On Friday, President Safa Zaki and Chair of the Board of Trustees Scott Perper released the Ad Hoc Committee On Investments and Responsibility (ACIR)’s report in an email to the Bowdoin community. Zaki and Perper wrote that the Board of Trustees voted to approve the recommendations in the report after it was presented to the Board last week.

In its report, the ACIR made three recommendations: to maintain the current investment practices for the endowment, to maintain the current structure of the investment committee and to increase transparency on the role of the endowment and the current financial model in supporting the College’s mission. The report also disclosed that approximately 0.08 percent of the endowment is invested in the ten defense and aerospace companies named in the “Bowdoin Solidarity Referendum.”

“The ACIR’s trustee, faculty, staff and student representatives have done this work with diligence and rigor, meeting with members of the campus community, speaking with experts, reviewing the historical record and deliberating thoughtfully,” Zaki and Perper wrote.

While the committee wrote that its primary responsibility was to consider the College’s investment practices broadly, it also addressed the referendum that prompted its formation. Initiated by Bowdoin Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) last year and passed by a student body supermajority vote in May, the referendum called for the College to take an institutional stand against scholasticide in Gaza, to disclose its investments in arms manufacturing, to commit to not further investing in defense-focused funds and to reinstate an independent committee overseeing social responsibility in investments.

“The charge to the ACIR was to develop a set of general considerations and principles to bring to bear on questions emerging at the intersection of the College’s mission and its investment practices,” the report reads. “Nevertheless, it is important to also address the student referendum on the war in Gaza that led to the creation of the committee.”

The ACIR wrote that it recommended against “the requests in the referendum that relate to divestment.” It explained that because the College invests through third-party managers, attempting to invest in or divest from specific companies could jeopardize these relationships and endanger the College’s long-term financial well-being. It also noted that stakeholders in the College community lacked a universal consensus on the war in Gaza and contrasted these circumstances with prior cases of College divestment, including from South Africa and Darfur.

The report also discussed the College’s educational mission and the history of the endowment at length, saying that further regulating investment would harm the College’s ability to fulfill this mission.

“The main takeaway is that imposing restrictions on the investment of the endowment … would have a significant adverse impact on investment returns and thereby undermine the College’s ability to provide the best possible education for its students, without regard for their ability to pay,” the report reads.

The ACIR additionally advised against the creation of a separate committee for social responsibility in investments moving forward, saying the current committee on investments is equipped to evaluate these concerns along with all other elements of investment decisions. Consequently, the ACIR recommended its dissolution following the Board of Trustees’ vote.

The committee also recommended that the College work to increase clarity on the endowment’s purpose, structure, management and role in an effort to promote transparency. However, the committee emphasized that information about specific investments is often confidential and likely cannot be disclosed.

“The ACIR recommends the College develop and share educational materials with the Bowdoin community that elucidate these topics,” the report reads. “There is understandable curiosity around specific investments and strategies within the endowment, but given the confidentiality restrictions and the endowment’s outsourced manager model, transparency along these lines is ill-advised and is, in many cases, simply not possible.”

Olivia Kenney ’25, an SJP organizer, emphasized that the number of students and faculty the ACIR spoke to was significantly less than the number of students who participated in the referendum process and the number of faculty who signed a faculty letter in support.

“The referendum gathered many times the number of perspectives than this committee did,” Kenney said. “So, it’s really impossible to argue that this committee structure was anywhere near as effective as the referendum was in engaging the community and gathering perspectives.”

Kenney also expressed their frustration with the report’s assertions that not further investing in companies involved with weapons manufacturing could harm financial aid at the College.

“The College seems to imply that the 0.08 percent in weapons is essential to providing functions, including financial aid. This argument does not make sense to me, and ultimately, it is still [SJP’s] position that it is incongruent with claims to uphold the common good to have any level of investments in weapons manufacturing,” Kenney said.

Toward the end of their email, Zaki and Perper thanked both the ACIR and the broader Bowdoin community for their participation in the committee’s process and affirmed their confidence in the recommendations made by the committee.

“Their report provides a valuable framework for thinking through and understanding the complexities of endowment management and the important factors to be considered. We are confident that the ACIR recommendations adopted by the board will help us best fulfill our mission, both in this moment and in the future,” Zaki and Perper wrote.