Texas Schools Reject BlackRock Management Of $8.5 Billion

The Texas Permanent School Fund (PSF) on Tuesday voted to put its money where its convictions lie. Specifically, officials decided to end an $8.5 billion investment with BlackRock Inc. over the fund’s egregious pursuit of woke ideology over profits for investors.

Texas law prohibits state investments with firms that use their funds for notoriously left-wing causes. BlackRock, as state Board of Education Chairman Aaron Kinsey noted, boycotts the energy industry.

This, Kinsey said, is not in compliance with state law rejecting its dollars supporting environmental, social and governance (ESG) mandates.

He further noted that PSF is responsible for protecting and nurturing more than $1 billion taken in annually through oil and gas royalties. Terminating the contract with BlackRock, he observed, brought the fund into “full compliance with Texas law.”

This is hardly a first for the controversial BlackRock. The left-wing firm faced divestiture from several Republican-led states over its overt push for woke ideologies.

In response, the massive investment company notably retreated from some of its more aggressive support of ESG proposals while acknowledging that such positions damaged its financial standing.

It should hardly be surprising that Texas pulled back its investments in BlackRock. After all, the state received roughly $26 billion in tax revenue from the fossil fuel industry in 2023.

Approximately $1.8 billion of that haul went into the education fund, which accounted for about 80% of the state’s $2.2 billion K-12 education budget.

BlackRock notoriously is accused of boycotting the fossil fuel sector, meaning Texas would be unwise to throw money at a firm that actively opposed its chief source of educational revenue.

Kinsey noted this relationship when he declared the ESG movement “immeasurably damages our state’s oil and gas economy and the very companies that generate revenues” to educate the Lone Star State’s children.

He asserted that the PSF’s financial future is under attack by Wall Street giants such as BlackRock. 

By divesting from the woke investment firm, Kinsey said the state ensured “bright futures and opportunities for generations of Texas students.”

For its part, BlackRock accused Texas officials of putting politics over profits. It said the divestiture turned a blind eye to $120 billion the firm invested in the state’s public energy companies.