A new organization called Jumboleaks, composed of current and former Tufts students, on Saturday released confidential information online regarding the university's investment holdings. The leaked document contains the names of companies that the group alleges the university invested in during 2010. The administration later denied that the information was current to the Daily, calling into question the slipshod manner in which the information was disseminated.
Jumboleaks' desire to reveal this information is understandable. Unlike a number of its peer institutions, including Swarthmore and Williams Colleges, Tufts is consistently tight−lipped about its investment practices. The administration has made clear that it will not disclose certain financial information, including its direct investment holdings, publically. The surfacing of the list, therefore, offered an opportunity that Jumboleaks couldn't pass up — a chance to make transparent information that the university likely would have never revealed otherwise.
Yet while the motivations of the group were reasonable, the dissemination of what is clearly considered classified information requires rigorous vetting, which Jumboleaks failed to carry out at the time of initial publication. A representative of the group in an interview with the Daily said that Jumboleaks vetted the document's authenticity with the individual, or individuals, who leaked the information. The leaker, whose identity remains unknown, was clearly driven by the desire to publicize this information; corroborating the list solely with him is insufficient.
The group's irresponsible manner in vetting the information is further reflected in the initial posting of the list: When Jumboleaks.org launched Saturday, nothing on the website, including the investment list itself, delineated what year the document was from, leading viewers to believe that it represented a current list of holdings. The group last night changed the website to reflect that it dated back to 2010, only after the Daily informed it — based on confirmation from a university spokesperson — that Tufts has no direct investments at this time.
Jumboleaks' push for transparency is reasonable, but the privilege of having the investment information brought with it the responsibility that the group authenticate the document sufficiently before publicizing it. It did not fulfill this responsibility, and, as a result, will permanently taint the administration's trust in its students and will likely motivate administrators to close the door even more.
Yet it would be unfair to view Jumboleaks as the only misdoer in this episode. To be sure, the document posted online does not represent the university's current investment holdings and the university's spokesperson did not verify that the document was an accurate depiction of the university's 2010 holdings. Still, we cannot overlook several of the companies the list includes, companies which seem to be at odds with the university's core values.
Monsanto, for example, is the world's largest seed company. The firm is largely involved in genetically modified seeds and produces a large amount of herbicides, two practices which are often found to be out of line with environmentally friendly standards. The U.S. Department of Justice has also investigated the company for overly aggressive market tactics.
Schlumberger, another of the companies listed, is the world's largest oilfield service company.
While both companies appear to be fiscally sound, Tufts is not practicing what it preaches. A university so focused on finding alternate sources of energy should not invest in an oil company. Investing in an ethically questionable company like Monsanto is also suspect. Active citizenship and green alternatives are a key part of the university's values; these companies provide services that go against these tenets.
Although these investments are made to benefit future generations of Tufts students and the university as a whole, staying true to one's beliefs should take priority over the possibility for financial gain. With great power comes great responsibility, and neither the university nor Jumboleaks has lived up to the latter.
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