DIVESTMENT FROM FOSSIL FUELS IS A BREACH OF FIDUCIARY DUTY:

It’s likely that Harvard’s endowment, like many other universities’ this year, will show losses. The school’s annualized 10-year returns as of June 2021 are among the lowest of its peers in the eight-school Ivy League, according to Bloomberg data. The University of Texas System last overtook Yale’s endowment in 2018 as the second-richest US university because of rising oil prices. . . .

Land operated by the University of Texas System is on track to post its best-ever annual revenue in fiscal 2022 because of soaring oil prices and production on its property in the Permian Basin. Oil reached a high of $120 a barrel earlier this year as a result of a war-induced energy crunch. The revenue is expected to help narrow the gap between the Texas system’s $42.9 billion endowment and Harvard’s $53.2 billion as of June 2021.

“The University of Texas has a cash windfall when everyone is looking at a potential cash crunch,” said William Goetzmann, a professor of finance and management studies at Yale University’s School of Management. “Adjusting your portfolio for social concerns is not costless.”

No, and the cost isn’t borne by the managers who do the adjusting, but by the people on whose behalf they are supposed to be managing.