HDAG Only Asks Harvard To Divest In Specific Circumstances

To the editors:



The Mar. 12 article “Students Pressure Harvard to Divest” (news) provided a good profile of our Harvard Darfur Action Group (HDAG) campaign in its aims and momentum.

We want to clarify how our position would affect Harvard’s various investments, however, which was not stated in the article. Our targeted divestment plan asks Harvard to divest only where reasonable alternatives with similar risk and returns currently exist. This includes: direct securities holdings (there are other Chinese and Malaysian oil companies who do not do business with the Sudanese government), exchange-traded fund holdings (these are index funds bought together to look like stocks, and there are many different exchange-traded funds which do not include the offending companies), and index fund holdings (at this point in time, nine asset management firms, including Barclays and State Street, have created “Sudan-free” index funds for their clients).

At this point in time, we are not asking Harvard to divest from its actively-managed indirect investments (such as hedge funds and private equity) because similar alternatives do not yet exist. If such alternatives are created in the future, only then would we ask Harvard to divest from this class of investments.

We applaud the Boston Foundation’s decision today to short (bet against) the stocks of companies who are doing business in Sudan, and would be supportive of Harvard doing the same.





PETER GANONG ’09

Cambridge, Mass.

March 14, 2007





The writer is a member of the Harvard Darfur Action Group.