The school has joined St. Olaf in beginning the divestment process.
The Carleton Board of Trustees voted on Feb. 9 to divest from direct fossil fuel holdings and, by 2030, hold indirect fossil fuel investments. The decisions came after nine years of student activism urging the college to divest from fossil fuel and weapons industries.
In May 2021, St. Olaf’s Board of Regents voted to no longer invest further capital in funds directly tied to fossil fuels with a goal of less than one percent of the endowment invested in the industry by 2034. For both Carleton and St. Olaf, the long process of divestment has seen student victory in the end, or beginning of the end, of fossil fuel investments.
Student organizations involved in the fight against climate change spearheaded the divestment movements at both St. Olaf and Carleton College. Both organizations were on the front lines protesting the construction of Enbridge’s Line 3 Pipeline. At St. Olaf, the Climate Justice Collective (CJC) led protests and discussed terms of a possible divestment plan with the Board of Regents. The Divest Carleton organization directly confronted the Board of Trustees during the fall 2022 term and hosted a several-day occupation of the Weitz Center for Creativity.
At each school, the divestment decision ultimately fell short of the students’ vision of the timeline and scope. Myles, a Carleton sophomore who asked to be identified by his first name, wrote in a statement to The Olaf Messenger, “…we asked for fossil fuel divestment, divestment from companies involved in the military-industrial complex, and a binding commitment to never have direct or indirect investments in the private prison industry. Those last two demands were completely ignored at every stage of this process, which is incredibly frustrating.”
Another Carleton student, Maya Stovall, echoed Myles’s sentiment in a statement to The Olaf Messenger. Though divestment members are happy about the vote to divest from fossil fuels, students involved in divestment at St. Olaf and Carleton alike are frustrated with the lack of response to calls to divest from the military-industrial complex.
The demands to expand divestment from just direct fossil fuel investments comes from calls to improve the lives of people of color impacted by investments.
Myles spoke on the ignored demands to answer for Carleton College’s potential investments in the military and private prisons. He said, “Those demands don’t come from nowhere, they were adopted after the Ujamaa Collective demanded them in the wake of George Floyd’s murder,” Miles said. “The college’s failure to take those steps represent not only ignoring the demands of Divest Carleton as a group, but the demands of students of color that Ujaama reflected.”
According to CJC members Kae McMahon ’23 and India Bock ’23, the original goal for St. Olaf divestment members were to examine the College’s military and Israeli investments. However the St. Olaf administration wasn’t interested in discussing them, which led to divestment members believing that neither colleges seriously considered divesting or investigating existing investments in companies with ties to the military.
Lack of transparency of a clear action plan remains an issue as well.
“St. Olaf’s divestment plan leaves a lot of room because the language states that the college ‘anticipates’ the ending of direct fossil fuel holdings,” McMahon said. “It gives them a lot of wiggle room because their direct holdings are set to expire in 2031. The other pile is indirect, like mutual funds that have fossil fuel which they say will be looked at to see if there are equal-value holdings to replace the existing ones. Are they actually looking?”
Updates about progress in St. Olaf’s fossil fuel divestment have been virtually non-existent. Neither St. Olaf nor Carleton’s Board decisions included instructions for further communication. “We have a desire for continuous transparency from the administration since the four-year turnover of a college impedes institutional knowledge,” Bock said. “By the time someone learns how power in the college operates, they’re graduated.”
According to Bock and McMahon, CJC members frequently speak of the need to continue the movement past the original decision for the college to divest, emphasizing the need for regular communication about the state of the college’s endowment investments. They believe that pressure is necessary to maintain the divestment terms and expand with future divestments from other industries, including arms manufacturers.
In a “Letter to the Editor: Regrading Post-Divestment,” the students of Divest Carleton wrote, “Divestment is important, but does not improve life for students of color on campus, nor does it increase the pay of dining hall workers, ensure fair treatment of students who need mental health treatment and leaves of absence, nor does it guarantee good and fair working conditions for staff and faculty. Divestment is aligned with all of these goals and works to build a just transition away from extractive industries toward regenerative ones.”
Mutual aid funds at St. Olaf and Carleton are now one of the primary ways that the divestment movements hope to continue in the wake of fossil fuel divestment which acts as a first step toward a more equitable future.
In a statement to The Olaf Messenger about Divest Carleton’s future said, Stovall said, “we’re excited for this win to act as a catalyst for more at Carleton! Whether it be supporting mutual aid, student worker justice, divesting from the military, democratizing the college, there’s so much more to do and organizing is not over.”
The work of CJC and Divest Carleton doesn’t end with the vote to divest — it begins in earnest. Divestment from fossil fuels is only one aspect of the overall goals of the movements. The other goals is to improve student experience through student activism centered around equity and sustainability in the middle of the climate crisis.
