A Darfur divestment movement has been active at MIT since last fall, when student Kayvan Zainabadi G started circulating a petition, reading "Certain international companies, by conducting business operations in Sudan, bring direct foreign investment dollars to Khartoum and provide both moral and political cover to the Sudanese regime." The petition, which has gathered 499 signatures, asked for MIT to divest by Dec. 31, 2006. The last meeting of the Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (ACSR) was in December, but the ACSR won’t consider Darfur divestment until at least early March. In the meantime a counter-petition—reading "Divestiture would be counter-productive to the goal of ending the suffering of millions of people, and would actually result in supporting the death of thousand more, and an overall decline in the quality of life of the individual citizens"—has gathered 96 signatures.

2/13/07  Read More from MIT