Students file legal complaint alleging Santa Clara’s fossil fuel investments violate California law

Fossil Free SCU joins a growing number of divestment groups that have filed complaints against their universities

Students from Fossil Free SCU filed a complaint on Wednesday morning with the Attorney General of California, alleging that university investments in the fossil fuel industry violate a state law governing non-profit institutions.

“The University commits itself to upholding and promoting the Catholic Church’s teachings on and guidelines for care of the environment,” the complaint reads. “[Yet] the Trustees have remained steadfast in their support of an industry whose business model is based on environmental destruction and social injustice.”

The law, known as the California Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act, outlines that charitable managers and investors of non-profit organizations have a duty to manage institutional funds with care and consideration of the charitable purposes of their institution. The complaint alleges that by investing a portion of Santa Clara’s endowment in fossil fuel, the Board of Trustees is neglecting these legal obligations.

“The Board of Trustees may not seek profit at any cost: the privileges that the University enjoys as a non-profit institution come with the responsibility to ensure that its resources are put to socially beneficial ends,” the complaint reads. “By investing millions of dollars in fossil fuel stocks, the Board of Trustees is in violation of these duties to the University and the public.”

The university has not responded to The Santa Clara’s request for a comment.

The complaint has 60 signatories, including climate scientists, climate policy experts, faculty, alumni, environmental activists and local and on-campus organizations.

Junior Emily Pachoud, lead organizer for Fossil Free SCU, said turning to the legal system was a last resort after various efforts to push for divestment were turned down by the administration. The club has been advocating for change since its creation in 2013.

“[The university has] made it clear that they're not interested in divestment or compromising with us,” she said in an interview. “They have heard us out in the past, but they've always shut us down at the end.”

Santa Clara is one of several universities where student organizers have filed divestment complaints in recent years. Students were assisted by the Climate Defense Project (CDP), which provided them with pro bono legal support throughout the process of filing the complaint. The CDP has helped several other fossil fuel divestment groups prepare complaints for submission to state attorneys general, including student-led campaigns at Duke, Princeton and Vanderbilt, among others.

Ted Hamilton, co-founder and staff attorney at the CDP, said the best outcome of filing the complaint would be if the school’s leadership takes it upon themselves to divest.

“By filing this complaint, we’re putting emphasis on their legal obligations, so they should take that seriously and just do what they’re going to have to do at some point and pull out of the fossil fuel sector,” he said in an interview.

If Santa Clara fails to voluntarily divest, the group hopes that the state attorney general will step in and enforce these obligations. For that to happen, the attorney general would have to investigate Santa Clara’s conduct, substantiate the allegations and then issue an enforcement order telling the university that they’re in violation of the law. The university would then have to sell off their fossil fuel assets.

“Appealing to the attorney general is part of this broader campaign to get the enforcement application of the law to match reality,” Hamilton said. “There’s a reason why these laws were passed, so let’s apply them in a way that’s going to protect the public and protect these institutions.”

Cornell University announced a pause on future fossil fuel investments shortly after students filed a similar complaint with New York’s attorney general in 2019. A complaint filed against Harvard prompted a similar outcome last year. Hamilton said that while causal evidence is only speculative, it appears that the complaints played a role in these universities’ decisions to divest.

The status of complaints from other universities remains unknown. The review and investigation period can be extensive, and filers aren’t updated about the status of the complaint throughout the process, according to Hamilton.

Pachoud said she is relieved and excited that the complaint has finally been filed after nearly a year of collaboration with the CDP. She is hopeful that the complaint will help garner widespread support and pressure the administration to divest.

Although Pachoud has welcomed sustainable causes on campus like the addition of solar panels, she said that the university’s carbon footprint is minuscule compared to that of the fossil fuel industry.

“If Santa Clara really wants to claim that they understand the seriousness of the climate crisis, they have to divest,” she said.

Photo courtesy of Emily Pachoud