Students Rekindle Divestment Fire

On Thursday, Oct. 10, student organization Divest Middlebury held its first organized meeting of the academic year. The event confirmed that student interest in the divestment movement is still alive and well on campus, in spite of an email sent by President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz over the summer  rejecting immediate divestment.

During the 2012-2013 academic year, a series of protests, panels and discussions were organized by students with the goal of encouraging the College’s Board of Trustees to divest the College’s endowment from companies that deal with fossil fuels.

An email sent by Liebowitz to the student body on Aug. 28 announced that, at present, the College cannot divest from companies in the fossil fuel sector.

“At this time, too many of these questions either raise serious concerns or remain unanswered for the board to support divestment,” Liebowitz wrote. “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.”

In the wake of the President’s email, members of Divest Middlebury are now seeking new and different angles from which to approach divestment. Despite the College’s refusal of immediate divestment, those involved in the movement on campus remain optimistic.

“It gave legitimacy to the campaign,” said Adrian Leong ’16, one of Divest Middlebury’s leaders, with regard to Liebowitz’s email. “It showed that the campaign actually made a difference … This whole promise that he made in his email is really significant to the revolution of our endowment policies.”

With renewed optimism, students groups such as the Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) Club and Divest Middlebury have held events that aim to argue for divestment in a new way. The Oct. 10 Divest Middlebury event sought to introduce those unfamiliar with the concept of divestment to the movement. The number of students in attendance, however, was unimpressive.

“Only a handful of people who were not involved with the movement came and asked us questions,” Leong said. “It shows that we have a lot of outreaching to do.”

After a meeting on Friday, Oct. 17, the College’s Board of Trustees was confronted with SRI and Divest Middlebury students holding “open office hours” outside of Old Chapel.

“Something we are really interested in is having face to face conversations with trustees about divestment,” said SRI co-president Jeannie Bartlett ’15. “We are hopeful that in the February trustee meeting they might hold open office hours, but since we did not get to have that for right now, we decided to have student open office hours.”

While the members of Divest Middlebury remain committed to the movement, a number of students are in agreement with the message expressed in Liebowitz’s email, arguing that the College’s fiduciary responsibilities should be its priority.

Divestment may prove to be a feasible strategy in the long run,” wrote Ben Wiggins ’14 in an email. “But given the lack of concrete evidence and current logistical problems with its implementation, I don’t believe it should be pursued as vigorously as some students are doing now.”

Students engaging in the divestment movement have looked to the College’s anticipated action regarding its endowment, as outlined in Liebowitz’s email, with patient optimism. Liebowitz announced that the College Investment Committee, which includes students, plans to “work to develop a set of stronger ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) principles” to be applied to the College’s investment portfolio with the goal of identifying “companies and mangers who invest with certain principles in mind and those who consistently do not.”

Liebowitz’s email also announced that the College will be increasing the amount of the endowment directed toward ESG investments, “including those focused on clean energy, green building projects and other efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and benefit the environment.”

“The campaign to divest from South Africa during the apartheid took seven years, so while we don’t expect our campaign to take that long, it’s just not the case that we would give up after one year,” said SRI co-president Virginia Wiltshire-Gordon ’16.