Divestment

I want to go to a Yale where...we live up to our values of citizenship in our investments.

The overwhelming passage of the 2014 divestment referendum makes it clear: Yalies believe we have amoral responsibility to invest our funds in corporations that are not in the business of extracting coal, natural gas, and oil. We need to press the Yale Corporation to respect student opinion and follow other institutions by divesting from fossil fuels and private prisons.

Yale Should:

• Divest from fossil fuels. The administration has cited the practical difficulties of doing this, as it has claimed that the constituent parts of its portfolios cannot be disaggregated. However, Yale is on the vanguard of campus climate policy experimentation and progress, with its Carbon Charge program, and its continued investment in fossil fuel companies deprives the university of the credibility it would otherwise possess because of its pioneering work with carbon pricing.

• Divest from private prisons. Columbia University became the first university to divest from private prisons, and Yale should follow suit.

What YCC Can Do:

• Advocate for administrators to respect the student voice and divest from fossil fuels and private prisons, considering the overwhelming majority reached in YCC’s 2014 divestment referendum. In general, whenever a YCC referendum passes, YCC should act as a passionate advocate for the policies students have supported.

• Set an example by refusing to invest any funds in the new $750,000 YCC endowment in fossil fuels or private prisons.