Leaders of the Brandeis chapter of Students Taking Action Now: Darfur (STAND) called for Massachusetts to divest its roughly $1.2 to $1.4 billion worth of holdings in companies that do business in Sudan in a public hearing Thursday. Along with Harvard STAND members, Brandeis STAND officers addressed the Joint Committee on Public Service at the Massachusetts State House in Boston in support of Senate Bill 2166, which would authorize such divestment.

STAND President Weldon Kennedy '06 and Daniel Millenson '09, the executive director of Brandeis Students Uniting for Divestment Action Now, a branch of STAND, spoke at the hearing, which they had arranged with Jay Kaufmann, a state representative from the 15th district.

"By going before the committee, we've really given this bill momentum," Kennedy said. "We've pushed it over the edge and now we can, hopefully, make sure it rolls down the right path."

Kennedy and Millenson worked with Kaufmann to bring in experts to speak before the committee, including James Ryan, Massachusetts teacher of the year for 2003, Eric Reeves, a Sudan researcher and analyst and English professor at Smith College, and Rebecca Hamilton, the co-founder of the Darfur Action Group at Harvard University.

If the bill passes, Massachusetts will be the fourth state to divest, Millenson said, following New Jersey, Oregon and Illinois. Millenson said this bill may help spark national divestiture and also encourage universities and private entities to divest.

"It's a domino effect, and all you need is to reach a certain tipping point," Millenson said. "Massachusetts might not be that tipping point, but it will certainly further our goals in that respect."

"[The state] recognizes how great it is that students from around the country are working to see that there is change is Sudan," Kennedy said.

While the bill must go through two more committees, Kennedy and Millenson said they are fairly confident the committee will recommend the bill favorably.

STAND officer Elana Kaufman '06, who attended the hearing with six or seven other officers said she was impressed with the extensive background information Millenson compiled for the committee. "Brandeis made a good case as to why Massachusetts should divest," Kaufman said. She added that "hitting [the Sudanese government] in the wallet" should prompt it to "improve its human rights record."

Until the bill reaches the next committee on Dec. 8, the group plans to lobby members of the next two committees until then to ensure that this bill is passed.

Millenson is also spearheading the effort to get Brandeis to issue a statement of "disinvestment," an agreement not to invest in companies that do business in Sudan until the genocide ends.

"This has the potential to be very effective," Millenson said. "This is not an activist dream; it is a very hard-headed, realistic, goal-oriented effort to effect real change.