In April, Yale University, which has one of the highest performing endowments in the world, announced that it would partially divest its endowment from fossil fuels, citing the financial risks of fossil fuel holdings. Yale’s decision fundamentally changes the conversation on divestment here at Swarthmore– in fact, Swarthmore’s endowment is modeled on that of Yale’s…
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Director of Sustainability Aurora Winslade and Vice President for Finance and Administration Greg Brown shared the following community message this week: Dear Swarthmore Community, We are pleased to announce that, based on a proposal put forward by a group of faculty and staff, Swarthmore College has implemented a Carbon Charge in its operating budget, beginning at the start of the fiscal year on July 1, 2016.
Illustration by Nicholas Massarelli Swarthmore students helped spark a national movement toward fossil fuel divestment. But their own school has yet to take action. by Steve Neumann When freshman Kate Aronoff arrived in 2010 on the small, idyllic campus of Swarthmore College, a “Little Ivy” tucked away in the suburbs of Philadelphia, she was already eager to become an activist.
Today, published a The Daily Gazette pro-divestment letter signed by three recipients of Swarthmore honorary degrees: sociologist Arlie Hochschild ’62, activist John Braxton ’70, and, most notably, linguist and social critic Noam Chomsky. Here is an excerpt from the letter, which references Swarthmore’s 1989 divestment from South Africa: Swarthmore has been a powerful voice for justice at critical moments in history.
TO: Board of Managers of Swarthmore College We are writing to you as proud recipients of honorary degrees from Swarthmore College. Whether it was divesting from Apartheid, refusing to bow to McCarthyism, developing leaders in the civil rights and peace movements, or admitting women from its founding, Swarthmore has been a powerful voice for justice at critical moments in…
As students across the country engage in nonviolent direct action calling on their administrators to divest from fossil fuels, calling out conflicts of interest embedded within their decision makers over the last two weeks.
Almost two years after Chief Investment Officer David Swensen added climate change awareness to Yale’s investment strategy, the endowment is starting to divest from fossil fuels. In a Tuesday letter to the Yale community, Swensen reported that after months of talking with Yale’s external investment managers about the potential risks associated with investments in coal, oil, around $10 million of the endowment has been removed from two publicly-traded fossil fuel producers.
On Wednesday, at 12:15 p.m., pro-divestment group Mountain Justice (MJ) announced a new ultimatum to the board of managers: three specific board members must refrain from participating in the board’s decision-making on divestment, or MJ will intensify its campaign.
Holding signs reading “Carbon emissions – air pollution – 8 million deaths a year” and “Rhonda Cohen – Board of Glenmede Trust – $1 billion in Fossil Fuel Industry,” 18 members of Mountain Justice, accompanied by Professor of Religion, Mark Wallace, staged a demonstration at the Philadelphia offices of investment and wealth management firm Glenmede Trust on Wednesday morning.
Today, Swarthmore Mountain Justice called on Board members Rhonda Cohen ’76, Samuel Hayes III ’57, and Harold Kalkstein ’78, to recuse themselves from future conversations on fossil fuel divestment. The Board’s decision not to divest last May was compromised by conflicts of interest among these three Board members who have considerable personal and financial ties…