About 25 students with the newly formed Brown Divest Coal Campaign group walked into University Hall Tuesday afternoon to ask the University to divest from some of its coal and fossil fuel investments. Students delivered a letter addressed to President Christina Paxson and handed out flyers to students walking through the Main Green.
The letter, which introduced the group, asked the University to divest from what the letter called the "filthy fifteen," the 15 highest-polluting coal companies in the nation. The list of companies includes American Electric Power, Ameren and Edison International.
The University's financial records are closed to the public, so Brown Divest Coal members do not know how much money is currently invested in coal and fossil fuel burning companies, said member Emily Kirkland '13. Beppie Huidekoper, vice president for finance and administration, said she was uncertain if the University held investments in any of the companies from which Brown Divest Coal is seeking divestment.
"This injustice is at our doorstep," the letter read, citing coal's role as the largest carbon dioxide pollutant and its impact on human health. "We want to be proud of every aspect of Brown, including our investments," it stated.
The Brown Divest Coal Campaign, founded this fall, is part of the national Coal Divestment Campaign run by the Energy Action Coalition, a collection of "youth-led environmental and social justice groups," according to the coalition's website. The Coal Divestment Campaign encourages students to lobby their universities to divest from the group of 15 coal companies. Similar campaigns have been launched at other institutions including Swarthmore College and Earlham College.
But Brown students are hoping the University will be the first to publicly divest from coal companies. More than 60 volunteers have already registered with the group.
The trend of divestment due to student activism is not new for the University. Brown has previously divested from companies for reasons of social justice, including companies whose business supported the Sudanese government's actions in the Darfur genocide in 2006.
"These other divestments have worked, and it's something that has been effective. It's a way for the University to show that it stands in solidarity with the communities that are being affected by the burning of coal," member Ryan Greene '16 said.
To formally request a divestment, Paxson would need to refer the request to the Advisory Committee on Corporate Responsibility in Investment Policies, Huidekoper wrote in an email to The Herald. The committee would then make a recommendation to the president and Corporation on whether the University should divest its investments.
Members are hopeful the issue will gain traction on campus, Greene said. "I think that's an issue that a lot of people are going to care about," he added.
