University ensures all Sudan ties severed

Since announcing last June that it had no direct investments in Sudan, the University has taken steps to ensure that none of its secondary holdings or new investments are in companies with a stake in the Darfur conflict, which the U.S. government characterizes as a genocide.

To prevent future investment in Sudan, the University has subscribed to a monthly service that lists companies with involvement there, which can be cross-referenced against the University's investments, University spokeswoman Cass Cliatt '96 said. The service "helps to identify [involved] companies on an ongoing basis." Since subscribing last year, the University has not had to take any further steps to uphold its policy of disassociation from Sudan, Cliatt added.

The finance committee of the University Board of Trustees adopted the stance to "disassociat[e] from companies that directly or indirectly conduct operations in Darfur that support acts of genocide, and to prevent future investment in such companies," a statement released in June said. While it did not have any direct ownership of companies involved in Darfur, the University believed it might have some indirect connections with five companies — PetroChina, Sinopec, Tatneft, ABB Ltd. and Bharat Heavy Electronics — that have associations with Sudan.

When the University announced plans to investigate its holdings, it sent letters to the five companies to make sure that none of its mutual funds or other indirect investments were in Sudan.

After all five companies responded to the letter, the University concluded that it seemed to have some indirect investments in ABB, Cliatt said.

The managers of the University's endowment at the Princeton University Investment Company (PRINCO) were told to keep an eye on the company that might be entwined with ABB but not to exclude it from the University's holdings. "What we learned was that a secondary holding — an Indian subsidiary — had no links with ABB's presence in Sudan," Cliatt said.

Another company in which the University did have investments, Tatneft, said "it was no longer doing business in Sudan, but it did have a prior involvement of trading arms for oil [there]," Cliatt said. After discussion, though, PRINCO decided to liquidate its holdings in Tatneft for reasons unrelated to Sudan.

Julia Ling '09 and Zaina Awad '09, co-presidents of the Princeton chapter of Students Taking Action Now: Darfur (STAND), said in an e-mail that they "were pleased that the University had decided to divest from the government of Sudan, because it does help to send a signal that the University recognizes that atrocities are being committed in Darfur."

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STAND, which has chapters at multiple schools, seeks to raise awareness of the death and destruction in Darfur and to fundraise for Relief International's Darfur emergency fund.

Many major American universities have chosen to pull investments in companies involved in Sudan. According to recent articles in The Crimson, Harvard has fulfilled its agreement to divest from companies involved in Sudan but still has indirect ties with other companies through mutual fund investments. Harvard has stated that these companies do not fall under its policy of divestment, but that it may be reevaluating its divestment policy soon.

On Feb. 5, the University of Chicago announced that it would not divest from companies involved in Sudan. Chicago's trustees cited the Kalven Report, a two-page statement drafted in the 1960s that is frequently used as the basis for many of the university's policies. The statement says that Chicago must maintain an environment of free discourse and cannot take positions on matters that don't affect the university directly.

As a result, Chicago's trustees decided not to become involved in the divestment issue, but to create a $200,000 onetime endowment to fund academic research in Sudan. New Jersey governor and Princeton trustee ex-officio Jon Corzine is also on the Chicago board of trustees.

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Students at Chicago have protested the decision. The Chicago chapter of STAND has staged protests, and members walked into an open forum that Chicago president Robert Zimmer held last week in an effort to question him on the purpose of Chicago's lack of action.

"They said they were setting up a fund, but where's the money going to go?" Chicago STAND president Michael Pareles said in an interview. "It will do nothing to stop the genocide. This is an academic response to what is an actual crisis. [The administration at Chicago] refuses to call it genocide."

"There are several very large Sudan-free portfolios that have very good market performance," he added. "Divestment doesn't mean you're wasting money, you're just moving it more in line with the values of the institution."

Back at STAND's Princeton chapter, student leaders noted that day-to-day life at the University can make it tempting to overlook the situation in Darfur.

"It's easy to forget about what's going on in the rest of the world, because Princeton students have so much going on all the time, and everyone is concerned about their classes and their grades," Ling and Awad said in their e-mail. "But it's important to remember that things are going on outside our campus."

"Hundreds of thousands of people have died in Darfur, and it's time that every student takes action."