Penn will now officially take a stand against genocide in Sudan, though it may only be a symbolic gesture.
University President Amy Gutmann will present the Board of Trustees with a recommendation to divest from companies with ties to the country at its meeting in June.
But according to University administrators, the action will have little tangible effect because the University doesn't currently invest in any of the targeted companies.
"We don't have direct ownership" in the targeted companies, Executive Vice President Craig Carnaroli said. "This won't cause us to materially divest anything -- there won't be an impact."
The University Council voted unanimously to recommend divestment to the trustees at their own meeting last week. The council is a group of students, professors and administrators that advises Penn leadership.
Council members saw divestment as a symbol of Penn's commitment to ending the conflict in Sudan's western Darfur region.
Math professor Gerald Porter, who chairs the UC Social Responsibility Advisory Committee, presented the council with a report about the situation there.
The SRAC decided that investing in companies that do business with the Sudanese government -- seven oil companies have been cited so far -- indirectly helps perpetuate the conflict there, which some have termed a genocide.
The predominantly Arab Janjaweed militia, allegedly supported by the government of Sudan, is engaged in a conflict with non-Arabs living in and around Darfur.
The United Nations estimated that more than 70,000 Sudanese have been killed, and a U.N. report earlier this year called it "the worst human-rights situation in the world today."
An executive order issued by former President Bill Clinton in 1997 and renewed by President Bush last year forbids American companies from doing business in Sudan, a fact cited by Porter in his committee's report.
The committee recommended that the University "exclude from its direct investments -- and require the University's separate account managers to exclude from their direct investments -- any investment that it may currently have in oil companies operating in Sudan."
Rights groups have targeted oil companies in particular as having ties to Sudan.
Activists say Penn's expected decision to divest will have a significant symbolic impact.
This action is about "sending a strong message to these companies, Sudan and the world community at large" about the stigma attached to Sudan and its business partners, College freshman Brad Rubin, divestment co-chairman of the group Students Taking Action Now: Darfur, wrote in an e-mail.
This proposal sends a targeted message to organizations with ties to Sudan from colleges and universities, which are a major source of investment, Carnaroli said.
In the bigger picture, he said this decision could affect the reputation of the companies doing business with the Sudanese government, though it could take quite some time.
"I think companies will think twice about what they do there," Carnaroli said. "Look back to apartheid -- [divestment] took a while, but it had an impact."
Neville Strumpf, chairwoman of the Faculty Senate, said the trustees would only consider divestment when there is a clear moral case for doing so, and the UC vote represented a consensus that this issue "deserved the attention of the Board of Trustees."
Harvard, Brown, Stanford and Yale universities, among others, have all taken measures to divest from Sudan.
