In a recent town hall meeting, members of the Boston College community came together to hear several campus clubs present on the importance of divestment. Climate Justice at BC (CJBC), EcoPledge, College Democrats of Boston College (BC Dems), FACES Council, and RealFood called on BC to divest from companies that use unethical practices. This is one of CJBC’s first major events since the administration suspended the group for a year in 2022 following controversy surrounding its annual Break Up With Fossil Fuels event.
“Divestment is important because it takes funding away from companies involved in unethical and environmentally destructive practices. It also opens up opportunities for reinvestment in companies with ethical and sustainable goals, which helps turn the tide of the market and make the transition to a sustainable world economically viable,” said CJBC in an official statement.
The club introduced the meeting with a definition of divestment and a quote taken from the mission statement of the Jesuit Community at BC: “A university is a community. It discloses its values by the way it behaves as much as by what it says about itself.”
CJBC continued by approximating that “$245 million of BC’s $3.5 billion endowment is invested in fossil fuels.” While the university does not publicly disclose how it invests its endowment, this figure is based on an estimation that, as of 2020, 7.7% of BC’s endowment was invested in fossil fuels.
They also pointed out that the Pope has already called for Catholic institutions to divest from highly polluting fossil fuels and how other peer institutions such as Harvard, Boston University, Georgetown, Cornell, and UMass have already taken these steps.
Next, EcoPledge opened a conversation on how people can divest from fossil fuels using their buying power as individuals. The organization discussed how buying stock in companies supports them and their practices and the importance of supporting companies with climate justice as part of their mission. EcoPledge brought up how individuals can use metrics such as ESG ratings when choosing what stocks to buy to make more informed choices.
Placing the current divestment movement in context, BC Dems followed with a history of student activism. They highlighted the privileged position of college students and the disproportionate amount of attention they receive in the media.
BC Dems brought up how, following the brutal Kent State massacre, an era of greater social activism with less repression on campuses began. In turn, this allowed the anti-Apartheid movement protesting the white supremacist government in South Africa to flourish. However, they shared that recent crackdowns on student protests are evidence that this era has come to an end as institutions arrest and sanction the brutalization of students participating in protests in support of Palestine.
In support of this, CJBC stated, “As a top university, Boston College is educating the next generation of leaders and pacesetters. We hear it all the time, but ‘men and women for others,’ means that we–much more than the average person–will have the power to shape the world of tomorrow. Students need to understand the issues that our world faces in order to create positive change, and we must be the ones to make that change.”
Highlighting another important divestment target, FACES presented the importance of BC divesting from companies that support private prisons and prison labor. The members discussed how ICE pays private prisons up to $300 per inmate per day to contain detainees and how conglomerates such as Tyson, Coca-Cola, and Kroger profit immensely from exploitative prison labor that many former inmates call slavery.
RealFood then rounded out the meeting on how global phenomena have impacts that can be observed in our local community. They cited the recent increase in bushfires in Massachusetts, as well as how lobsters in the Northwest Atlantic have been migrating increasingly further north as a result of increasing water temperatures.
CJBC encourages students to become further involved in ways beyond their events. “You can also bring these conversations to your classrooms and social circles to influence BC’s culture and foster dialogue and political education. Activism clubs need the support of the student body to effectively call on change from the administration. If these types of conversations start happening more often in classrooms and in shared spaces, it will be much harder for the administration to ignore us.”
