IN 2003, a Sudanese government-sponsored campaign of rape, pillage and genocidal mass murder began in Darfur and has since left nearly 200,000 dead. Since then, schools and states around the United States have withdrawn funding from companies that may have indirectly played a role in this tragedy. The University, on the other hand, refuses even to disclose a breakdown of its funding so that students can see whether their cash is being used to finance genocide.
Students themselvesappear to be largely ignorant of the possibility that they might be funding genocide. With such a disgusting sense of ignorance from the student body and equally despicable lack of ethics displayed by the administration and its private counterparts, it is shameful to be part of an institution that trumpets its empty ideals of "honor" and "'Jeffersonian traditions." This needs to change if we are to align our ideals with specific actions on critical issues.
The administration has shown a blatant disregard for ethical concerns raised by the student movement on divestment. Members of Students Taking Action Now: Darfur have continually been given the bureaucratic run-around in trying to launch a divestment campaign, a tactic which has been successful in other institutions of the University's caliber, such as Stanford and Harvard. The University first stated that it had privatized the handling of its portfolio to the University of Virginia Investment Managing Corporation, but upon approaching them, STAND members found two things: First as a private company, UVIMCO is not required by law to comply with Freedom of Information Requests asking for investment records, and. second, UVIMCO Chief Executive Officer Chris Brightman said that company policy was determined by a board of directors, including three members who also serve on the University's Board of Visitors. How surprising.
Leonard Sandridge, executive vice president and chief operating officer, pledged to find out what companies are on the investment portfolio but has yet to do so. I could go on all day talking about technicalities, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the University has been uncooperative in giving students the right to know about whether their cash is exchanged for blood. The University is abusing freedom of expression by hiding its investment portfolio as a public entity under the guise of a private company.
But before we start hurling rocks at the administration, it is important to question why the administration in this University has been allowed to be so uncooperative when divestment movements at other universities have succeeded. Not surprisingly, it is student ignorance of this campaign and the issue in general that has allowed the administration to get away with its don't-care attitude. Last year, STAND conducted a student referendum on the issue -- 8.5 percent of students voted, which displays sheer ignorance in the first place. This lack of response is humiliating for an institution based on honor and justice. According to STAND president Taylor Michael Maltz and divestment co-chair Sharon Stein, it is also the chief obstacle to STAND's campaign.
This brings us back to the essential question -- what to do? STAND has taken the right approach in this regard. Darfur Awareness Week was a great success -- for instance, support for an online divestment petition has doubled since the week began from 200 to about 400 advocates. Also, according to Maltz and Stein, STAND hassuccessfully pressured the University by way of a FOIA request to release investment records from 2003, the year before they privatized their portfolio and the year the genocide began. The 2003 Investment Report may hold the key to overcoming the frustrating obstacle of the University and its affiliates' policy of withholding possible evidence to support the divestment campaign.
Alongside its awareness promotion, STAND has also allied with various other groups on grounds such as the University Democrats in order to form a coalition with greater political weight against the administration. Other groups on Grounds must join this cause since it is not an issue lobbied by one group but one that threatens the central ideals of justice our University was founded upon.
The University has not been the biggest fan of divestment initiatives -- for example, it only divested from apartheid South Africa after the state made a declaration for schools to do so. We thus cannot blame the administration alone because it has merely exploited the weakness in student inability to facilitate change. Whether the University places profits above ethics or it just can't be bothered to respond considering the lack of support for the campaign, we need to address this issue. As Shakespeare's Cassius tells Brutus in Julius Caesar, "the fault
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