HLS Professor Jody Freeman Faces Calls to Step Down from ConocoPhillips Board

BY SABRINA R. HU CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

Harvard affiliates renewed calls for Harvard Law School professor Jody L. Freeman to step down from her position on the board of directors of ConocoPhillips following newly surfaced emails between her and a Securities and Exchange Commission official.

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After an open letter by Fossil Fuel Divest Harvard last month called on Freeman to resign from the oil and natural gas company’s board, Harvard faculty and HLS students have also voiced their concerns about her relationship with ConocoPhillips.

Freeman, who is co-chair of Harvard’s Presidential Committee on Sustainability and founded the Law School’s Environ-

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SEE PAGE 9 mental and Energy Law Program, has sat on the board of directors of ConocoPhillips for more than a decade and chairs the company’s Public Policy and Sustainability Committee. Last month, the Harvard Faculty for Divestment steering committee sent a letter to University President-elect Claudine Gay and Vice Provost for Climate and Sustainability James H. Stock raising the question of a potential conflict-of-interest between Freeman’s “fiduciary responsibility” to ConocoPhillips and Harvard’s climate goals, the Guardian reported April 1.

In February, the Harvard Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability awarded one of its five inaugural climate research cluster grants to a project led by Freeman. According to the Guardian, the letter calls the awarding of this grant to