At a press conference last Tuesday morning, President Patrick Harker spoke about the university’s stance towards Sudanese divestment.
Sudan divestment is a global effort which takes invested funds out of foreign companies working with the Sudanese government in an attempt to drain the money being used for the Darfur genocide at its sources. Divestment is already being utilized by 61 universities, 27 states and 23 cities. The university’s STAND chapter, a national student run organization aimed at ending the genocide at Darfur, has long asked why the university has not yet followed suit.
“We continue to look at that and to our knowledge there are no direct investments in Sudan,” Harker said.
The President said that the university had no intentions of making such investments nor did they see any such investments to date.
“I cant tell you they will never exists because sometimes things happen many layers away from you in investments that you don’t have control of,” he said. “It’s impossible to know 100 percent.”
The last time President Harker spoke out publicly about the issue of divestment was in an April 2008 article in which he stated in an e-mail message, “we have met with representatives from the campus group STAND, and they have made the case for divestment. Currently, we are reviewing our investment portfolio, and we will be discussing the issue later this spring with the Investment Visiting Committee of the University's Board of Trustees.”
The Student Government Association passed a resolution on March 3, 2008 supporting divestment at the university. The resolution read, "We propose that the Delaware Undergraduate Student Senate support and work towards the divestment of the University of Delaware's endowment fund using the Sudan Divestment Task Force's targeted divestment model."
Included in the 59 universities who have divested is the University of Pennsylvania, which adopted a plan of targeted divestment on June 19, 2006, when President was still faculty members. In doing so, the University of Pennsylvania joined the ranks of Harvard University, Princeton University and Yale University by ensuring its endowments were not invested in companies supporting the government of Sudan.
“I can issue an edict, and universities have, but they don’t quite know,” Harker said.
At this time the campus group STAND has ended conversation with the administration. Members of the group stated in the past that their efforts will now be focused on lobbying Delaware politicians to pass legislation in support of divestment.
The SGA’s resolution has not brought any changes in terms of the university's policies reagarding divestment since its passing.
For more information regarding divestment in general and at the university check out these links below...
Sudanese Divestment Task Force
No comments:
Post a Comment