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Fossil Freeze
In letter, TGS students demand better treatment By YUNKYO KIM
the daily northwestern @yunkyomoonk
Divestment movements call for institutions to eliminate their stocks, bonds or other investments in certain industries. Their roots extend to issues beyond climate change. Many divestment movements have started on college campuses. One prominent campaign that took hold in the 1980s — aiming to end apartheid in South Africa — eventually caused about 150 educational institutions to divest from companies that conducted business in the country. Fossil Free, the overarching international fossil fuel divestment campaign, cites the South Africa movement as a clear example of divestment campaigns’ potential success. The campaign often argues fossil fuel industry divestment is necessary, not just due to the greenhouse gas emissions traceable to fossil fuels, but also because those companies discourage government action on climate change. “The reason why we haven’t seen the type of climate action that we need to see today is because fossil fuel companies basically have a stranglehold on politicians,” said Richard Brooks, a campaign coordinator for 350.org, which launched the international Fossil Free campaign in 2012. “They have too much lobbying power, they have too
An anonymous coalition representing marginalized and underrepresented students of The Graduate School circulated a letter this Monday, petitioning the University to remove and replace dean Teresa Woodruff and increase funding and staff for the TGS Office of Diversity and Inclusion. The letter further calls for the school to financially support conference expenses and organizations serving students of underrepresented identities, extend health insurance and on-campus care services to children of graduate students and support advocacy efforts, among other demands. “TGS has placed greater burden on underrepresented graduate students to navigate inaccessible and inequitable campus environments and has shirked responsibility in perpetuating harm,” the petition stated. “(It) has further marginalized students who are already historically marginalized on campus.” Organizers of the coalition, composed students from a range of backgrounds, told The Daily that a public petition was the last resort. About 200 people signed the petition as of publication. In a Tuesday email to The Daily, Woodruff said she is “happy with progress” TGS has made and with its dedication to diversity and inclusion. “At the same time, I acknowledge and believe there is more work to be done. We will continue to advocate to senior leadership on behalf of the needs of our diverse graduate students and postdoctoral trainees,” Woodruff wrote. “In addition, I am committed to partnering with our graduate student-led Graduate Leadership & Advocacy Council and our graduate student affinity group leaders to address specific needs and concerns.” The dean added that she would be interested in engaging in dialogues on the issue. A student? leading the coalition said this petition is the last resort following
» See DIVEST, page 4
» See LETTER, page 7
Trustees, student activists at impasse after divestment decision By EMMA EDMUND
daily senior staffer @emmaeedmund
It was below freezing. Wind blew flurries of snow everywhere, rendering the coats and gloves students wore relatively useless. But the ugly weather did not stop a group of approximately 50 students from Fossil Free Northwestern from gathering in front of the Technological Institute, unfurling banners with phrases like “Northwestern is complicit in climate injustice.” “Divest or death,” another sign read. “Which side are you on?” The students chanted almost non-stop, including a back-and-forth “Divest now!” and a stark warning to the Northwestern community: “Disclose, divest, or it will be our death!” On Feb. 13 — Fossil Fuel Divestment Day — students at over 50 universities across the country called for their schools to divest their holdings from fossil fuel companies. None of Northwestern’s Fossil Free members knew that a week later, the school’s Board of Trustees would refuse to act on their demands. The board rejected Fossil Free Northwestern’s divestment proposal calling on the University to divest its holdings from any of the top 100 coal and oil and gas companies across the world. The trustees wrote that the proposal did not meet the board’s criteria for divestment as outlined in the Statement on Investment Responsibility. The decision came over a year after students first created and submitted the proposal to the Advisory Committee on Investment Responsibility, a 10-member group that advises the board’s Investment Committee on socially and ethically responsible investing. Throughout the entire decision-making process, Fossil Free Northwestern members demanded ACIR and the board take action to remedy trustees’ lack of communication and transparency, as well as the excessive length of
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their deliberations. After over a year of effort yielding no commitments from trustees and ongoing frustrations with contacting them, Fossil Free Northwestern still finds itself left out in the cold.
”It splipped through the cracks”
The Fossil Free movement at Northwestern isn’t new — over the last eight years, its scope has evolved. In November 2012, students formed DivestNU to lobby trustees to immediately divest from the coal industry and eventually the entire fossil fuel industry, which includes oil and natural gas. Upon the group’s formation, members circulated a petition calling on the Board of Trustees to divest from the University’s coal holdings. The group demonstrated widespread support for the petition after a referendum on the 2015 Associated Student Government presidential election ballot asking whether students supported coal divestment passed with 74 percent of the vote. Despite student support, the board voted against coal divestment without ever hearing a proposal or presentation, notifying DivestNU of the decision in 2015. Near the time of that rejection, the organization rebranded, and Fossil Free Northwestern was born the following month. One of Fossil Free Northwestern’s earliest demonstrations came that November, when the group organized a protest outside of a Board of Trustees meeting in response to their vote. “There’s a reason coal is for the naughty,” DivestNU wrote in a Letter to the Editor published on the eve of Fossil Fuel Divestment Day in February 2015. “The NU community can no longer sit back and let the Board disregard its values when it comes to coal divestment,” the organization continued. “We need to see action by the Board of Trustees and be a part of their decisions. Tomorrow, the entire globe will be behind us. We hope you will be too.” T. Bondurant French (Kellogg ‘76), who still serves on the board, told students who protested at the 2015 board meeting that Northwestern had a negligible holding
in coal plants. Students, however, said they could not find a complete list of Northwestern’s direct and indirect investments. Though Fossil Free Northwestern still existed and held occasional demonstrations, operations decreased significantly for nearly four years. Over time, the group has expanded to advocate for environmental and climate justice. “It was a very established club, and then because of the various bureaucratic setbacks, people graduated, it slipped through the cracks,” said Communication senior and director of marketing and media for Fossil Free Northwestern Grace Dolezal-Ng.
The origin of divestment
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