More than 500 people die every day in Darfur, Sudan. Since February 2003, the Sudanese government in Khartoum has enabled the murder of more than 400,000 of its own citizens in a military campaign instigated by Darfurian rebels who attacked the Sudanese government. In the last three years, 2.5 million people have been forced from their homes, and 300,000 have been pushed into refugee camps in Chad, Sudan’s western neighbor. Militias-commonly referred to as janjaweed (Arabic for “evil horsemen”)-that are armed and financed by Sudan’s government, travel the country murdering, raping, destroying food, poisoning water, burning villages and kidnapping children.

The United Nations calls the situation in Darfur “the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today.” Both the United States and the European Union identified the violence as genocide.

Maybe you’ve heard about this. Or have seen it the news. Or were one of the students who met to discuss Darfur at one of the many events this week. Or read about it in today’s Features section (see page B1).

Maybe learning this news has disturbed you. Maybe now you want to help. But what can you do with this information?

As Atlas Week’s keynote speaker Jody Williams said last week, “Emotion without action is positively, absolutely irrelevant.”

So do something.

Often, on this page, we encourage you, our readers, to “educate yourselves” or “write your representatives”-you are our democracy.

Often, we are writing about meal plans and academic advising.

But stopping genocide? If we knew how to do that-if we knew what you should write to Congress or put in your letter to the editor-we would not need to write this editorial.

Do something-but what can you do? That’s why you inform yourself: to intelligently contribute to the discourse about how to stop genocide.

There’s a lot to discuss: You might support U.S. intervention in Darfur-should we send our own troops? Do we send money? Do we financially support the African Union troops already there? Do we act unilaterally, sending troops from the United Nations?

Do we fight the janjaweed’s weapons with our weapons, or maybe do we stymie the source of the Sudanese militia’s weapons altogether?

Divestment, or “de-investment,” involves refusing to patronize or invest in companies that fund violence. If we withhold money from the Sudanese government and therefore cut off the resources it provides its militias, can we eliminate genocide?

Yes, write your local media. Yes, write your congressperson. But, also, consider where your money goes.

You say you care. Put your money where your mouth is.

What would happen if large organizations banded together to stop genocide? The University of California system did it. So did Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Brown and Dartmouth. To try to end violence in Darfur, they removed from their endowments the investments that funded the Sudanese government.

All around the country, students did this. They asked their administration to assess their investments. And their universities listened. Saint Louis University students: You can do this too.

You are now informed.