As reported in the Argus article written by Ezra Silk ’10 and Rob Wohl ’11, Wesleyan’s administration is suing its former Chief Investment Officer, Thomas Kannam, for “breach of fiduciary duty, civil theft, breach of contract, fraud, statutory forgery, and unjust enrichment, among other charges.”
My experience in dealing with Wesleyan’s administration and Kannam himself during the campaign for divestment from weapons contractors, led by Students for Ending the War in Iraq (SEWI) in 2007-2008, left me not at all surprised by the news. In its amoral pursuit of wealth, Wesleyan made the immoral decision to profit from war. Like Wesleyan, Kannam’s amoral quest for cash led him to act immorally. The actions of employer and employee are ethical reflections. This amoral pursuit of wealth has hurt Wesleyan’s community, its reputation, and its character, and it will continue to do so until the University espouses and adheres to a set of values that go beyond maximizing its endowment.
Kannam’s amoral pursuit of wealth has made the institution dishonest with its community. When members of SEWI were discussing divestment with Kannam, a man who consistently parked in the wheelchair-accessible spot in front of the investment office without a permit, he claimed that he could not give us access to information concerning Wesleyan’s portfolio because, if made public, it might give competitors an edge. I guess he was actually thinking, “If I spill the beans to these kids, they might sell the info to Mike Zaninovich’s hedge fund before I do.” Secrecy was obviously not that important to the portfolio’s growth.
You could argue that the administration and Kannam are two different entities, yet this argument is bogus. First, Kannam was a member of the administration. Moreover, the administration is responsible for the actions of its employees when they are sitting in a Wesleyan Office. And not only did the administration miserably fail at this responsibility, there is a disturbing possibility that the administration turned a blind eye, to Kannam’s lying to SEWI and to the fraud in general.
Wesleyan now claims that Kannam started to violate his contract all the way back in 2001. But maybe they didn’t know at the time. The thing is, Wesleyan’s lawyers are the ones bringing this to light. So if the information is available 8 years later, it is probable that it was available at the time of the crime or shortly after. Evidence is usually buried with the passage of time, not revealed.
Even if the administration had no clue of Kannam’s doings, the question still lingers: why wasn’t he being more closely supervised?
The simple answer is money. The administration had no reason to rock the boat. Kannam was doing a first rate job making outstanding returns. Therefore, there was no reason to wonder why he wanted his own building, or to investigate the golfing/business trips that the University was paying for, or to ask why he was starting his own independent company when he already had a six-figure full time job for the University? With 15 percent returns, why make sure the statements he was making to students and the Board of Trustees weren’t flat out lies?
The bottom line is, from prospective students to alumni, the administration let down everybody connected to Wesleyan. The trust between the people in our community and the people who are supposed to be steering and protecting it has been broken.
But as I said before, I cannot find this whole incident surprising. When the Board of Trustees decided, without giving any reason, to maintain an investment whose profit depended directly on the continuation of an immoral, unjustified, and self-destructive war, they made a statement. They said: Wesleyan is just like the world around it.
As companies profit from selling instruments explicitly designed to inflict massive killings, so will Wesleyan. As Wall Street builds a greedy empire rife with fraud and dishonesty, so will Wesleyan. The trajectory is clear. Now we must ask ourselves: Is Wes just another part of an ugly world pursuing wealth regardless, or should it be better than that? What do you believe?
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