MIT Divest
Sitting In for Climate Action
At 9 am on Wednesday, February 16th, I joined several allies from MIT Divest to set up shop outside of President Rafael Reif’s office on the second floor of MIT’s infinite corridor. We brought folding chairs, banners, and snacks. We brought yoga mats, a projector and speaker, and large signs displaying the ground rules of the space we were creating. The reason we brought so much was to hold a sit-in, scheduled to run until Friday evening without pause, delivering an important message to the President: investments in the fossil fuel industry are immoral, unsupported by the MIT community, and potentially illegal. Why choose the 16th? We, along with students at Yale, Stanford, Vanderbilt, and Princeton, had filed a legal complaint that morning to our states’ respective Attorneys General offices, arguing that our schools’ investments violate the Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act (UPMIFA). These actions were a massive step for MIT Divest, and it has taken us a while to get to this point.
We are not the first group to push for the divestment of fossil fuels from our now $27.4 billion endowment. Fossil Free MIT called for divestment from 2012 through 2016, gathering over 3,500 community signatures and meeting dozens of times with administration members. Their activism eventually spurred the creation of MIT’s first Climate Action Plan in 2015. However, the administration’s plan was criticized for setting weak goals, and for failing to include divestment in any capacity — despite the fact that a committee created by the administration suggested divestment from companies producing the dirtiest fossil fuels such as coal and tar sands. So Fossil Free MIT held a sit-in, one that lasted an incredible 116 days. While it garnered media attention and support from students and faculty, administrators barely budged.
The issue of divestment laid dormant until the creation of MIT Divest in 2019. Motivated to finish what Fossil Free started, we spent time gauging community support, including a faculty-wide survey showing majority approval among faculty respondents. We gathered endorsements from the Undergraduate Association and even the Cambridge City Council, among other local politicians including Boston Mayor Michelle Wu. But most recently, after the 2021 renewal of the Climate Action Plan once again excluded divestment, we have escalated our activism — eventually leading us back to Reif’s door, more than 6 years later. Our argument remains the same: the fossil fuel industry engages in anti-climate lobbying, climate disinformation, and the development of fossil fuel resources that would exceed the 2°C limit set in Paris. Therefore, MIT should cut financial ties with the industry to show that these practices are unsustainable for the future and are not endorsed by such a highly respected research institution.
We started with just a handful of our members at the sit-in, rotating out in shifts. But more and more people came throughout the days to chat, nap, snack, work, or participate in our events including late-night karaoke and presentations from environmental groups. Several supportive professors brought us Dunkin Donuts, and even treated us for dinner. Students from other on-campus activist groups stopped by in solidarity, and new connections were formed. A few people would stay to sleep there each night, representing the dedication we share in pushing for this appeal from the MIT community. Normal work in Divest is usually more of a grind — non-stop emailing, outreach, writing, and event planning. However, sitting outside of Reif’s office with close friends and interested students I had never met was an entirely different experience, and many commented on how they could sit longer than 3 days if we wanted to. The atmosphere was different from that of a rally, protest, or march, but I think it represented the state of our group well — we are here in unison, and we aren’t going anywhere.
On Friday as we were wrapping up, a first-year member of the group, Aaliya, asked me where we should go from here. Admittedly, we did not have too many specific plans in mind; the legal complaint and sit-in had not left us with much time to plan for future actions. However, every member of Divest understands that due to the urgency of the climate crisis, our activism can’t take a break. Within half an hour, Aaliya and I had brainstormed multiple ambitious ideas that we would present at our next team meeting. I went home that evening proud of the intense motivation that my peers in Divest demonstrate every day and excited for what the future will hold for us.
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To learn more about MIT Divest or Divestment in general, please visit our website where you can sign our petition and Climate Conscious Pledges. For questions or comments about this blog post, please email Peter at pnscott@mit.edu.
