A group of students who want Iowa State to transfer a portion of its investments into “socially responsible” mutual funds will have to take their message to the Board of Regents or Iowa legislators.

Organizers of the Divest Campaign, started at Iowa State in February by members of socialist student organization Solidarity, plan to continue building support among students before determining which officials to take their message to next fall.

“We’ve organized people that are supportive,” said campaign organizer Noah Wiese, senior in materials engineering. “We’ve gotten some student organizations and other organizations on board.”

According to the campaign’s Web site, it targets businesses that have been accused of racial or sexual discrimination, using sweatshop labor, environmental exploitation and predatory lending to developing countries.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Citigroup, Home Depot U.S.A., General Electric and ExxonMobil are named on the group’s Web site.

Wiese said the campaign wants Iowa State to re-invest 1 percent of money invested in general mutual funds.

“We also want them to set up a system to evaluate investments they currently have,” he said. “We want them to make it a policy to continue to invest in a responsible manner if the 1 percent that they initially move does well.”

According to the most recent Investment and Cash Management Report given to the Board of Regents by its investment committee, Iowa State had about $94,651,000 in stock, invested by domestic and international mutual funds, during the fourth quarter of 2004.

Warren Madden, vice president for business and finance, said Iowa State follows an investment policy set by the Board of Regents.

The university follows the “prudent person rule” for investments, he said, which uses criteria based on the financial performance of a mutual fund.

“If you restrict the choices, you end up with increased volatility or lower rates of return [as compared to stock market benchmarks],” Madden said.

He said because social criteria are not used to evaluate potential investments, the Board of Regents would have to vote to change the policy.

The Iowa Legislature could also pass a law to change the investment policy, Madden said.

“Looking at the investments of the universities is something the board takes very seriously and looks at on an ongoing basis,” said Barb Boose, communications officer for the Board of Regents.

She said the board’s policy is set by Iowa law and places priority on safety of investment, maintaining liquidity to match liability and obtaining a reasonable rate of return.

“That’s required of all state agencies that are authorized to invest,” Boose said.

She said it would be possible for the policy to be changed to include socially responsible investments if the change doesn’t violate the investment rules.

Wiese said socially responsible mutual funds do not have worse performances than normal funds do.

“We do have figures that we can present that say many of the funds they could choose perform as well or better than standard mutual funds,” he said.