Students
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology rallied in 2021 to demand that the
university divest from fossil fuels. (Photo: Alexa Simao/MIT Divest)
Students at Top
Universities Push 'Legal Imperative' of Fossil Fuel Divestment
"Their investments
in the fossil fuel industry—an industry whose actions place the health and
future of students and the entire planet at risk—amount to nothing less than
complicity in the climate crisis."
February 16, 2022
Student-led divestment
campaigns at five top U.S. universities on Wednesday employed a tactic
that has proven effective at a few other schools: They filed legal complaints
accusing their institutions of breaking the law by investing in the
climate-wrecking fossil fuel industry.
"We are calling on
our attorneys general to compel our schools to do the right thing and
divest."
With assistance from
Climate Defense Project (CDP), students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Princeton, Stanford, Vanderbilt, and Yale filed
complaints with the attorneys general of their states—Massachusetts, New
Jersey, California, Tennessee, and Connecticut.
"By filing these
complaints, the students and alumni of these institutions are making it clear
that our universities have not only a moral responsibility but a legal
imperative to cut financial ties with the fossil fuel industry and its
exploitative practices," said Miguel Moravec,
a Ph.D. student at Vanderbilt, in a statement. "We are calling on our
attorneys general to compel our schools to do the right thing and divest."
The students—supported
by alumni, campus groups, climate scientists, community members, elected
officials, environmental organizations, and professors—accuse their
universities of violating the Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds
Act (UPMIFA), which is law in every
state except Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin
Islands.
"The law can be a
powerful ally in fighting climate change, but only if people are held
accountable for actually following it," said CDP staff attorney Alex
Marquardt. "Universities have a duty to promote the public interest in
exchange for their tax-exempt charitable status, and that duty is incompatible
with fossil fuel investments."
Though Yale announced
some investment changes last year, students are demanding full divestment from
fossil fuels. As student organizer Molly Weiner told The
Washington Post: "I'm here studying environmental policy, yet my
school is contributing to the climate crisis... It's really awful."
The complaints argue
that in addition to flouting the UPMIFA's requirement that nonprofits such as
the targeted universities invest with consideration for their "charitable
purposes," the schools have also violated their duty of care by investing
in "financially risky fossil fuel stocks, which have underperformed for
years and are currently at risk of a general collapse in value."
"The legal
standards guiding fiduciary conduct are actually quite clear, but they've been
underenforced," said CDP's Ted Hamilton. "We're hopeful that
attorneys general will take this evidence and hold endowment managers to
account when they profit off of immoral business activities."
The students'
complaints further highlight potential conflicts of interest. Noting that "across
our five schools, our chancellors, board members, trustees, faculty, and donors
are financially tied to the fossil fuel industry," Yale student Avery
Long asserted it is "unacceptable that our decision-makers are actively
profiteering off of climate destruction."
The new filings follow
a framework previously used by divestment campaigns at
Boston College, Cornell, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Marquette, and the University
of New Mexico. Following campaigners' actions, both Cornell and Harvard
committed to divesting from fossil fuels.
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After a Decade of Pressure
Organizers at the five
new schools—frustrated with how the administrations have responded to their
demands—hope the approach will work for them.
"Every time we
ask them about fossil fuel divestment, they refer back to other actions that
they're taking to make the campus itself greener, such as carbon offsets, but
they fail to address actual divestment," Vanderbilt student Aaditi
Lele told The Guardian.
"A lot of what they do is just greenwashing through mentioning those other
actions and then using that as justification to pretend that that's
enough."
Princeton graduate
Anna Liebowitz said that "in the face of the overwhelming nature of the
climate crisis, we look for levers of power and change to which we have
access."
"Our universities
are amongst the world's wealthiest and most prestigious institutions of higher
education, and their investments in the fossil fuel industry—an industry whose
actions place the health and future of students and the entire planet at
risk—amount to nothing less than complicity in the climate crisis," she
continued. "Thus, our campaigns are coming together and collectively
calling for an end to fossil fuel investments in higher education and the world
at large."
The five schools'
endowments collectively represent over $155 billion in assets under management.
Pointing out that "in the past decade, 1,485 institutions have publicly
committed to at least some form of fossil fuel divestment, representing an
unprecedented $39.2 trillion of assets under management," MIT student
Ellie Rabenold said "it's time" to follow their lead.
Along with the new
filing, student campaigners at MIT launched a sit-in on Wednesday. Jess Cohen,
a junior participating in the demonstration, told Common Dreams that
"MIT Divest is sitting in starting today outside our president's office in
protest of MIT's inaction on climate."
"MIT Divest
members filed a legal complaint against our school because we think that MIT deserves
better than to remain complicit with what are clearly bad faith actors," Cohen
added. "Time and time again, MIT has said that they choose to engage and
use that as an excuse to pardon fossil fuel companies and their actions. It is
past time that our administration wakes up and takes responsibility."
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to Max Obuszewski, Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 431 Notre Dame Lane, Apt. 206,
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"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives."
Eugene Victor Debs
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