FACULTY DIVEST PETITION TOPS 1,000 SIGNATURES
Following Historic FAS Vote, Almost 500 New Faculty Signatures Added in less than a Week
CAMBRIDGE, MA — In the wake of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Science calling on the University to divest from the fossil fuel industry in a 90% landslide, a faculty divestment petition has topped 1,000 signatures. With almost 500 names added in the past week alone, and signatories from each of the university’s 12 schools, an unprecedented faculty movement is building momentum for a change in Harvard’s investment policies.
“I’m pleased that our group’s petition — calling on President Bacow and the Fellows to divest our endowment — recently topped 1,000 faculty signatures and is gaining more signatures almost by the hour,” said Jim Recht, MD, Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. “As educators, we have a unique responsibility to defend scientific integrity as one means of protecting democratic society.”
There is a clear scientific consensus that large-scale decarbonization is essential to a just and stable future. But despite the fossil fuel industry’s long history of spreading misinformation, smearing academics, and lobbying against meaningful climate action, Harvard has continued to defend its investment in it. As the milestone in signatures makes clear, such an approach is dangerously flawed. “No less than the future of our planet is at stake,” said student-led group Fossil Fuel Divest Harvard following the last vote, “and if Harvard wants to be a leader, it can start by listening to its own experts.”
According to faculty, the FAS vote is only one example of the growing surge of faculty activism. The Harvard Medical School Faculty Council is set to vote on a climate and fossil fuel divestment resolution this Wednesday, and with students and alums drawing international headlines in their divestment activism, pressure is only growing on the university to act. “As physicians and as medical scientists, we have a responsibility to protect health, and that includes calling on Harvard to stop investing in fossil fuels,” said Caren Solomon, MD, MPH, Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
“Time is running out for Harvard to take meaningful action,” said Caleb Schwartz, a Fossil Fuel Divest Harvard spokesperson. “We’ve set a deadline of Earth Day 2020 for Harvard to show which side it’s on, and if they do not act by then, we will have no choice but to escalate our disruption of the status quo.”
For the faculty involved, this effort is nothing short of a moral imperative. “Our generation’s failure to act has essentially sacrificed [students’] future prosperity without them having any say,” wrote Harvard Faculty for Divestment in a letter to Oxford colleagues, who are facing similar calls for divestment, last week. “With such a great failure comes a great responsibility that we faculty members must take up, by joining our knowledge, connections, and credibility to the energy and purpose of our students.”
