US university students file legal complaints over fossil fuel investments
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April 22, 2024
Campus organizers at three universities filed legal complaints on Monday arguing that their schools’ investments in planet-heating fossil fuels are illegal, the Guardian has learned.
The students from Columbia University, Tulane University and the University of Virginia each wrote to the attorneys general of their respective states calling on them to scrutinize their universities’ investments. They accuse their universities of breaching the Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act, a law adopted by 49 states that requires non-profit institutions to consider their “charitable purposes” when investing, and exercise “prudence” and “loyalty”.
“[T]he privileges that Columbia enjoys as a non-profit institution come with the responsibility to ensure that its resources are put to socially beneficial ends,” the Columbia students wrote.
Investments in coal, oil and gas violate each of the three schools’ stated missions and pledges to prioritize climate action and research, the complaints say. From a purely financial standpoint, investments in fossil fuel stocks are also volatile, the students argue.
“Despite the demonstrable financial and social benefits of institutional fossil fuel divestment, the Board has remained steadfast in its support of an industry whose business model is based on environmental destruction and social injustice,” the University of Virginia students wrote.
The investments from influential, moneyed institutions set a dangerous example, the students say.
“Universities occupy a unique position as a bastion of values and morals the best of society should strive for,” said Nicole Xiao, 19, a second–year Columbia student studying climate systems science. “When Columbia refuses to commit to divestment, it hinders those very same principles and continues a blatant disregard of the important climate work its own faculty, students and affiliates do.”
The complaints, filed on Earth Day, come as officials at Columbia University face staunch criticism for directing New York City police to remove students protesting against Israel’s war in Gaza and calling on Columbia to divest its finances from corporations with links to Israel.
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