Despite efforts by a small number of students and activists, Harvard’s multi-billion dollar endowment will remain invested in fossil fuels for the foreseeable future.
In response to recent doomsday predictions by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a number of Harvard students decided to take matters into their own hands by calling on the administration to completely divest all financial holdings in industries associated with fossil fuels. According to the petition, Harvard has an obligation to divest its funds due to its significant role in the “global economy.”
“In light of the recent predictions made by the IPCC as to the proliferation of climate violence; in response to the National Climate Assessment’s call to make substantial and sustained reductions in our use of fossil fuels; and recognizing the part Harvard plays in an interconnected, global economy, we are calling on Harvard to completely divest its endowment from the fossil fuel industry,” the petition reads.
Despite their efforts, a measly 166 individuals have signed on to their Change.org petition, which accounts for roughly 0.36 percent of the school’s 40,818 students and faculty. According to journalists for Harvard’s student newspaper, the Crimson, administrators have “flatly rejected” the idea of immediate divestment. In October, Harvard University President Lawrence S. Bacow seemed to make it clear that endowment holdings are currently off-limits in regard to campus activism.
Making changes to the endowment is not an appropriate way to “achieve political ends or particular policy ends,” Bacow said.
Harvard currently holds the largest academic endowment in the United States, with a current valuation of approximately $36 billion dollars, which is more than $13 billion higher than the next largest academic endowment, at Yale. The enormous size of the endowment has been subjected to repeated criticism in recent years, including both its tax-exempt status, as well as holdings in monetary funds that are associated with private for-profit prisons.
John Patrick (@john_pat_rick) is a graduate of Canisius College and Georgia Southern University. He interned for Red Alert Politics during the summer of 2012 and has continued to contribute regularly.
