divest.html. Section 4.3 — Repair and Reinvestment Boston Ujima Project. Accessed Oct 1, 2019. https://www.ujimaboston.com/. Center for Econmic Democracy." Just Reinvestment Fund." Accessed Oct 1, 2019. https://www.eco nomicdemocracy.us/reinvest. Lau, Maya. "In landmark move, L.A. County will replace Men’s Central Jail with mental health hospital for inmates." The Los Angeles Times, Feb 13, 2019. https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me- jail-construction-20190212-story.html Section 5.1 — Conclusion Chan, Wilfred. "Columbia becomes first U.S. university to divest from prisons." CNN, June 24, 2015. https://www.cnn.com/2015/06/23/us/columbia-university-prison-divest/index.html. Pankova, Elizabeth. "Board Of Directors Announces Continued Avoidance Of Investment In Private Prisons." The Georgetown Voice, Oct 14, 2017. https://georgetownvoice.com/2017/10/14/ board-of-directors-announces-continued-avoidance-of-investment-in-private-prisons/.

53 Images: cover: Harvard Prison Divestment Campaign, 2019. p13: Harvard Prison Divestment Campaign, 2019. p17: Jackson, Bruce. Cummins Prison Farm, Grady. 1975. Albright-Knox Art Gallery, New York. p18: Jackson, Bruce. Cummins Prison Farm, Grady. 1975. Albright-Knox Art Gallery, New York. p23: Stateville Correctional Center. 1928. Underwood Archives. p25: Riedel, Charlie. Inmates talk on pay phones. Associate Press. p28: Nicholson, Lucy. Prison Labor. Reuters. p33: Unknown. Orleans Parish Prison. p37: Xitlalli Alvarez Almendariz, 2019. p45: Hsia, Lisa. "Were Waiting for Harvard's Decision on its Investments in Apartheid. April 28, 1978. Michigan State University. p47: Crowds Gather in Support of Harvard's Divestment from its South African Holdings. The Crimson, Harvard University. p51: Harvard Prison Divestment Campaign, 2019. p52: Snyder, Brian. Graduating students call on Harvard to divest from prisons. May 2019. Reuters. p55: Harvard Prison Divestment Campaign, 2019. p57: Harvard Prison Divestment Campaign, 2019. back cover: Harvard Prison Divestment Campaign, 2019.

Appendix: report pipeline harvard-to-prison the Section 2.1, The Numbers: Using the definition of the prison-industrial complex provided in Chapter 1, we identified, read, and fact-checked a range of publications listing specific companies whose business models rely heavily on human caging, control, and confinement. See the top sources we used to identify our list of target companies below:

Investigate http://investigate.afsc.org/prisons (maintained by the American Friends Service Committee) The Prison Industrial Complex: Mapping Private Sector Players https://worthrises.org/resources (published by Worth Rises) U.S. For-Profit Privatized Correctional Services https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/media/publications/Other%20privatized_1.pdf (compiled by Prison Legal News) Prison Labor in the United States: An Investor Perspective https://northstarasset.com/creating-change/prison-labor/ (published by NorthStar Asset Management) Police Brutality Bonds: How Wall Street Profits from Police Violence https://www.acrecampaigns.org/pbb (published by the Action Center on Race & the Economy (ACRE)) The Banks That Finance Private Prison Companies https://www.inthepublicinterest.org/report-the-banks-that-finance-private-prison-companies/ (published by In The Public Interest) For Better or For Profit: How the Bail Bonding Industry Stands in the Way of Fair and Effective Pretrial Justice http://www.justicepolicy.org/research/4388 (published by the Justice Policy Institute) Who’s Behind ICE? The Tech and Data Companies Fueling Deportations https://mijente.net/2018/10/23/whos-behind-ice-the-tech-companies-fueling-deportations/ (published jointly by Mijente, the National Immigration Project, and the Immigrant Defense Project.

53 54 the harvard-to-prison pipeline report

55 the harvard-to-prison pipeline report pipeline harvard-to-prison the

55 56 The Harvard Prison Divestment Campaign October 2019