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U. Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Ignores Student Demands to Divest from Fossil Fuels

U. Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Ignores Student Demands to Divest from Fossil Fuels

“Fossil fuels account for approximately 63.5 percent of the United States’ generation of electricity”

It takes astounding arrogance for students to believe they have a say in how a school invests capital.

Campus Reform reports:

UIUC shrugs shoulders at fossil fuel divestment demand

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has stated that it has no plans to divest from fossil fuels after students approved in early March a resolution in favor of doing so.

The resolution, which asked the question, “Do you support removing investments in fossil fuel companies from the University of Illinois’ endowment and the University of Illinois Foundation by 2020?” passed with 4,699 students voting in favor of it and 1,581 students voting against it.

UIUC currently invests as much as $300 million in fossil fuel companies, according to the student group UIUC Beyond Coal. The club claims that the university is “financing climate change” by investing in these companies.

“If you agree that a public university financing climate change is unacceptable and that U of I should support renewable energy instead, vote YES for a Fossil Free UIUC on the student ballot!” UIUC Beyond Coal said the first morning of the vote.

Fossil fuels account for approximately 63.5 percent of the United States’ generation of electricity, according to the U.S Energy Information Administration. The administration also states that petroleum made up 92 percent of energy used by the U.S. transportation sector in 2017.

Drilling for fossil fuels has increased in the U.S. over the years. As of December 2018, the United States exports more oil than it imports for the first time in three-quarters of a century, according to Bloomberg.

“Divesting from a specific company or specific companies are extremely harmful to an investment portfolio,” Madeleine Hubbard, President of Turning Point USA at UIUC, told Campus Reform. “Also, many of these companies offer jobs to graduating students. Divesting from these companies shows that we are not interested in them.”

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Comments

Wonderful! I think the Administration should pretty much ignore all student “demands”.

healthguyfsu | March 18, 2019 at 7:22 pm

Funny how this result passed with such a disparity of students in favor.

Ask those same students to foot the bill for this escapade with extra tuition and those results will drop like a rock.