Members of the Harvard Darfur Action Group (HDAG), shown here in September 2006, expressed "confusion" with the University's recent report, which rejected HDAG's proposed divestment model.

CORRECTION APPENDED
Although Harvard released a definitive statement last week condoning certain disputed stock holdings and denying a student group's proposal to more closely examine Sudan-linked investments, those students are refusing to back down in their demands.

The Harvard Darfur Action Group (HDAG) began circulating an online petition in early March in support of their "targeted divestment model," a criteria-based approach that questions the ethics of investing in more than 20 companies accused of helping to finance the genocide in Darfur.

After amassing 1400 signatures from students, faculty, and alumni and delivering two letters to then-Interim President Derek C. Bok, the members of HDAG waited for the Harvard Corporation to respond to their concerns.

But when HDAG Political Advocacy Chair Trevor J. Bakker '09 read a copy of the recently-released report, he said couldn't understand the University's complete rejection of the organization's proposal especially after having declined to meet with the students on several occasions. [SEE CORRECTION BELOW]

"The report makes it seem that they considered all of our materials," Bakker said. "But they never made any attempt to reach out and talk to us."

The Corporation Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (CCSR)—the two-member group in charge of investigating the ethics of Harvard's investments—declined to use HDAG's proposed divestment model. The CCSR report stated that such a model would create a set of criteria that were too broad to be effective.

The report stressed that "the University is first and foremost an academic institution," indicating that protecting the endowment should have higher priority than divesting, except in extreme circumstances.

"We don't believe that complicity in genocide is an academic value," Bakker said, also adding that he was skeptical about the CCSR's decision to add the Oil and Natural Gas Company (ONGC) to its list of companies to divest from.

"Given the lack of explanation for the decision about ONGC," Bakker said, "I wonder to what degree the decision was undertaken to appease activists like us."

Another HDAG member who has been instrumental in the petition drive, Peter N. Ganong '09, wrote in an e-mail that he was also concerned that the CCSR seemed to give HDAG's proposal second billing.

"I felt like they were reacting more to The Crimson's concerns about indirect investments than our concerns about creating rules that would make companies think twice before beginning to do business in Sudan," Ganong wrote.

The Crimson had reported in January that, despite the decisions to divest from PetroChina and Sinopec—two Chinese oil firms with ties to Sudan—Harvard still maintained indirect holdings in these firms worth more than $16 million through investments in other funds.

The first half of the CCSR report explains the rationale behind the Corporation's now-definitive stand on not divesting from these indirect holdings. The report reasoned that due to lack of control over their makeup and a lack of suitable alternatives, these holdings could not be sold off without incurring substantial losses to Harvard's endowment.

According to the University's most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Harvard still indirectly owns $14.4 million worth of stock in the three companies it has divested from and $11.8 million in other companies that are facing heavy scrutiny for their actions in Sudan.

Bakker said that he viewed HDAG's work on divestment since January as less "anti-University" and more informative, but he added that the CCSR's response could call for HDAG to institute a new method of pushing for divestment.

"We tried a more conciliatory approach, not holding protests, not being us against Harvard," Bakker said. "I think this is where the tactics may begin to change in the fall."

Daniel Millenson, a rising junior at Brandeis University, is one of the leaders of the Sudan Divestment Task Force—the organization that authored the original targeted divestment proposal. After reading the CCSR report, he said he found their decision baffling.

"What left me confused was that there is no reason to limit divestment to those three companies," Millenson said. "There are others that are equal offenders, which is precisely why we develop criteria."

Millenson said he disagreed with the CCSR's characterization of the divestment criteria as "broadly worded," especially given that 12 of the 18 states that have adopted divestment legislation used the same proposal that Harvard has rejected.

"Out of 500 multi-national companies with connections to Sudan, we focus on two or three dozen," Millenson said. "Divestment is only effective when everyone is working for the same thing, and Harvard is missing out by categorically rejecting a criteria-based approach."

Although Harvard's decision to divest from PetroChina in April 2005 set a precedent as the first university to divest from a company because of its involvement in Sudan, Millenson said that the CCSR report indicates a disappointing change of heart in the University's investment decisions.

"Harvard has abdicated its leadership role in this movement," he said.

—Staff writer Nathan C. Strauss can be reached at strauss@fas.harvard.edu.
CORRECTION: The article gave the wrong class year for Trevor J. Bakker. He is in the Class of 2010, not 2009.