‘Responsibility to ensure that its resources are put to socially beneficial ends’

Organizers from three universities have accused school administrators of illegally investing in planet-heating energy sources.

What’s happening?

Faculty, staff, students, and alumni from Columbia University, Tulane University, and the University of Virginia submitted legal complaints against their universities to their states’ respective attorneys general for violating the Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act, per the Guardian.

The law, which has been adopted in every state except Pennsylvania, dictates that nonprofits use “prudence” and “loyalty” for charitable donations. 

The plaintiffs filed the complaint with the help of environmental advocacy group Climate Defense Project on Earth Day last April, arguing that the programs breached this act and commitments to climate action and research by investing what they estimated to be millions of dollars in coal, oil, and gas.

“The privileges that Columbia enjoys as a nonprofit institution come with the responsibility to ensure that its resources are put to socially beneficial ends,” the Columbia students wrote.

University of Virginia students concurred, stating that the school would benefit socially and financially from distancing itself from an industry that bases its business model “on environmental destruction and social injustice.”

Why are the investments concerning?

The Guardian reported that the students are holding staff and board members from each university accountable for accepting payments for roles at dirty energy companies and allowing corporations to influence research projects. 

They noted the gas, oil, and coal industry’s role in Earth’s overheating and that the cities the universities are in have felt the repercussions of a warming planet.

“The fossil fuel industry’s actions and infrastructure accelerate coastal erosion, which in combination with rising sea levels could result in New Orleans and Tulane’s campuses being inundated in the future,” Emma De Leon, an environmental studies and communication major at Tulane, said. 

“During this semester alone, there have been two flooding events on campus that resulted in me either walking through water up to my calves or being stuck inside a building.” 

What else is being done about the investments?

Climate Defense Project executive director Alex Marquardt added that students have met with state legislators from Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Mexico. 

Maille Bowerman, a senior at the University of Virginia studying urban planning and environmental studies, told the Guardian that the complaint is the “next step in getting our message through to the university and showing that the situation is urgent and requires drastic action.”

The filing is also part of a growing momentum of climate activism among the younger generation. The Guardian stated that students from 19 other colleges and universities have filed similar complaints. 

Marquardt said that some schools, like Harvard, Cornell, and Princeton, agreed to divest from fossil fuels after the complaints.

Meanwhile, high schoolers in Colorado and Washington. D.C., have lobbied to make their school systems more eco-friendly, and students from Cambridge University have successfully gotten board members to temporarily pause donations from dirty energy companies.

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