This Thursday, three Swarthmore Honorary Degree recipients, labor organizer and anti-war activist John Braxton, linguist, philosopher and political activist Noam Chomsky, and Berkeley sociology professor Arlie Hochschild called on the college to divest its endowment from fossil fuels. On Tuesday, MIT Professor Emeritus of Management Lotte Bailyn added her name to the letter.
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…
The charge will levy a fee of 0.5% of each academic department’s budget. The money gathered will be used to establish a fund dedicated to carbon-reduction projects. Increasing carbon efficiency has been a major priority of facilities staff for a long time, according to Aurora Winslade, Director of Sustainability.
The national fossil fuel divestment movement started at Swarthmore with the student group Swarthmore Mountain Justice. In 2010, a group of students traveled to West Virginia on their spring and fall breaks to learn about mountaintop removal coal mining and its effects on the communities of Appalachia.