Take a STAND for ethical investments

The IU Foundation manages an endowment of $1.5 billion for IU, depending on former students and faculty for much of that support. It is currently soliciting private giving from graduating seniors through its “Senior Challenge” campaign.

As a senior, I fully recognize the importance of supporting the University in this difficult and important time, but I am taking this opportunity to ask for something in return for my support: the creation of an ethics committee that can help address the ethical issues raised by certain investments.

STAND, an advocacy group on campus that works to end atrocities in the Darfur region of Sudan, is joining with other concerned students to call for the establishment of an ethics committee within the IU Foundation or as part of its advisory board that could provide a forum for concerns related to the ethicality of the foundation’s investments.

STAND has previously sought to ensure the foundation halts investment in companies that have a business relationship with the Sudanese government, which has been accused of perpetrating genocide in the Darfur region.

Sixty-one other universities, including the University of Illinois, have taken this action, but a lack of institutional channels through which to consider these concerns has hindered the campaign at IU, and no formal action has yet been taken by the Foundation.

Socially responsible investing is a growing movement on many U.S. college and university campuses. Currently, 11 schools have a socially responsible investment policy and an associated advisory board. Short of this measure, however, other public universities have social concerns committees that do not necessarily have a mandate to pass binding resolutions for the university’s investment body yet create a channel between the university community and those making the investment decisions.

STAND is urging students and alumni who are contacted by the IU Foundation to state their support for the establishment of an ethics committee.

The goal of this campaign is NOT to discourage giving to the IU Foundation. Students and faculty believe that it is important to foster dialogue on the potential ethical challenges involved in the investment of IU funds in a globalized market. These challenges are particularly acute when these investments in some way violate the moral codes of faculty, alumni or students who have raised money for the foundation.

We fully believe in the mission of the University and are grateful to the IU Foundation for the important work it does in advancing IU’s goals and providing support to students, but we also believe that genocide and other extreme cases of human rights and environmental abuse are inconsistent with the values of the University.

Although it is important to maximize the resources available to the IU community, I would also contend that the logic of this community cannot be reduced solely to resource maximization. Rather, the University has a public face and a place in the global system of relations, and to preclude any serious discussion of the ethical implications of our investments is to deny these considerations.