“Hey, Bienen, we’ve got pride, let us stop the genocide!” shouted about a hundred Northwestern students as they marched from the Rock to President Henry Bienen’s office Wednesday afternoon. The students delivered 1,801 postcards signed by students, a petition with more than 850 signatures and a letter explaining their cause.
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The Northwestern University Darfur Action Coalition (NUDAC) scheduled the rally one day before the meeting of the Board of Trustees’ investment committee. NUDAC hopes that the rally will prompt the committee to issue a statement pledging divestment from 29 companies that the Sudan Divestment Task Force says supports the Sudanese government.
In 2005, before there was any formal student outcry, Northwestern restricted investments in four companies that did business with Sudan. In May 2006, the university reaffirmed its commitment to not invest in those four companies.
Northwestern still has investments in four or five, and possibly more, companies on the list of 29, said Will McLean, Northwestern’s vice president and chief investment officer.
“As the list gets broader, it’s less clear-cut. Those companies could be doing something good for the Sudanese people, we just don’t know,” McLean said. “That list is just one group’s opinion.”
Nevertheless, NUDAC members said more university action is necessary.
Regions of Sudan have been engulfed in conflict for decades. The government has been blamed for the displacement of 2.5 million people and the deaths of 400,000 in the Darfur region since 2003. Anti-genocide campaigners hope that if U.S. institutions, such as Northwestern, decide to no longer invest in companies that support the Sudanese government, the government will no longer have the resources to continue the genocide.
“The sea of numbers and of tragedies seems overwhelming, but divestment is such a viable option for the student body, it’s something tangible that we can do,” NUDAC coordinator Alyssa Huff told the shivering students gathered around the Rock.
“We all as Americans, as university students, as citizens of the world have to take our money out of genocide, out of a country that perpetuates it, sponsors it, and steers it,”
said Susannah Cunningham, a Communication senior and the community outreach director of STAND, an umbrella organization for hundreds of anti-genocide groups. NUDAC is part of STAND’s network.
In February 2006, NUDAC successfully got ASG to pass a resolution calling for the Northwestern’s divestment from Sudan.
Responding to the student outcry is not simple, however. Alan Cubbage, vice president of university relations, said that Northwestern does not directly own stock in particular companies, despite the fliers NUDAC passes out, which read, “NU $tock ? Sudan, Sudan ? Genocide.”
“We own pieces of mutual funds, which are pooled investments, and a manager decides where to invest,” Cubbage said. “We’ve instructed those management firms not to hold stock in those four companies we named back in 2005.”
NUDAC plans on attending a rally in Chicago on Sunday to show their support for federal and state legislation concerning divestment from Sudan. Over 130 rallies like these are taking place around the world this week as part of “Global Days for Darfur” to promote the end of genocide.
The rally sought to remind the university of the human side of the issue. Two speakers of Sudanese descent addressed the students before heading to Bienen’s office to deliver the postcards and petition.
Eugene Sunshine, senior vice president for business and finance, greeted the students in the absence of President Bienen, who was attending a meeting at the time. Sunshine told the students he appreciated their enthusiasm for this issue. After the NUDAC leaders left the office, Sunshine said that Northwestern is still reviewing the “appropriateness” of issuing a statement on divestment.
“Any discussion that takes places tomorrow will not be definitive,” he said. “We don’t take the request lightly and we don’t take our responsibility to assess whether we should do it lightly.”
NUDAC member Sam Schiller, a SESP sophomore, said that even though Bienen wasn’t there to greet them, he still felt the rally accomplished its mission.
“This was the preeminent thing to define our stay at Northwestern: We will get the university to divest from Sudan and to put activism back into college and into university life at Northwestern,” Schiller said. “It has been absent for too long, and it’s not that people don’t care, they just need avenues to show that they care, and this is a great one.”