The idea of prisons makes some college students feel bad and we can’t have that.

Wilfred Chan reported at CNN.

Columbia becomes first U.S. university to divest from prisons

Columbia University has become the first college in the United States to divest from private prison companies, following a student activist campaign.

The decision means the Ivy League school — with boasts a roughly $9 billion endowment — will sell its estimated 220,000 shares in G4S, the world’s largest private security firm, as well its shares in the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the largest private prison company in the United states.

The campaign began in early 2014 when a small group of Columbia students discovered the school was investing in the two firms, which run prisons, detention centers, and militarized borders.

The group, called Columbia Prison Divest, launched protests and meetings with administrators where they argued it was wrong for the elite school to invest in a “racist, violent system.”

“The private prison model is hinged on maximizing incarceration to generate profit — they’re incentivized by convicting, sentencing, and keeping people in prison for longer and longer times,” Dunni Oduyemi, a 20-year-old organizer, told CNN.

“We don’t think about how the privileges and resources students get access to are premised upon violence done to people by virtue of their race, class, or citizenship status.”

In an emailed statement, a Columbia spokesperson said the university’s trustees had decided to divest from private prison companies and would refrain from investing in such companies again.

“This action occurs within the larger, ongoing discussion of the issue of mass incarceration that concerns citizens from across the ideological spectrum,” the statement said. “The decision follows … thoughtful analysis and deliberation by our faculty, students, and alumni.”