It seems that the campus has become to some extent split over the issue of Grand Valley divesting from the use of JP Morgan’s p-card system. Since I have thoroughly investigated this issue with the help of my classmates in my junior seminar and am now tackling this issue within my senior project, I would like to shed some light on the arguments Mr. Hibler proposed in his letter to the editor.

First of all, the concept of fungibility needs to be explained and applied to this situation. Although the money GV is investing in JP Morgan does not go directly towards the funding of the genocide in Sudan it does indirectly. This is because money is interchangeable among itself and is therefore fungible. This means that when a dollar is given to JP Morgan it goes into its overall profits. Therefore when GV gives a dollar it may be initially put into a pool that does not directly fund PetroChina, but overtime that dollar has become part of the overall profit and therefore can then be used to fund PetroChina. The argument that GV does not directly fund PetroChina is then null and void.

Another issue that has come up is the fact that if GV does divest it will not make a difference in the genocide. I believe that this is a pessimistic way to view this subject. The idea of divestment from JP Morgan has already grown over the past year. A little over one year ago, a group of students came across the ties between GV and PetroChina and decided to take this up with the university. That group of students not only presented their findings to the office Business and Finance and even to President Haas, grown into a much larger body of students who are rallied behind this cause, and made the entire campus aware of this issue, but it has also convinced GV to put their contract with JP Morgan on hold and look to other financial institutions for p-cards. This shows that this issue has the ability to grow and if GV does divest from JP Morgan it can lead to a much larger movement. There are multiple other universities in Michigan, such as University of Michigan, Michigan State University, and Western Michigan University, that are in contract with JP Morgan and when they become aware of the issue involving the genocide in Sudan and see that GV has divested fully then they too will have a model to follow in their own divestment. JP Morgan and eventually PetroChina will be forced to reconsider their ties in Sudan when they begin to lose much larger sums of money than just their profit from GV.

My last point is that GV will not be financially negatively affected by this divestment. The office of Business and Finance and my classmates began looking into other financial institutions last semester and we have found that Bank of America is completely void of any ties with the genocide in Sudan. They offer the same type of benefits as JP Morgan and would be able to provide the same finances and p-cards. There are also other financial institutions that both the office of Business and Finance as well as myself are exploring.

In the end GV has no reason not to divest from JP Morgan, and if it does, then the University will be living up to its stated mission of being an enlightened liberal University concerned with society’s major issues and supporting its students in their worthwhile activist movements. In doing so, it can then be proud of being part of a local and national movement applying pressure on the Sudanese Government to stop this horrific genocide against its indigenous African citizens.

Sarah Bierlein

GVSU Student