In October, Divest Princeton published a letter to President Eisgruber demanding that Princeton divest its endowment from fossil fuel companies. So far, 720 Princeton students and alumni have signed the petition, agreeing that they will not donate to Princeton until it divests from fossil fuels. The group is now partnering with more than 50 other college divestment groups across the country for Fossil Fuel Divestment Day on Thursday, February 13. The Prog sat down with Tom Taylor, a first year MPA student at the Woodrow Wilson School and one of the movement’s organizers, to talk about Divest Princeton, its goals, and next steps for the movement.
MGZ: What goals do you have regarding the Divest Princeton movement: what do you hope to accomplish with the movement?
TT: Well, we’re still a new group; and because we’re forming, we’re open to our objectives shifting, but broadly we are very concerned that the university has a really significant endowment, a proportion of that being invested in fossil fuels. We don’t know how much is because there’s no transparency about that. We are pushing for the university to divest that endowment from fossil fuel projects and to reinvest in greener projects that are more aligned with climate justice objectives. I think in the process we really want to be talking to people about climate change, [and] about the climate crisis. That’s sort of a secondary goal: to make sure that there’s a really active conversation on climate change and the impacts of climate crisis on Princeton students or broader community and people around the world.
MGZ: In light of that, what is Divest Princeton looking to do right now?
TT: So at the moment, we are in the process of forming and having more clarity about where it is that we want to go. At the same time, we are very clear that the university is diverse, so while […] some of the details are sorted out, we feel confident that the university has to divest. Our first few pieces include a letter to the university to gather signatures from students and alumni and staff saying that they won’t donate to the university until it divests from fossil fuels. We have more than 720 signatures [on that] matter. That’s a very powerful statement that this matters to people. We know that students have a strong relationship with the university. We know that Princeton has a really high rate of annual giving and also that students are really concerned about climate change and the lack of action from our leaders at all levels. We are pushing for Princeton to do more as well as leadership at all levels. A big, important symbolic but also financial action is to divest from fossil fuels.
MGZ: How can student groups or individual students get involved with the movement?
TT: I think that there are lots of opportunities to work through Divest Princeton, and there’s a lot for us to do. We are really interested in growing and people coming on board to help out with that work. But also, there is really interesting climate activism that happens in lots of different ways. So whether that’s joining a local extinction rebellion group or joining the Sunrise movement or linking up with PEAC, they are doing great work on campus. With regards to climate activism, people should get involved in whatever fits for them.
MGZ: There has been a previous Divest Princeton movement that ended up being rejected by the board of trustees. Can you talk about what you know about the prior Divest Princeton movement and perhaps how it is informing the current movement?
TT: To my understanding, there was a campaign in 2014/2015. I think there also was another piece in 2016. That campaign for the most part looked at growing a petition and then a submission to the university. That campaign made a really good case to the university, and the university said no. I think a few years on, the climate science is even clearer. It is even scary for people, particularly people that live in areas that are feeling the sort of the impact of natural disasters. So the ask is not different now, but the urgency is even greater. What we hope to do is to go back to the administration and ask them to reconsider that decision in light of this increased urgency. [This is] also in light of the troubling lack of action that we see from our governing bodies, our democratic institutions, especially from federal and national governments around the world. For example: the Trump administration recently beginning its withdrawal from the Paris agreement. And so, in order to respond to the climate crisis, we need leadership from different levels, including big institutions like Princeton. We need them to lead by example, because [we] have seen their wealth, but also because they have a real respect in the broader community, and the symbolic weight of their actions really reverberate and, therefore, what Princeton does is much bigger than just this institution.
MGZ: You mentioned that the ask for Princeton is the same as the previous movements’. But is the manner of asking different? The last time, Princeton rejected it mainly on the grounds of it being a “political statement.” With that in mind, does this movement have to be non-political? Is it a human crisis, an environmental movement? How are you thinking of framing it this time around?
TT: I think that the status quo is political. If you think of the climate crisis as political then you must also accept that the status quo is political, and continuing to invest in fossil fuel projects that fuel the climate crisis is also political. There is no such thing as something that is not political. So what is the more interesting question to me is “What are the ways in which the climate crisis manifests and the impact of the climate crisis?” One of the ways in which the movement has evolved is to be talking more about the very real impacts on people and on communities, particularly the most vulnerable and marginalized. It is the poor communities, people of color, who do not have significant wealth to mitigate the impacts of climate crisis, [who will feel these] very real human impacts.
That is the impact of climate change. It is all encompassing. It impacts upon communities, it impacts upon economic and financial systems, it impacts ecological systems. It is manifest in all different parts of how we live. But I think principally, it is a human crisis. It’s really important to remember that and to keep talking about that in the first place.
MGZ: So there are campuses that have divested from fossil fuels. There are also several that have not—a number of the Ivy Leagues for example, and the movement to Divest is going on in several other universities as well. Are you working together with other movements? How does Princeton’s divestment relate to divestment in other universities?
TT: That’s one of the really exciting things: that we are not the first sort of university to do this or to tackle this. So there’s a real sort of wealth of knowledge in other institutions about divestment. We are connecting in with those universities to work out what we can learn from them and how we might go to work with them, and so that’s really exciting.What exactly that looks like I don’t know at this point. But this is something that students and alumni and people all around are grappling with and are responding [to in] really clever, creative ways to make sure that we are holding our leaders accountable on of the climate crisis.
MGZ: What do you want this movement to look like in five years?
TT: I’m really excited about the prospect of Princeton divesting,but I am more excited about the ways in which that creates a ripple effect, and the ripple effect sort of moves in all sorts of different directions. One of the directions is that we have a whole university full of people that are smart, that are hardworking, that will go into positions of leadership and that will be informed by a conversation about the climate crisis and the role of wealthy institutions to lead in terms of responding to the climate crisis. I think that’s the first thing. I also think we should push Princeton to reach for those aspirational values of being “in the service of humanity.” And part of that is to align the things that it invests in through its endowment with the things that it teaches in its classrooms and the things that it purports to care deeply about. I am really excited about it and have to believe that we are moving towards action on climate change. I think that the work of students on campus, over a number of years in all sorts of different capacities (have shown that) students are really, really committed to this. We understand deeply how connected our futures and climate action are. We cannot disentangle our education or our time here or this institution from the impacts and the ways in which the climate crisis is being fueled. I guess I’m optimistic about the impact of Princeton divesting and what that means in terms of other leaders at other universities and at other local, state, and federal government levels and in the response of corporations to take real action on climate change and not just to roll out nice marketing campaigns. The way in which we might play a part in bringing about that change is exciting for me. If you speak to young people and not just young people, but people in the community, they are impatient for change, and they are ready to work hard for it.
Want to get involved with Divest Princeton? Email Tom at tlmt@princeton.edu or ffdivestprinceton@gmail.com. And check out Divest Princeton’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/DivestPrinceton/. Divest Princeton meets every Monday at 6PM in Frist 228.
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