Student-Driven Sudan Divestment Campaign Grows

NEW HAVEN, April 25 - Universities across the country have divested themselves of endowment assets in companies doing business in Sudan, reacting to pressure from students to take a financial stand against the violence in the Darfur region.

At least seven universities have gotten rid of some of their assets, including the 10-campus University of California system, Harvard, Yale, Stanford and Brown. Divestment campaigns are under way at several other universities, including the University of Maryland, Indiana University and the University of Virginia.

The campaign is organized by a national student-led group, Sudan Divestment Task Force, and is reminiscent of a campaign in the 1980's when student-led groups lobbied 55 universities to remove money from companies affiliated with the South African apartheid regime.

The Sudan campaign also aims at states and municipalities. Illinois, New Jersey and Oregon have approved divestment, and legislation is pending in several other states.

Earlier this month, Providence, R.I., became the first American city to authorize divestment. Last week, New Haven announced that it would strip municipal employees' pension funds of investments in companies doing business with the Sudanese government.

"It can't just be the sort of piecemeal one-or-two companies symbolic approach," said Daniel Millenson, 19, a Brandeis University freshman and executive director of the task force. "It needs to be several universities, states, whatever, all passing the same kind of divestment solutions."