At the University of Denver (DU) Divestment Task Force hearing this Thursday – the sixth in a series – the task force will be hearing from DU professors, including the president of the DU Faculty Senate that passed a resolution endorsing divestment and the chair of the Faculty Senate Divestment Committee who signed an open letter supporting divestment. But lest one assume that the DU faculty unanimously supports divestment, here are a few things you should know before the hearing.
Sharp Divisions Within Faculty Senate on Divestment
Wrapping up his two-year term as head of the Faculty Senate, then-president Dr. Arthur Jones summarized the council’s proceedings on divestment in the annual president’s report in June 2016. According to Dr. Jones’ account, there was “considerable disagreement” within the Senate’s ad hoc committee on divestment over the resolution recommending a “symbolic recommendation for divestment on moral grounds.” In fact, even though the majority of the committee members voted to move forward with the resolution, they also emphasized that there was insufficient information about the university’s endowment and the potential impact of divestment on financial aid:
“While there was considerable disagreement on the committee, a majority of members voted to move forward with a resolution for the Faculty Senate that would include a symbolic recommendation for divestment on moral grounds, emphasizing the fact that there was insufficient information about the university’s endowment to justify a more substantial recommendation on the issue. (Several committee members were particularly concerned about the fact that there is not enough information available currently to determine whether a decision to divest would impact negatively the institution’s efforts to increase resources for financial aid).”
Although the committee members disagreed about divestment, they voted unanimously to put the focus on other, less contentious ways for the school to respond to climate change:
“Despite disagreement on divestment, the committee voted unanimously to have the resolution put a primary emphasis on recommending other, publicly visible steps that DU can take to contribute to a national effort to combat climate change.”
Shortly after, the DU’s Board of Trustees announced the decision to launch a task force – the task force that has been holding a series of hearings on divestment – to conduct a “comprehensive, publicly visible exploration of all sides of the divestment issue.”
Faculty Senate President Questioned “Wisdom” of Voting on Divestment Ahead of Task Force Proceedings
Because the task force’s hearings would be held throughout the fall of 2016 and the Board of Trustees would not be making a final decision until January 2017, Dr. Jones questioned the wisdom of having the full Faculty Senate vote on the divestment committee’s resolution in May, before the Board of Trustee’s task force proceedings even began:
“I had authorized placing the resolution on the agenda for the final meeting, primarily to bring closure to this piece of Faculty Senate business before passing the presidential gavel to my successor, Kate Willink. However, I remained ambivalent about the wisdom of moving forward with the resolution given the opportunity to study the issue further and to contribute in a more informed way to the Board’s upcoming, organized public exploration in the fall.”
Because of this ambivalence, Dr. Jones welcomed a motion to delay a vote on the resolution. The motion, however, was defeated by a 68 percent majority, despite 14 faculty members voting in favor of a delay.
Therefore, without having had the opportunity to review the information to be presented during the task force’s hearings or to consider the outcomes of its deliberations, the Faculty Senate went ahead with a vote on the divestment committee’s resolution and approved it with a 70 percent majority, with 12 members voting against divestment. Put another way, if the vote is representative of DU’s faculty, then almost a third of the faculty would be opposed to divestment.
Recommendations to Put Divestment Aside and Focus on Less Contentious Issues
Just as the Faculty Senate’s divestment committee voted unanimously to put a “primary emphasis on recommending other, publicly visible steps that DU can take” in response to climate change, Dr. Jones recommended that the Board focus on other points outlined in the resolution, “beyond divestment,” that received more support from members of the senate:
“Hopefully the Board will focus particular attention on the portions of the resolution, beyond divestment, that garnered nearly unanimous support in both the first and second Faculty Senate readings and discussions.”
These suggestions include allocating funds to efforts designed to achieve carbon neutrality, reinvesting in renewable energy technologies and integrating sustainability into the curriculum.
Even Resolution Backing Divestment Acknowledged Its “Symbolic,” “Incomplete” Nature
The resolution that the Faculty Senate passed in favor of divestment recognized that any move by the university to divest would be “symbolic” and an “incomplete response to the climate crisis”:
“Because neither our committee nor the Faculty Senate control University endowments, we realize our recommendation is symbolic. …
“Should the University decide to divest, divestment alone would be an incomplete response to the climate crisis.”
Incidentally, the symbolic nature of divestment is the very reason why many prominent universities have refused to divest. When Pomona College President Dr. David Oxtoby announced the Board of Trustees’ decision not to divest, he explained that even the symbolic action of divestment would nevertheless carry a “significant cost”:
“It also remains unclear that divestment would have anything more than a symbolic impact in fighting climate change. …. Although symbolism does matter, it is hard to make the case that it would be worth the significant cost to future Pomona students.”
Other universities highlighted the inconsistency between the symbolic act of divestment and the need to continue relying on fossil fuels. Davidson University President Carol Quillen wrote,
“…[W]e question the integrity of making a symbolic gesture while continuing to power our campus with energy produced from fossil fuels.”
Just last week, Notre Dame University rejected divestment, and president Fr. John Jenkins explained the decision this way:
“Nearly all acknowledge that there is no practical plan by which we could cease using fossil fuels in the immediate future and continue the work of the University. It seems to me at least a practical inconsistency to attempt to stigmatize an industry, as proponents of divestment hope, from which, we admit, we must purchase.”
Making symbolic statements through divestment would also run counter to the mission to educate, wrote Brown University President Christina Paxson:
“As I and others considered the matter, it became apparent that the symbolic statement of divestiture would not elucidate the complex scientific and policy issues surrounding coal and climate change and, for this reason, it would run counter to Brown’s mission of communicating knowledge.”
Similarly, in a column supporting Harvard University President Faust’s decision not to divest, Director of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program Robert Stavins wrote,
“One major problem is that symbolic actions often substitute for truly effective actions by allowing us to fool ourselves into thinking we are doing something meaningful about a problem when we are not.”
DU’s own Dr. Frank Laird, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, expressed a similar sentiment when he addressed the task force a few weeks ago:
“[Divestment] is not really ineffective, but I think it can have a negative effect on de-carbonizing the energy systems because, frankly, it’s a distraction from the large and complex task we need to face.”
Given the sharp divisions within the Faculty Senate on divestment, the misgivings of the former Senate President regarding the divestment resolution and the resolution’s own recognition that divestment would be “symbolic,” one question looms large ahead of DU’s hearing on Thursday: Will the task force hear from faculty members who oppose divestment?
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