Submitted Fall 2003

The Penn Student Alliance to Reform Corporations began its efforts in the spring of 2000 under the leadership of Alisa Valderrama with a rather simple list of demands that were delivered to the Penn trustees. The proposal asked the trustees to consider human rights, environmental consequences, indigenous rights and other ethical issues when selecting stocks for the University’s portfolio. This proposal was deemed “nebulous in scope” which basically meant the trustees had no idea how to act upon our request or determine how it might impact Penn’s endowment performance.

PennSARC went back to work and began researching a new approach. Using information on the history of SRI, apartheid divestment at Penn, Penn’s founding documents and precedents set by many of Penn’s peer institutions, SARC wrote a proposal that set the terms for how Penn might institutionalize a more-ethical investment strategy. SARC forgot its original divestment goals and instead focused upon inspiring Penn to be an active shareholder. SARC turned in its final proxy proposal in October of 2002. It took another seven months for this proposal to be accepted.

SARC’s greatest success to date has been convincing the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania to create the “Social Responsibility Advisory Committee” in the spring of 2003. The advisory committee is just taking shape and PennSARC remains active as a campus gadfly, working to guarantee that its bureaucratic sister-committee does her work.