Alum Seeks Bill To Divest

A Harvard alumna, now a Illinois State Senator, will present a bill this week that would require banks, pension funds, and the retirement system in Illinois to divest from companies with ties to the Sudanese government.

The bill, written by Jacqueline Y. Collins—who received a masters degree from the Kennedy School of Government (KSG) in 2001 and another masters degree from the Harvard Divinity School in 2003—comes in response to the ongoing acts of genocide committed by government-backed militias in the Darfur region of Sudan.

Collins called the situation in Darfur “a long, painful process of devastation and destruction.”

Collin’s proposal comes amidst similar calls for divestment at Harvard, which owns shares of PetroChina, a Chinese oil company that does business with the Sudanese government. A group of Harvard seniors has recently created a campaign called Senior Gift Plus that is lobbying seniors to withhold their donations to the Senior Gift until Harvard divests from PetroChina.

Collins’ bill would deny any Illinois bank or savings and loan association that loans money to companies doing business with the Sudanese government from approval by the Illinois State Treasurer.

It would also prevent the state’s retirement system and pension funds from investing in companies with ties to the Sudan.

This is not the first time in Illinois that divestment has been used as a tool against governments committing human rights violations. The state—along with many other states and businesses—used divestment to convince the South African government to end its policy of Apartheid, and Collins said she used the anti-Apartheid divestment legislation as a model for her bill.

Collins said she is “cautiously optimistic” about her bill, which will be heard in committee Thursday.

“I think I have all the support of my Democratic colleagues...[and] I have a very key Republican as one of the cosponsors of the legislation,” said Collins.

Collins said some bankers and pension fund managers have criticized the vagueness of her bill, which does not name specific companies.

She expressed willingness to “tweak” the legislation by specifically listing companies such as the Alcatel communications company of France and the Siemens AG communications company of Germany, which have been accused by watchdog groups of conducting business with the Sudanese government.

Yet Collins admits that her bill might face some difficulty because fund managers could argue it would hurt their profits.

“They might make it an anti-bank, an anti-pension, or an anti-financial well-being argument,” she said.

Collins said she thinks her moral argument should win out in the end.

“We said never again [after the Holocaust and Rwanda],” said Collins, “and yet genocide is still occurring.”

“The members of the teachers retirement fund, if they knew their money was being used to prop up genocidal government...I’m sure they would support me,” she added.

Collins said she first took a serious interest in Sudan during her time at Harvard.

“There was a group of black ministers [in Cambridge] who were involved in going to the Sudan and repurchasing slaves and freeing them,” she said.

Collins then became exposed to the genocide in Sudan through reading about the Sudan crisis in international newspapers.

Collins said she is motivated because she hopes to focus the public’s attention on Sudan.

“[Americans] never get exposed to what’s going on globally,” Collins said. “The African continent receives very little attention....It gets lost in the midst of Iraq.”

“I have a responsibility to educate my constituency,” she added.

Senator Collins’ legislation, if successful, would send an “unambiguous message” to the Sudanese government, Benjamin B. Collins ’06, the co-founder of an online petition calling on Harvard to divest its shares of PetroChina, wrote in an e-mail. Benjamin Collins is not related to Senator Jacqueline Collins.

“Divestment campaigns are helpful ways to raise awareness,” Benjamin Collins wrote. “Divestment can create opportunities for individuals to think about how to best stop genocide.”

Senator Collins said she does not expect immediate results, but is confident that people will agree with the morality of her argument in the end.

“It’s going to take persistence, and labor,” she said. “It has to be a labor of love.”

-Staff writer Evan H. Jacobs can be reached at ehjacobs@fas.harvard.edu.