November 20, 2015

Divestment Panel Highlights Flaws of Activist Campaign

The Heritage Foundation recently held a discussion on the dangers of divestment featuring Rachelle Peterson, Director of Research Projects at the National Associate of Scholars (NAS), who has published a new in-depth analysis on the fallacies and ineffectiveness of the movement. As DivestmentFacts.com reported last week, the NAS analysis takes an inside look at the over-inflated movement that is threatening the academic freedom and political neutrality of higher education across the United States.

Peterson began the panel by outlining three falsities commonly professed by proponents of the movement. For starters, Peterson debunked the notion that divestment “is unleashing free speech from the chains of corporate interest.” According to Peterson, divestment has hijacked academic freedom and free speech with political activism by bullying dissenters and polarizing campuses. Peterson used the example in 2013 when Swarthmore activists forcibly took over a Board of Managers meeting only to drown out and eject students who disagreed. The shaming and ostracizing of students who disagree with divestment has extended to openly opposed teachers such as Harvard Professor Robert Stavins and Steven Cohen of Columbia University’s Earth Institute.

Next up, Peterson countered the notion that divestment “is a movement of a generation.” As we’ve seen in the past, the divestment movement has relied on inflated statistics to exaggerate their reach. In fact, DivestmentFacts.com recently debunked the smoke and mirrors used in a widely-cited Arabella report claiming $2.6 trillion of assets have been divested to date. Peterson notes that while activists try to portray college divestment as a rapidly growing grassroots movement, a closer look shows the 1,000 current campaigns on college campuses are more like “astro-turf”: a seeded movement planted by the political interests of wealthy, outside agitators such as Tom Styer, the Rockefeller Brothers and Al Gore.  In fact, 350.org pays students to be activists with summer trainings and organization funding—hardly a spontaneous uprising from passionate students they would have you believe.

And last, but certainly not least, Peterson argued with the notion that divestment “will improve the environment.” As we have stated here, here and here, getting rid of energy stocks has no financial impact on the fossil fuel industry and no measurable impact on reducing carbon emissions. NAS calls schools like Oxford and Syracuse “Divesters in Name Only” (DINO) for proudly, and loudly, announcing decisions to divest while having no existing investments in fossil fuels to begin with.

Following Peterson was Brendan Williams, Executive VP of the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM).  Off the bat, Williams pointed out how the divestment movement fails to acknowledge the critical role fossil fuels play in each of our lives.  Though divestment activists claim renewable resources will take over for fossil fuels, the EIA predicts that even in 2035 fossil fuels will compose almost 80 percent of the world’s consumption.

In a recent post on AFPM’s blog Petro Primer, Williams also highlighted the hypocrisy of universities, like his own alma mater Syracuse, that make empty gestures of divestment just to grab a few headlines. In reality, according to Williams, their entire institution, from heating to helmets, depends entirely on the materials and fuel provided by traditional energy sources. Citing Prof. Bradford Cornell’s study, Williams noted that schools like Harvard and Columbia would lose millions from divesting—which could have adverse effects for students and faculty.  On a larger scale, petrochemicals are actually eradicating energy poverty in the developing world by providing electricity, clean water and safe cooking facilities.  Williams stated:

“Sending a signal through divestment that fossil fuels somehow work against the best interests of the world, as one university that divested stated, is the opposite of being socially responsible.  It’s immoral hypocrisy.”

Lastly, Dr. Stanley Kurtz Senior, Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, offered a political assessment of the movement, warning general public not to underestimate divestment activists. He categorizes divestment as a strategy that is “at odds with the ethos of liberal education,” stating “it is not the business of a college or university to take stands on sharply debated national issues. This kind of institutional endorsement can only pressure both faculty and students into either silencing themselves or intimidating others.”

Overall the NAS report and panelists echo what leaders in both the financial and academic world have already declared—divestment is a symbolic gesture with no economic benefit but plenty of harmful consequences. As the NAS report has detailed, the movement itself is all politics, no results.