Students Ask for Divestment

Movement educates students about fossil fuels at Santa Clara

At multiple college campuses in the U.S., Canada, Nigeria and Kenya students participated in Fossil Fuel Divestment day (F2D2), an international day of action to demonstrate the size and unity of the student fossil fuel divestment movement. 

Students part of Fossil Free SCU participated at Santa Clara on Thursday, Feb. 13 from 10 p.m.-5 p.m. 

They set up on the Alameda Lawn and educated members of the Santa Clara community as they passed by and asked them to sign a petition in support of divestment. 

Divestment at Santa Clara included posters detailing the issue and explaining its importance. 

Fossil Free SCU is a movement that was started in 2013 by ENACT, known at the time as BLEJIT, which stands for Bronco Leaders for Environmental Justice Investigating Truth. 

ENACT stands for Environmental Action and is a part of the Santa Clara Community Action Program. 

Their focus is environmental justice and looking at vulnerable and marginalized communities most affected by environmental issues. 

While Fossil Free SCU has faded in the last few years, it was taken up again this year by a group of students committed to moving Santa Clara away from fossil fuels. 

They consider themselves an action-based movement whose goals include increased transparency from the school’s investment portfolio and a commitment from Santa Clara to divest from fossil fuel usage. 

Additionally, as an activist group, they are also trying to raise awareness and show the student support behind the movement. 

Currently, they are focused on two issues. The first is the donation from the Koch Foundation that the school accepted. The other issue is how the university continues to use its endowment to bolster fossil fuel companies which are a major threat to the climate crisis. 

Tess Rosenberg is a junior anthropology major and a member of Fossil Free SCU, which would like to see Santa Clara commit to moving all investments out of the fossil fuel industry and instead directing it to socially responsible investments. 

“We understand this can’t happen immediately,” Rosenberg said. “But the fact they haven’t announced a plan to financially cut ties with the fossil fuel industry is not only immoral but is financially unsound.” 

Fossil fuel divestment is a movement that began in 2010 and asks institutions and organizations to divest for moral and financial reasons.

In addition to education divestment, Fossil Free SCU had posters highlighting the news that Georgetown University, another Jesuit university, announced its commitment to divestment. 

Additionally they had a poster which focused on the current conflict the Wet’suwet’en Nation faces in Canada where the native people are facing arrests and physical violence for protecting their land from a harmful pipeline.

Contact Emma Pollans at epollans@scu.edu or call (408) 554-4852.