I have written a fair bit about divestment campaigns over the years. See, for example:
... divestment may make activists feel all warm and fuzzy, but the evidence is that (1) it has no significant effect on the target of the divestment campaign but (2) likely does harm the activists' portfolios.
As the Manhattan Institute's James Copeland explained, these results are entirely consistent with financial theory ....
Steven Bainbridge, a corporate law professor at UCLA, agrees and says social activist divestment tends to have little impact on its targets, but does reduce returns to investors who divest.
Todd Henderson inveighs against fossil fuel divestment
No matter what your views are on the climate change debate, no rational person should support divestment. There is no evidence to demonstrate it will do anything to help the climate, and it will ultimately cost the University hundreds of millions of dollars—Swarthmore estimates it would cost their endowment $200 million over 10 years to divest. This is money that could be spent on research, scholarships, or perhaps best of all for the cause, reducing the University’s carbon footprint.
Was the Presbyterian Divestment Anti-Semitic
Lefkowitz goes on to make a persuasive case that the Presbyterian divestment was anti-Semitic:
The recent action by the Presbyterian Church sadly satisfies Mr. Sharansky's test. The church has singled out Israel, alone among all the nations of the world, for divestment. It has demonized Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, and it has delegitimized Israel's right to self- defense.
The church is not calling for divestment of its $7 billion portfolio from China, despite China's denial of the most basic political and religious rights and its particularly harsh treatment of followers of Falun Gong. It is not condemning Russia, even though Russia's policies in Chechnya are by any human-rights standard atrocious.
