The debate surrounding divestment from PetroChina has taken some unusual turns this week among seniors.

Though most seniors can agree that they would like to protest the genocide in Darfur, and that they would like to support their class upon graduation, they now have three different campaigns to which they can donate—Senior Gift, Senior Gift Plus, and Senior Gift Plus Plus.

And the third option—a farcical site launched explicitly to satirize the divestment effort of two seniors—has sparked discontent among students in the Black Students Association (BSA) who claim that the site is implicitly racist and insensitive to the genocide in the Sudan.

These factors combined have spurred concern among seniors that the unusual rift over the traditional graduation gift to Harvard may prove divisive.

SENIOR SCHISM

The debate began almost two weeks ago when Matthew W. Mahan ’05 and Brandon M. Terry ’05 decided to take a stand against Harvard’s recently-increased investment in PetroChina—a Chinese oil company which has purchased the rights to drill in the southern Sudan and has ties to a Sudanese government linked to the genocide in Darfur—by taking aim at the Senior Gift campaign.

Mahan and Terry asked seniors in an open letter published in a Feb. 24 advertisement in The Crimson urging seniors to refrain from donating to the Senior Gift campaign, which raises funds for the Harvard College Fund or future undergraduate financial aid.

Their letter sparked immediate tension, with the officers of the Senior Gift Campaign saying that PetroChina and the Senior Gift were unrelated.

Mahan and Terry shortly thereafter switched their strategy. Instead of encouraging people not to donate, they asked seniors to contribute to an alternative campaign—Senior Gift Plus, via a website Mahan and Terry set up, seniorgiftplus.com.

Senior Gift Plus would place student donations in a separate account with Bank of America until Oct. 25, 2005.

If Harvard divests by then, the money will go to the College Fund, Mahan said.

Otherwise, Mahan and Terry said that they plan to donate those funds to the Kennedy School of Government’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy.

“We feel that giving to the Carr Center is an appropriate response to genocide, while still keeping the money in the Harvard community,” Mahan said.

None of the senior gift money is invested directly by the management company, but Terry said that donation to the Senior Gift Plus campaign will send a symbolic message to the Harvard Management Company (HMC), which invests Harvard’s endowment.