Sometimes it is not the money you give that makes a difference. It is the money you don't give.
This is the argument of a large student coalition pushing for an official pledge from the Board of Trustees not to directly invest University funds in corporations doing business in Sudan's oil sector. A resolution from the Board would add Duke to the 55 universities and 20 states, including North Carolina, who have already officially divested.
Harvard led the charge for divestment beginning in 2005, and even the U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a bill supporting divestment. Considering the length of the campaign and the breadth of global divestment efforts, it seems Duke is already behind.
While the University did quietly sell its holdings in the only targeted company it held last year, there has not yet been a single official statement or pledge to avoid investing in companies that support the Sudanese government and, indirectly, the atrocities in Darfur.
In the spring of 1986, students built a shanty town on the main West Campus quad to protest for Duke's divestment from apartheid South Africa. Duke listened; from 1986 to 1994 the University divested from all companies doing business in South Africa. Since then, though, interest in divestment faded, and so did official policies on socially responsible investing.
Recently, student groups have raised questions about the morality of University holdings in a range of areas, from Big Tobacco to Israel to Sudan. In response, the Trustees decided in 2004 that it was time to reestablish a process for reviewing the University's holdings.
The "Guideline on Socially Responsible Investing" states that the "primary fiduciary responsibility of the Board... must be to maximize the financial return on those resources," but that "the University wishes to be a good corporate citizen and a responsible and ethical investor."
The new process entangles our quest for "good citizenship" in a whole lot of red tape. Here's the deal: Anyone can submit a written proposal requesting a study of university holdings to the President's Special Committee on Investment Responsibility. If this group finds the issue has merit, it will forward the study to the Advisory Committee on Investment Responsibility.
The ACIR will conduct research and ultimately make a recommendation to the president, who then decides whether to advise the Trustees to take action. If the Board concurs, it will direct the Duke University Management Company to persuade the company in question to change its ways, or if that fails, to divest in the company's securities.
Sound like a long process? It is. Since the process was adopted in 2004, it has never been carried out. This Tuesday will mark the first hearings ever held by the ACIR.
It's not exactly clear what the required burden is for an issue to reach the full committee. In 2005, students noted that Duke was one of only five top-tier universities nationwide that had not officially divested from tobacco stocks, but the conversations fizzed pretty quickly; the issue never reached the Advisory Committee.
For years students, alumni, staff and faculty have urged Duke to divest from companies with military ties to Israel. A petition with more than 260 signatures, including 44 faculty members, called for the divestment. President Richard Brodhead, though, called the move "an extraordinarily blunt weapon to address an issue of extraordinary complexity." Again, the issue never reached the committee.
The Duke Sudan divestment campaign is committed to finally setting the wheels of social responsibility in motion. Last April a coalition of 10 graduate and undergraduate activist groups came together to demand action. The President's Special Committee met over the summer, decided the topic warranted further study and referred the issue to the ACIR. This Tuesday night, six months later, the committee will finally hold a public forum to consider the issue.
If Duke passes a resolution, will it have a major impact in stopping the killings in Darfur? Realistically, probably not, especially given that Duke no longer has holdings in targeted companies. However, divestment is beginning to have a clear impact in Sudan. Investors have left the country, and many even attribute the Sudanese government's signing of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement to pressure from the campaign.
In any case, as Andres Luco, a philosophy graduate student and one of the campaign's leaders, pointed out to me, it would be nice to know that our university has made a commitment that its money will not provide financial support for genocide.
So often it is hard to know what we can do as students to make a difference in major global affairs. The students of the Sudan divestment campaign have offered us a concrete example, and hopefully this can be an example for future action. With an almost $6-billion endowment, Duke's decisions can have an impact.
Add your voice to Tuesday's hearings at 6 p.m. in Room 139 of the Social Sciences Building.
David Fiocco is a Trinity senior. His column runs every other Monday.
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