News-Letter

There's no marketing plan for Darfur that Americans embrace, unlike the environmental policies that countless companies have promoted over the past several years. While many firms have embraced "green branding," they have not found marketing value or encountered sufficient public pressure on Darfur intervention. It's not altogether surprising, then, that the oil company PetroChina, a key source of militia funding in Sudan, ironically has an environmental protection policy.

The Johns Hopkins Institutions sponsor a voluminous amount of work on humanitarian crises, disaster response and refugee health care. Emergency response teams from Hopkins have conducted heroic relief programs in the aftermaths of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and Hurricane Katrina. But the University does not match these altruistic initiatives with a responsible investment policy on Darfur.

The school's reluctance to agree to a definitive investment ethics policy is simply inconsistent with the school's mission and work. Just as Hopkins' carbon footprint warrants scrutiny, so does its financial footprint on the world.

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