No divestment plans for Pitt

A group of Pitt students are urging the University not to invest in companies that have… A group of Pitt students are urging the University not to invest in companies that have holdings in Sudan as a means of pressuring Khartoum to halt the genocide in Darfur.

But the University says a policy on divestment is not necessary.

According to Art Ramicone, vice chancellor for budget and controller at Pitt, the University is not directly invested in corporations doing business in Sudan but does have ties to funds invested in those companies.

“I don’t want to say it’s a non-issue for us,” Ramicone said, “but when we reviewed our holdings, there was nothing to divest.”

Schlumberger, a French company dealing in oil support services, is the only confirmed company Pitt indirectly invests in that is listed in the independent Sudan Divestment Task Force’s Sudan Company Rankings, a list of businesses that operate in Sudan and therefore warrant scrutiny.

The company has moved down to the second category, “ongoing engagement,” from the first category, “highest offenders.”

This means Schlumberger has been under suspicion in the past, but its current activities regarding Sudan are unknown.

Since the University invests in part through a consortium of other universities, it may be difficult for Pitt to individually divest from specific companies.

Top University officials met last summer to investigate the University’s investments and found minimal holdings with offending companies other than Schlumberger.

However, Ramicone said Pitt’s complete list of investments cannot be disclosed because of potential competition from other investors.

Ramicone said one major reason Pitt has no concrete policy on divestment is that groups regularly come to them seeking a boycott for issues Ramicone identified as ranging from tobacco to trans fats and, more recently, to genocide.

“We don’t like anyone trying to limit our investments,” he said. “We’ll comply with any law in the U.S., and we do, but that’s where it ends.

“We have a fiduciary responsibility to invest and these responsibilities are kind of like a reasonable man doctrine. Would a reasonable man support genocide? Of course not. Does a reasonable man not eat at McDonald’s because of trans fats?

“We’re investment professionals, we’re not deep-thinking individuals when it comes to what the University should do.”

Just before the New Year, President Bush passed the Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act of 2007, which requires the government to examine and list all U.S. companies’ holdings and investments in the Sudan.

The law also prevents the U.S. government from investing in or doing business with any company on the list.

The EU has also divested from Sudan. In the United States, 44 states and 100 universities have either fully divested or have taken action to divest in the future.

Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives passed its divestment bill in July 2007.

The movement is becoming more popular. So why hasn’t every company, university and government divested?

One dilemma is making sure countries and businesses that do divest are using “targeted divestment,” which does not pull money from the country’s education or health care, so as not to negatively affect the health or livelihood of the population at large.

Another potential obstacle is that divestment does not necessarily change the behavior of an offending company.

Junior Marc Schutzbank and students Lissa Geiger and Anna Siegel founded Pitt’s Sudan Divestment Coalition on campus last fall.

Since then, they have worked with other university groups writing letters, circulating petitions and urging University officials to disclose exactly what investments the University holds and to enact a firm policy against doing business with companies that do business with Sudan.

Cara Balderi, president of Students Taking Action Now: Darfur at Pitt, is working with the Sudan Divestment Coalition to keep this movement in the forefront of the University’s concerns.

“Our role is to keep the University administration aware and keep it on their minds where the divestment movement is going,” she said. “The University’s role is making sure that its investments are responsible.”

Balderi said that most people don’t think divestment is a bad idea, they just worry about its effect.

“Sudan’s government has a lot of revenue coming in from oil,” she said. “Divestment is more of a principled move than anything else, but it does make companies examine their investments.”

Since 2003, the Khartoum regime has been largely responsible for 400,000 deaths and the displacement of 2.5 million people in the western region of Darfur.

Editor’s note: Marc Schutzbank writes for The Pitt News’ Arts and Entertainment section.