Ohio University’s Honors Tutorial College has taken the first step toward what some students hope will propel the university to decrease its use of conflict minerals.
The college published a public statement yesterday acknowledging the link between raw materials from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and ongoing conflicts in the region.
“As an institution that makes significant annual investments in electronics products that likely contain these minerals, we realize our own responsibility and indirect link to the situation,” the announcement states. “We call on all electronics companies with whom we do business to clean up their supply chains.”
The college will consider future policies that OU can adopt to reaffirm support for the cause, said Jeremy Webster, dean of the Honors College.
The college made the pledge after several students from the Bobcats for a Conflict-Free Campus campaign met with Webster, he said.
Ellie Hamrick, president of the OU chapter of STAND: A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition that manages the campaign, said she has been working since fall to get OU to sign the agreement, and the Honors College’s commitment is only the first step.
“(Congo) is one of the worst places for human rights on Earth,” she said, noting reports of mass rape and child soldiers in the country’s pervasive conflicts.
The organization will continue to try to get a similar resolution drafted at the university level, Hamrick said.
“(Our ultimate goal) is for OU to declare a preference for conflict-free materials once they come on the market,” she said.
More than 6 million people have been killed in the country since 1994 in its ongoing conflicts and armed groups in the Congo make $183 million a year selling materials that end up in electronics, according to the statement.
“The part that gets me is we’re so connected to it,” Hamrick said.
Webster said he hoped other colleges and universities make the same commitment.
“I think being socially responsible — as broadly as possible — is something we should all strive to do,” Webster said. “I hope all the other colleges at OU would follow suit … as we make purchases and use the university’s money.”
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