This page was created by Daniel Abel Fernandez. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was a student at Swarthmore College and was involved with Ban the Ban, a coalition of student groups working to end Swarthmore’s 1991 ban on ethical divestment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I originally created this website to supplement an investigative series I wrote about the ban on ethical divestment (read them here: Clandestine Ban, Repressive Ban<\/a>; Duplicitous Ban<\/a>). For the series, I sought out a number of archival documents related to past divestment campaigns and the ban on divestment, many of which were difficult to access. Viewing some of these documents requires a trip to the campus library and an appointment to view them. Reading others, like the historical news articles, requires lots of flipping through scans of newspapers online. Still others I have not even been able to access because they are restricted. I wanted to make all of these documents easily and quickly accessible. I also wanted to highlight the inaccessibility of a number of important documents related to the ban, including the ban itself! <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, I want to turn this website into a resource for student, faculty, staff, or alumni activists working on divestment, or anyone else interested in learning more about the issue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I see this project as particularly important because student campaigns, like divestment, often last many years and institutional memory and knowledge often gets lost as older activists graduate. I know that I would have benefited greatly from a website like this when I first started working on divestment. I hope that this website will aid future student activists long after I have left Swarthmore. Although, it is my sincere hope that, by then, the divestment fight will have been won and students can direct their energies towards other pressing issues. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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