SOUTH HADLEY — Dozens of Mount Holyoke College students and their allies gathered on campus Friday to protest a unanimous vote by the university’s trustees not to divest its endowment from fossil fuels.
Holding signs with slogans like “MHC is in bed with the fossil fuel industry,” organizers from the Mount Holyoke College Climate Justice Coalition gave speeches behind Mary Lyon Hall, then more than 35 people staged a “die-in” — a protest in which demonstrators simulate being dead.
“Ultimately, Mount Holyoke College Climate Justice Coalition, faculty and students reject the board’s decision,” junior Emily Chang, 21, said into a bullhorn.
Junior Marissa Patterson, 20, a member of the organization, said during her speech said that 88 percent of students voted for divestment in a 2014 referendum, and 92 percent of faculty voted for divestment in 2016.
In a statement Thursday, however, the trustees said their ultimate responsibility is to protect the university’s endowment, and that divesting from the fossil fuel industry would reduce investment returns. That, they said, would imperil direct scholarship assistance, which nearly 80 percent of students receive.
Twenty-year-old sophomore Shannon Seigal said most of Mount Holyoke College Climate Justice Coalition’s members received financial aid from the college, and that they took issue with the trustees’ claim.
“It scares us by saying if we divest, we’ll lose our financial aid,” she said. But she said that they had presented the board with multiple studies that suggested divesting would not harm returns. “We would not be advocating for divestment if we thought it would hurt our financial aid.”
Despite the previous day’s setback, however, the mood at the protest was cheerful, and participants said they were committed to continue fighting for divestment.
“I think we’ve made a lot of progress,” 22-year-old senior Julia Worcester told the Gazette. She said she has been a member of Mount Holyoke College Climate Justice Coalition for four of the group’s 4.5-year existence, and pointed to increased transparency and accountability from the trustees as a result of its work.
“Given what we know about the make-up of the Board of Trustees and their political views, this doesn’t come as a surprise,” she said.
In their statement Thursday, the trustees stated that because the endowment is comingled, meaning the college has no direct holdings,they would have to sell around $337 million, or half of the endowment, in order to divest.
Trustees said Mount Holyoke has no direct investments in any publicly traded fossil fuel companies. However, it does have about $7 million invested in such companies as part of its comingled strategy, amounting to 1 percent of the college’s total endowment, trustees said.
“We applaud the advocacy and passionate engagement of members of our community in peacefully demonstrating on behalf of this cause,” the board of trustees said in a statement on Friday about the protest. “And yet we respectfully disagree on the means by which to bring about positive environmental change.”
After the speeches were done, the protesters lay down on the ground and had chalk outlines drawn around their bodies. They then got up, and vowed to continue fighting for divestment.
Dusty Christensen can be reached at dchristensen@gazettenet.com.