News Briefs
Recommendation on Sudan Made to MIT Corporation
The Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility has passed its recommendations regarding whether MIT should divest from corporations that are involved with the Sudanese government on to the MIT Corporation's Executive Committee. Michael Baenen, staff to the ACSR, wrote in an e-mail that the Executive Committee is now considering the recommendation report and "is aiming to bring its deliberations to a close in early May."
Baenen did not disclose what the ACSR's recommendation entailed but wrote that he anticipates that a public statement will be released once the Executive Committee reaches a decision.
Undergraduate Association President Andrew T. Lukmann '07, who is a member of the ACSR, said that he hasn't taken a close look at the report yet and so could not comment on it.
Kayvan Zainabadi G, who circulated a petition last fall supporting divestment, said that he did not know the ACSR had made a recommendation to the Executive Committee. In addition, he said that he is "very concerned … about the delay that's happened with this whole procedure … this has been a general sentiment with everyone I've talked to." The ACSR did not meet between December 2006 and March 2007.
The recommendation has not been publicly released yet. In March, Baenen said that it was possible the recommendation report would not be made public when it was passed to the Executive Committee and that "We [the ACSR] really need to have a chance for the Executive Committee to assess [the recommendations]."
Some prior advisory committees have made their recommendations to the Corporation public, according to past Tech articles.
"I don't see any justification for keeping anything secret, especially when the MIT community has been so vocal about it," Zainabadi said.
—Marie Y. Thibault