The University’s Advisory Panel on Investment Responsibility, or APIR, recommended on Tuesday to divest from four companies because of their alleged links to the Sudanese government.

The next University body to vote on divestment will be the Board of Trustees Subcommittee on Investment Responsibility, which will issue its own recommendation to be presented to the Board of Trustees in early June. The Board will make the final decision on the matter.

The panel also approved administrative changes, including the creation of a Web site that would allow community members to express reservations about investment decisions.

The recommendation was a victory for student organizations, such as the Stanford Coalition for Investment Disclosure, or SCID, and Students Taking Action Now: Darfur, or STAND, which have launched separate efforts expressing disapproval of Stanford’s investments.

The recommendation pertained specifically to the oil companies PetroChina, ABB Ltd. Sinopec and Tatneft. STAND leaders claim that the University currently has about $1 million invested in PetroChina.

The controversy over investments in companies tied to the Sudanese government has not been limited to Stanford.

Last month, Harvard decided to divest about $4.4 million in shares of PetroChina, and earlier this month the Illinois General Assembly passed a bill to suspend state investment in companies doing business with the Republic of Sudan.

Co-terminal student and APIR member Anna Mumford, who is also a member of SCID, said that there was “lots of very heated discussion over Darfur” at Tuesday’s meeting. She said that it took a long time to bring the issue of divestment to a vote even though the recommendations went on to pass by substantial margins.

“The people running the meeting were in the minority, so they tended not to let the majority voices speak or take a vote,” Mumford said.

Graduate School of Business Prof. George Parker, the chair of the panel, is in New York and could not be reached for comment. Parker will present the results of Tuesday’s vote to the Special Committee on Investment Responsibility.

The panel cast three separate votes related to divestment, Mumford said, all of which passed. The first vote was in favor of “disinvestment,” which means that Stanford would not buy new shares of the companies, but would hold on to the ones it already has. The second vote was to divest from all four companies.

The third vote, to divest specifically from PetroChina, was taken because some panel members felt that a stronger case could be made against the company, Mumford said.

Stanford does not disclose its investment decisions, but Parker said in The Stanford Report April 27 that it is helpful to “presume that the University has owned, does own or might own all of the stocks that are publicly traded.”

On April 26, STAND presented a report to the advisory panel urging Stanford to divest from the four companies, which all do business in Sudan.

“We thought we had a pretty strong case,” said junior Ben Elberger, one of the leaders of STAND. “We had met with many of the members individually before the meeting, and some of them had concerns about whether divestment was the correct course of action, but in general it was a pretty positive reception.”

Sophomore Nikki Serapio, another leader of STAND, said the group would welcome the opportunity to meet with individual members of the Board of Trustees before the Board's next meeting.

Mumford said that — in the course of debate at Tuesday’s meeting — the opponents of the divestment recommendation had several different arguments.

First, they said that Stanford should confront the companies directly with its concerns instead of divesting. The panel voted unanimously to pursue this option as well.

The panel also passed several changes that do not require the approval of the Board of Trustees, Mumford said.

One of these changes is the creation of a Web site that would allow community members to access forms to request reviews of specific companies that Stanford may be invested in.

The Web site will also contain information about how Stanford votes on non-binding shareholder referendums for the individual companies.

“Putting this information out there will mean that students and community members can be much more involved in the process,” said senior Rafi Ginsburg, a member of SCID. “Right now, if a student wants to bring a complaint it takes a pretty extraordinary effort on their part.”

The panel also requested money from the Office of the President to hire student researchers to gather information about specific companies.

Mumford said she believed that the involvement of certain faculty members who came out in favor of divestment had been influential in the decision.

She singled out English Prof. Elizabeth Tallent, who attended the STAND presentation on April 26, and the 21 faculty members and graduate students who signed an open letter to the advisory panel that was printed in The Daily on April 27.

“The people in power are used to students doing crazy things as long as it doesn’t disrupt things too much,” Mumford said. “But when they saw faculty members getting involved I think they realized that this was something they needed to take seriously.”