As part of their ongoing divestment campaign, Brandeis Climate Justice led a rally on Wednesday to coincide with a meeting between Board of Trustees members and individuals from the University’s environmental interest groups. While walking to his next meeting, one trustee addressed the protesters, who were urging the Board to divest the University’s endowment from fossil fuel corporations.

BCJ member Iona Feldman ’17 opened the protest, which began in the Shapiro Campus Center atrium. He told the crowd that in a referendum in spring 2013, 79 percent of the student population voted for fossil fuel divestment, yet the Board has made no move to divest the University from its shares in the fossil fuel industry.

Feldman told the crowd that the University holds approximately $90 million in fossil fuel shares, which BCJ leaders later stated was calculated via an approximation that the University had between five to 10 percent of its endowment invested in fossil fuels. Feldman called this investment a “deeply socially unjust” act.

The BCJ members then began to chant “divest, divest, put fossil fuels to rest,” among other chants.

Former BCJ leader Shea Reister ’12 addressed the crowd stating, “It’s pretty ridiculous that the Brandeis board has stalled this long. There’s a ton of support out there, but we know that they’re not going to do anything unless we keep the pressure up. … This is how you make change at a school like this. They’re not going to do it on their own.”

Interim President Lisa Lynch has stated numerous times that a final decision on divestment will not be reached until incoming President Ronald Leibowitz assumes office. He will make this decision in cooperation with the Board, according to Lynch. As president of Middlebury College, Leibowitz worked to increase sustainability and environmental friendliness, but did not divest the school’s endowment from fossil fuels, despite significant community pressure.

BCJ members then led the crowd to the hallway outside the third floor conference room in which the trustees and community members were meeting. Director of Public Safety Ed Callahan and a University Police officer stood by near the conference room.

Standing silently in the hallway, the protesters held up cardboard signs that read slogans like “Don’t Invest in Death,” and one that featured a quote from University namesake Justice Louis D. Brandeis, “There is no such thing as an innocent purchaser of stocks.”

As trustees, administrators and community members exited the meeting, many stopped to shake hands with the students and thank them for their work. As Lynch made her way through the hallway, she told the students, “I don’t have a vote [on divestment].”

Board of Trustees member Ronald Kaiserman ’63 addressed the protesters as he left, sharing his personal views on divestment. “I wish that there was another issue that you could spend your energy on. They [the fossil fuel companies] are not going to respond to any protests,” he said.

He argued that the best way for students to fight fossil fuel companies would be to decrease their own energy consumption by walking and carpooling more. “Consume less, and then you’ll have an impact,” he said, adding that simply selling the stock wouldn’t send the message to fossil fuel companies, as “the stock does not know who owns it.”

He told the group that while the trustees are “unanimously” concerned with climate change, they are currently questioning how best to address it, and he thinks that the negative effects of divestment outweigh the benefits. “How many of you are willing to pay increased tuition for the sake of a moral statement?” he asked the protesters.

The protesters replied that the fossil fuel industry’s harmful impact is “destroying the entire future of everyone at this school” and that similar campaigns against tobacco and apartheid had seen success at peer universities.

The protesters then moved back down to the SCC atrium to debrief on the meeting and discuss the future of the group’s campaign.

Prof. Sabine von Mering (GRALL), who had attended the meeting, told the crowd that the trustees are interested in learning more about divestment as a result of the meeting.