Divest Nebraska, a student organization at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), was recently awarded a grant of $400 from the non-profit Campus Progress for their campaign to convince Nebraska lawmakers to divest from targeted companies. Targeted companies are those companies operating in Sudan that provide few to no benefits to Sudanese citizens and generate revenue used by the Sudanese government to fund genocide. Read More »
Sometimes campaigns at the college level are drawn out and take a great deal of time and energy. In the middle of the summer I began working on a resolution to introduce at the first meeting of the Muhlenberg Student Council. The resolution called for a divestment of Muhlenberg funds from the "highest offending" companies working in Sudan to perpetuation the genocide in the Darfur region.
Hard work pays off, over time. It took a few weeks to get it passed through the Student Council (with all but one vote) followed by meetings with administrators, articles in the student newspaper, and meeting with a group of members of the Board Of Trustees.
Over half a year later, the Board of Trustees voted in favor of the following resolution to:
not knowingly make direct investments with Category One highest offender companies engaging in business in the Sudan as defined by the Sudan Divestment Task Force. Furthermore, if Muhlenberg commingled investments are invested in Category One companies, letters will be submitted to managers of these funds requesting that they consider removing such companies from the fund or create a similar actively managed fund with commingled holdings devoid of such companies.
Ken Silverstein is, for my money—or time, as the case may be—one of the best D.C. journalists working today. A rarity in the blogosphere, his “Washington Babylon” at Harper’s regularly provides original reporting along with the standard interesting commentary. Yesterday Silverstein put up an important post on “Facts and Darfur,” touching on an issue that has animated American campuses more than perhaps any other in recent years. Even amid the heady successes of the campus-based divestment campaigns, it seems like a lot of us, myself included, knew very little about what was going on in Sudan beyond the stray terms like “genocide” and “Janjaweed.” I’ve tried to educate myself about Darfur. But I have to admit I’ve always regarded those campaigns with a measure of skepticism. One simple reason: Read More »
Getting universities to divest from companies doing business in Sudan in ways that support the genocide in Darfur has been one of the hottest campaign issues for student activists on campuses around the country. (It has also been one of the most closely watched topics on Campus Progress, which has published at least this, this, this, and this on student-led divestment movements.)
Please remember that Campus Progress' terms of use do not allow promoting or endorsing any particular political party or candidate for office. Posts or comments that do this will be deleted.
Posts
!
