Student Activists ‘Demand’ Ohio State University Divest From Fossil Fuels
“For too long, President Johnson and the Board of Trustees have ignored our demands for divestment”
Students are in no position to make demands of a university like this. Schools need to start telling them that.
Campus Reform reports:
Youth coalition demands university divests from fossil fuels
Ohio Youth for Climate Justice (OHYCJ) protested against Ohio State University (OSU) on Oct. 28, alleging that the Columbus school failed to limit its fossil fuel connections.
Over 60 students rallied outside Bricker Hall and chanted various slogans including “You’re killing us” and “RIP fossil fuels,” NBC4 reported. Students reportedly walked out of class to participate, and one student donned a Grim Reaper costume.
“For too long, President Johnson and the Board of Trustees have ignored our demands for divestment,” OHYCJ wrote on Instagram. “We met at their offices and marched to the McCracken Power-plant and construction site of the new Fracked Gas CHP Plant. It’s time for OSU to end their reliance on the fossil fuel industry for good.”
The group posted its exact demands on its website, which included the “immediate divestment from the fossil fuel industry, reinvestment into renewable energy and the Columbus community, reparations to the Indigenous peoples whose land the university has profited off of.”
The group also demanded the university update its “climate action plan” to align with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports.
Other demands included stopping the construction of a heat and power plant on campus.
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Comments
Dear Demanders:
Your demands have been noted. Now, get back to class, or withdraw.
-s-
Dean T G Grizzly
Very well, as per your request, we will withdraw ALL uses of fossil fuels by the college. We will no longer use fossil fuel vehicles to transport teams to games or for grounds and security maintenance; nor will we use fossil fuels to generate electricity and heat. We will try this for ONE semester. Let us know if you would like us to continue.
-s-
Dean M. Sunshine
How is it not a breach of fiduciary duty to limit the investments of endowment fund money managers? In fact, fossil fuel investments have so dramatically outperformed in the last two years, that anyone with none has likely underperformed. Nothing like a little less tuition support from the endowment fund.
Indeed.
Any petitioners who are receiving tuition assistance via the endowment should forgot that “dirty money”. If they drive regular cars they should sell them. If they drove electric cars the same, not only is “dirty” energy used in their manufacture, also the majority of electricity used to charge those suckers comes from fossil fuels.
OK. ~We~ demand that they turn off the heat, and hot water, consistent with student demands. Demands have consequences. Problem solved.
No heat, water or other amenities to the dorms or any housing supervised or controlled by the University–let them live with the consequences of their idiotic demands–winter in Ohio can be brutal like the rest of the Midwest
Aren’t they precious. Quick, find them something they can chain themselves to. Going underwater would really get the message across.
On a side note, I read yesterday that much of the funding for these groups comes from the heiress to the Getty fortune.
Sure, turn off the heat today.
Oh what I’d give if even one member of the university community were to invite these students to write a 3-page summation of the arguments for and against implementing what they’re demanding.
Then, within say four weeks, their leaders would be required to publish the background research and details of their proposal — to include pros vs cons, risks vs benefits that they foresee.
All written statements of fact would have to be supported with specific references to peer reviewed academic literature.
Let the grown-up, objective public debate begin.
60! Just 60 students protested? Oh yes, let us jump to it and meet their demands. After all, they must represent the WHOLE student body. 🙄
Please focus on this key demand (that was not a part of the fossil fuels divestment debate of the past decade): “reparations to the Indigenous peoples whose land the university has profited off of.”
There is very little coal, oil or gas production in Ohio. OSU is a land grant university and received the right to federally owned lands in order to establish and endow the university in 1862. OSU made $340,818 from its land grant. Congress has given other schools, including historically black college and native American-serving colleges land-grant status but with cash instead of land. Although there is zero connection between the federal government driving native Americans out of Ohio and the conduct of OSU decades later, this group is demanding that OSU should misdirect funds held in trust by OSU to benefit all students to “make reparations” to a bunch of people who left Ohio prior to its settlement. Of course, that is unpopular, but sneaking it into a set of demands regarding the environment and climate change does not make it palatable.
For those of you who do not understand OSU’s position on this “reparations” issue, OSU’s Diversity Office has posted this clear video (with captions) to make you understand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXyTkuHbpMI