OUR TUITION dollars may be invested in corporations that do business with Sudan's genocidal government. We don't know if they are or not, because the administration and the University of Virginia Investment Management Corporation (UVIMCO) won't disclose the companies in which our money is invested. As students who pay tuition, we have the right to know in what our money is invested and to demand that it not be invested in companies that do business with genocidal governments. This is the problem with investing in companies that contract with the Sudanese government: Gulf Oil, for instance, pays the Sudanese government for the right to drill for oil. The government uses that money to bomb villages and arm the Janjaweed, a paramilitary force. With that money the government buys weapons from Russia and China to slaughter its citizens. Some of our tuition dollars may be among the $91 billion U.S. dollars invested in the genocide. Incredibly, because of the absolute absence of transparency in the administration and in the University's investment management company, there is no way to be certain.
UVIMCO manages the University portfolio. According to Executive Director Christopher Brightman, UVIMCO does not monitor the ethicality of companies in which University money is invested. There is no background check. Thus, UVIMCO has not done any research into the possibility that some companies in which our money is invested cooperate in genocide. Fortunately, UVIMCO does not have to do that monitoring. Independent human rights organizations have catalogued corporations that do business with the genocidal government in Sudan, including Siemens AG, Tatneft and ABB Ltd, which are traded on the New York Stock Exchange.
Pablo Man is a divestment co-chair of the campus CIO Students Taking Action Now: Darfur (STAND). He has sent Brightman a list of these corporations and requested a list of companies in which our tuition dollars are invested. Brightman has not pledged to divest from the companies Man sent to him, and said that UVIMCO is not legally bound to release the list of companies in which UVIMCO invests.
UVIMCO used to be part of the University. Last year the administration privatized it, and as a result we have no access to information about the companies in which our money is invested. In correspondence with STAND, University spokesperson Carol Wood said that because UVIMCO is technically not part of the University, it does not have to respond to the Freedom of Information Act requests of STAND.
Neither Wood nor Brightman said UVIMCO is prohibited from disclosing the companies in which it invests. Rather, Brightman has chosen to hide that information from the University community, and Wood has loyally defended his position even while offering saccharine platitudes to the activists in STAND. In e-mail correspondence, Wood and Brightman praised student activism while simultaneously obscuring the possible role of UVIMCO in the genocide.
Unless he thinks genocide is legitimate public policy, Brightman has a responsibility to release a list of companies in which our money is invested. Unless the administration is comfortable with University money possibly being invested in the systematic slaughter of Sudanese individuals, it should publicly call upon Brightman to release the list of companies. In the long run, UVIMCO should adopt a policy of checking the human rights records of companies in which we invest.
In a meeting with STAND divestment co-chairs Man and Paul Novick, Univeristy executive vice president and chief operating officer Leonard Sandridge promised to find out what companies are in our investment portfolio. If he acts on that promise and makes public the list of companies, that would be an important first step to introduce some accountability into the investment system. Regardless of Sandridge's actions, however, the stubborn secrecy of Brightman and the administration is unacceptable. We as students have the right to know in which companies our money is invested. If we discover that our money is being used in companies with poor human rights records, we have the right to demand divestment from those companies.
We cannot ignore the moral implications of our investments, and must recognize that monetary returns are not the only investment consideration. Cognizant of the importance of not prioritizing monetary returns over human rights, Man said, "any investment is highly devalued if it helps fund the annihilation of a people."
Today the Sudanese government is bombing its citizens and funding paramilitary groups that execute mass rapes and murders. Today the administration needs to demand disclosure of UVIMCO investments. Today Brightman needs to comply with that request and immediately divest from companies that do business with genocidal governments. Tomorrow the University community needs to consider reforming UVIMCO in order to prevent future problems such as the one we face today.
Zack Field's column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at zfields@cavalierdaily.com.
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