Stanford Considers Guideline for ‘Conflict Minerals’
By KATHARINE MIESZKOWSKI
Published: June 11, 2010
Stanford University, an incubator for dozens of Silicon Valley companies, has become the focus of a grass-roots effort to pressure the technology industry to crack down on “conflict minerals.”
Adithya Sambamurthy/The Bay Citizen
Nina McMurry, right, and Angie McPhaul have been active in a student group involved in the issue of conflict minerals.
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Go to the Bay Area Blog »In the Democratic Republic of Congo, armed groups force villagers to mine minerals like wolframite and cassiterite. Metals processed from such minerals are used in consumer electronics products, including laptop computers, MP3 players, cellphones and digital cameras.
On Thursday, a committee of Stanford’s trustees considered a resolution to create a new proxy voting guideline for the university’s investments. The guideline would support shareholders’ efforts to make companies trace the supply chain of the minerals used in their products.
The board, which met privately, has not announced its decision.
“This is a huge humanitarian crisis, and if Stanford can have an impact at all, we should try to,” said Nina McMurry, a senior and a member of Stand, a student organization that raised the conflict minerals issue with the university.
If Stanford adopts the guideline, it would be the first university in the country to take such action on the issue, according to the Center for American Progress, a policy institute in
