The independent newspaper of Washington University in St. Louis since 1878 THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2024
VOLUME 146, NO. 2
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An investment policy that “has not changed in generations” What stops WashU from divesting from fossil fuels?
ILLUSTRATION BY MANUEL LOPEZ JOEL SWIRNOFF NEWS EDITOR
In May of 2020, after years of student and faculty activism, Cornell University announced that it was divesting from the fossil fuel industry. Months later, Harvard University followed suit, announcing it would let its investments in the industry expire. Soon, the University of Michigan, Dartmouth College, and a number of other colleges and universities also divested. Some institutions, though, hold their breath, weathering a storm of calls for divestment. In WashU’s case, these calls have lasted for over a decade. Green Action, an environmental advocacy group at WashU, has called for divestment from the fossil fuel industry since as early as 2012. They have held yearly rallies listing their demands, and even filed a legal complaint to Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey to pressure the school to divest. Numerous faculty members have joined Green Action in the call for divestment, like Bret Gustafson, Professor of Sociocultural Anthropology, who also attends their rallies. “Global warming and the central role that fossil fuels [play] therein is the most significant issue of this generation,” Gustafson said. “Right now, the message that the students are getting is that ‘We don’t care.’” It is unclear just how effective activism regarding divestment has been at WashU. In 2014, students staged a 16-day sit-in under Brookings Hall, urging former Peabody Energy CEO Gregory Boyce to resign from the Board of Trustees. The Board of Trustees delegates control of University investments to the Washington University Investment Management Company (WUIMC), and some trustees also work for WUIMC Several days after the sit-in, seven students were arrested while attempting to hand-deliver a letter to Boyce with the same demand for resignation. In November of 2016, Boyce resigned from the Board for “unknown reasons.” Peabody Energy, a coal-mining company, had declared bankruptcy several months prior. Despite this apparent success, WashU has been reluctant to change its stance on its fossil fuel investments throughout the past decade. Chancellor Andrew Martin said
that the University’s investment strategy has been consistent for “generations,” even throughout previous divestment campaigns at WashU. WashU, notably, had divestment campaigns against South African companies during Apartheid and defense companies during the Vietnam War. “It is a policy that really goes back generations that we don’t do positive screens or negative screens in the endowment,” Martin said. “That’s obviously not something that every member of the community agrees with, but that’s the approach that we have always taken.” Positive and negative screens refer to an investment strategy in which the investor chooses to distinguish between particular companies based on their ethical standing in relation to environmental, social, and governance factors. Unlike WashU, other universities and colleges have divested from fossil fuels upon meeting student and faculty pushback. According to Robert Howarth, a Professor of Ecology and Environmental Biology at Cornell
themselves.” Notably, Cornell’s board is made up entirely of alumni, which is not the case for WashU. Howarth also mentioned that being a member of the Ivy League added some pressure to “be in the leadership position” on divestment compared to other Ivy League institutions. At the University of Michigan, student pressure also eventually led to divestment. Nicholas Jansen, who graduated from U-M in 2016 and was a member of their divestment campaign, said that a ramping up of student support for divestment helped push the issue over the line. He referenced disruptive actions that students took as key to their success. “I believe student involvement is crucial,” Jansen said. “[Students] shut down some entryways to buildings [and] took over buildings for a little bit, which led to some arrests. Ultimately, I think that was partially or a large part of what tipped the scales.” Mark Schlissel, U-M President at the time, said that divestment resulted from the understanding that fossil fuels were “bad longterm investments” due to their
student tactics and administrative responses during divestment campaigns. She completed a senior thesis on the topic in 2024, focusing on Harvard University’s successful divestment campaign and comparing it to efforts at WashU. Huesa, like Jansen and Howarth, said that attacking the reputation of a University tends to be a critical factor in achieving divestment. “At the end of the day, WashU cares about its reputation, its future enrollment,” Huesa said. “That’s what’s making them money.” However, in a sentiment shared by Huesa, former Green Action executive member Aidan Lewis expressed disappointment that activists had not yet created enough reputational damage at WashU to push it over the line. “The administration feels that they can just wait out the students because we come here for four-year cycles, and they’re very well aware of that,” said Lewis, who graduated in spring 2024. “It’s been, unfortunately, really successful.” Gustafson noted that he thought actions by the student body needed to be larger to actually be effective at WashU.
“From the perspective of the Board and the administration, this is a settled issue for Washington University,” Martin said. “If students want to choose universities based on whether they have particular positive or negative screens in their endowments, there's lots of places one could look.” University, student pressure on Cornell’s Board of Trustees was critical in their divestment from fossil fuels. “It’s the pressure from the undergraduate students that the trustees are most concerned about,” Howarth said. “The students are the University to them.” Howarth said that calling Cornell’s reputation into question was particularly important in swaying the Board, which he described as being made up of “rabid ‘go Big Red’ trustees.” “[The Board’s] fiduciary responsibility is maintaining our reputation,” Howarth said. “The Board thinks that [Cornell’s] reputation comes from the students
potential decreased usage in the future. Regent Mark Bernstein, however, credited student activists (U-M operates with a Board of Regents, a body similar to a Board of Trustees). “Student activism was the driving force behind this action,” Bernstein said in 2021. “[They] have been thoughtful, wellinformed, absolutely relentless, and in the end, successful in moving this issue to the very top of [the Board of Regents’] agenda.” Divestment campaigns have achieved their goals at other universities. So what’s stopping divestment at WashU? One former WashU student, Isabel Huesa, took interest in
“Right now, [the administration is] saying, ‘Oh, 20 kids in the quad, we’ll manage that,’” Gustafson said. “Until there’s embarrassment or pressure that becomes unmanageable, [they] appear to be incapable of changing.” Huesa also singled out WashU as having an administration that is less persuadable by student activism than administrations at schools that have divested. “WashU, specifically, is in this case where the chancellor says that student advocacy is not what moves the needle, where ‘You guys can protest all you want, but it’s not what’s getting us to listen,’” Huesa said. Professor Howarth also noted
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the importance of having an administrator or board member convinced to push for divestment. “What it really takes is getting a few members of the trustees to take it seriously and [to] want to do it,” Howarth said. “In retrospect, that’s clearly what happened here.” Lewis said a figure like this is missing at WashU. “I think that the work that we’ve done hasn’t been lacking or different from other universities,” Lewis said. “It’s more that the opinions on the inside are different and a lot more against divestment, with WashU’s deepseated connections to fossil fuels historically.” Perhaps most significant is that, according to Huesa, Chancellor Martin doesn’t believe that students understand the University’s stance and are not willing to negotiate on their aims. Huesa had interviewed Martin for her thesis. “[Chancellor Martin] feels that students don’t have a full understanding of WashU’s stake in the issue, and that they have this kind of tunnel vision towards one solution,” Huesa said. Because of that, according to Huesa, he is unwilling to budge. “Ultimately, I don’t think the University administration is really considering a future of working with students in partnership, unless the Chancellor feels that [students] have demonstrated that they have an understanding of the context of how the University works,” Huesa said. Martin said that the administration is willing to listen to students, and that he expects students to be adequately prepared and knowledgeable about their demands. “The administration is always happy to engage with students on important issues,” Martin said. “I would say that those conversations are going to be much more substantive and meaningful if everyone comes to the table with their best thinking.” Huesa argued that a strategy of working with the administration — as compared to collective action — might be the most effective way forward for WashU students.
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