November 30, 2016

Harvard Faculty Tries to Reverse Divestment’s Lackluster Fate in Boston Area

New campaign part of environmental push despite agreement among experts that divestment does not impact climate change

After suffering a string of defeats in the Boston area, Harvard Faculty for Divestment is doubling down and organizing a renewed campaign set to begin next semester.

Teaming up with teaching and research faculty at Brandeis, BU, MIT, Northeastern and Tufts, the group is planning a new initiative with the goal of creating,  “An active network of mutually supportive faculty from the major Boston-area colleges and universities, committed to sharing research, expertise and experience to support fossil fuel divestment of all endowments.”

Members are also planning a “Multi-Campus, Boston-area Faculty Solidarity Teach-in” entitled Campus Divestment Now to take place next spring.  The event will last five consecutive days and be coordinated with organized “non-violent action” by students, alumni and faculty on respective campuses.

Faculty at Boston-area schools are desperate to gain traction in the region as Massachusetts has not been friendly to the divestment movement. As Divestment Facts has pointed out, several of the state’s most prominent and highly-regarded universities—a list that includes Harvard, MIT, Tufts and Northeastern—have already rejected divestment outright due to its ineffectiveness at helping the environment and high costs.  Here’s what universities have said in the past regarding divestment:

Harvard: “Conceiving of the endowment not as an economic resource, but as a tool to inject the University into the political process or as a lever to exert economic pressure for social purposes, can entail serious risks to the independence of the academic enterprise.  The endowment is a resource, not an instrument to impel social or political change.” President Drew Faust (October 3, 2013)

MIT: “In our judgment, the deliberate public act of divestment would entangle MIT in a movement whose core tactic is large-scale public shaming. This would retard rather than encourage the open collaboration and ability to hear new ideas that are central to our research relationships, central to our ability to help government and business think creatively together, and central to our ability to convene and inform the thinking of those with opposing views.” President L. Rafael Reif et al (October 21, 2015)

Northeastern: “We have deliberately chosen to invest, not divest. This approach is consistent with Northeastern’s character as an institution that actively engages with the world, not one that retreats from global challenges.” Senior Vice President for Finance & Treasurer Thomas Nedell (July 11, 2016)

Tufts: “In short, in today’s environment, divestment would likely result in a significant reduction in operating funds and would have an immediate adverse impact on the educational experience at Tufts. It would not be prudent to expose the university to that kind of risk at this time.” President Anthony P. Monaco (February 12, 2014)

Even Boston University, which tried to appease activists by stating it would make “efforts to avoid investments that extract” coal and oil sands, has noted that “total avoidance of coal and tar sands companies may not be possible, because the University’s portfolio includes vehicles such as mutual funds, whose managers choose stocks, and passive index investing.”  The BU Divest group saw this as an empty gesture, responding to the announcement with this opening line: “BU remains invested in the fossil fuel industry.”

These universities all understand that there is a high cost to the symbolic act of divesting.  But for the cost, there is no environmental upside.  Experts agree that divestment is not the way to improve environmental conditions or impact targeted companies.

Harvard’s own Robert Stavins, the director of Harvard’s environmental economics program, put it best when he stated that “the concerns of the students are understandable but the message from the divestment movement is fundamentally misguided. We should be focusing on actions that will make a real difference.” Revered physics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and leading climate scientist Richard Muller agrees, stating “Suppressing fossil fuels in general, in my mind, is very likely to lead to more global warming…You have to address a much bigger problem. This little mantra of ‘fossil fuel bad, renewable good’ is not going to be effective in reducing global warming.”

Perhaps it is time for divestment activists to focus on real environmental initiatives, not costly, already-rejected, empty gestures like divestment.