The Many Faces of Divestment

On Aug. 28, students and faculty received an email from President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz with the subject line “Statement on Divestment.” The message read,  “Ultimately, the call to divest raises a number of important questions that must be answered … At this time, too many of these questions either raise serious concerns or remain unanswered for [the Middlebury College Board of Trustees] to support divestment. Given its fiduciary responsibilities, the board cannot look past the lack of proven alternative investment models, the difficulty and material cost of withdrawing from a complex portfolio of investments, and the uncertainties and risks that divestment would create.”

After a year of a high-energy activism, intense debate and impassioned protest on the part of student advocates, it seemed that the door was closing on divestment.

But when asked about the future of divestment, Adrian Leong — a soft-spoken sophomore called “a rising star” by divestment advocates on campus — simply shook his head.

“Divestment is not off the table,” said Leong. “This email is certainly not a defeat. In fact, I appreciated how clearly [Liebowitz] laid out his questions, and I found his willingness to commit to stronger responsible investment principles quite encouraging.”

“As long as that willingness is there, divestment is still alive.”

A Tumultuous Year

Just under a year ago, on a Friday afternoon in October as students departed campus for fall break, an email with the subject line “Middlebury College Divests from War on Eve of Dalai Lama Visit” scrolled our inboxes across campus.

The email, announcing the College’s divestment of its endowment from war, was met with excitement from some students and confusion among others. But two days later, when Tim Spears, vice president for academic affairs, issued an email to all staff, students and faculty clarifying that the press release was a “hoax,” the campus started to buzz with speculation about what this might mean. And when five students published an open letter to the community “coming clean” for sending the fake press release, signed, “The Dalai Lama Welcoming Committee,” it became clear that this was more than just a prank, and the buzz surrounding the incident grew to a dull roar.

Greta Neubauer ’15 returned to campus last fall committed to continuing her work on socially responsible investment and determined to start a divestment campaign at the College. While she had some prior knowledge of the Dalai Lama Welcoming Committee’s press release before its dissemination, she was caught off guard by the momentum it created on campus.

“The fake press release was really powerful at that moment because there was such an element of surprise, and if they had done it at another time, it wouldn’t have had the huge effect that it did on the dialogue here,” said Neubauer. “It’s a tough thing, because on the one hand, it undoubtedly made a huge impact on divestment, because the administration felt compelled to respond and it changed the way in which the campaign unfolded. But it also didn’t follow the typical arch of a campaign, and I think that alienated some people early on. And then throughout the year we saw this increasing dislike of anything that looks like or sounds like activism on this campus. That’s a hard thing to work against.”

Even as the storm of controversy surrounding the press release and the ensuing public trial faded away, divestment took hold as a mainstream topic of conversation among the student body. The campus witnessed the divestment movement move from a niche concern among a select group of student activists to a full-fledged campus-wide debate  — in the dining hall, the classroom, the trustee’s boardroom, and the front pages of the Campus.

The conversation was characterized by heated debates over the College’s moral responsibility, impassioned students citing the works of civil rights leaders and adopting the mantra of Bill McKibben’s oft-repeated reasoning: “If it’s wrong to wreck the climate, then it’s wrong to profit from its destruction.”

There was also a lot of work going on behind the scenes — students engrossed in late night conversations, preparing thoroughly researched reports to back up recommendations made to sober administrators and a boardroom full of trustees. And yet these conversations were punctuated by loud rallies, demonstrations of students standing outside Proctor or Old Chapel with megaphones, pots and pans, sporting the bright orange felt square that emerged as a symbol of the divestment movement.

The flashes of orange sent a message: this conversation was loud, it was in your face, and it was impossible to ignore.

Looking Towards the Future

Now, at the beginning of a new school year, the movement is pausing for a breath.

“There is a cool opportunity at the beginning of the year to stop and reflect on how we worked together last year,” said Neubauer. “Hopefully we can take some lessons from that and be able to move forward this year and be better for it.”

As some students have graduated and others have gone abroad, there has already been some room created for new voices.

“We have some new faces this year,” said Ben Chute ’13.5. “I think you’ll be hearing a lot more from some of our younger members — we have some rising sophomores and rising juniors who are some real powerhouses.”

Chute, now in his final semester in college, is the source of much of the movement’s institutional knowledge; he served as the co-president of the Socially Responsible Investing committee for two years before his appointment to Student Liaison to Investment Committee of the Board of Trustees last fall, and he speaks about his younger peers the way a coach might talk about his players.

“We have a lot of kids this year who are really smart activists. They’re very knowledgeable and they’re very pragmatic. We’ll see how this year shapes up, and it comes down to who is in the room.”

Leong, an environmental policy major, joined the movement only a few months into his first year at the College, and is on the younger side of the cohort of students.

“I hope that people will see our movement as a whole, and not just associate it with one group of people and just think, ‘Those are the kids that disturbed my sleep with their pots and pans.’ We’ve done so much more than that. I really hope that more people can share our vision.”

“What I see is being the most powerful tool for us in terms of convincing the administration is having there being a huge crowd swell behind this issue, and there being very visible signs of mass support from students,” said Kristina Johansson ’14. “That means making spaces that are really inclusive and finding ways for people to get involved, no matter what their ideology or methods for making change. Just creating audiences for great engagement.”

“My hope is that a lot of the action taken last year acted as a catalyst,” said Teddy Smyth ’15, a member of the Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investment (ACSRI). “Now we have enough momentum to be somewhat more pragmatic so that we can focus on the strategic vision of the divestment campaign. I think we’ll spend some time considering what actions need to happen versus what actions aren’t as essential; what would be distracting versus what’s necessary and practical.”

“That being said, we need to keep the conversation going in a public way,” added Smyth. “Last year, other people filled the role of making noise and of attracting public attention, and so I might need to do more of that this year, although its not necessarily my skill set.”

“I think we’re going to try to have a really public, visible presence on campus and be the source of a lot discussion,” said Jeannie Bartlett ’15 while discussing possible tactics for the coming year. “But I think one thing we’re really looking to do is connecting with Trustees and talk with them on an individual basis to discuss research, because I think that having that kind of more isolated and direct conversations is what, at this point, is lacking in the discussion.”

“The fact that we’re not divesting right not is obviously disappointing,” Bartlett continued. “The commitments [Liebowtiz] laid out in his email are wonderful and I care about them a lot, but they don’t achieve the political statement that divestment does.”

“But I am optimistic. And if they actually do those three things laid out in Liebowitz’s email, that would be the biggest win that SRI has ever had at Middlebury, by far. So its really exciting. And I’m going to work to make sure that those things do happen.”