Approving of Divestment
By Ben Elberger, Stanford STAND
Published on Thursday, November 17, 2005
To the Editor:
I am writing to congratulate Dartmouth College, the Darfur Action Group and specifically Niral Shah '08, Janet Smith '08, Kelsey Noonan '08 and Anne Bellows '06 for their leadership on the issue of divestment .
On Monday, the nation's most extensive university divestment effort culminated in a decision of historic proportions. Dartmouth College courageously sent a symbolic and substantive message to the Sudanese government and companies that do business with a genocidal regime: we will not be complicit.
The decision to divest from ABB Ltd., Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company Ltd., PetroChina, Sudanese White Nile Petroleum Company, Petronas and Sinopec has already begun to be felt. In large part because of the precedent set at universities like Dartmouth, the University of California voted to consider divestment at its January Board of Regents meeting. Divestment campaigns underway at Brown, Brandeis, Columbia and Yale have also been significantly buoyed by the decision. To Dartmouth College and all those involved in the divestment effort, thank you for your work and your courage.