Starting Sunday evening, student activists at Harvard began a week long event called Harvard Heat Week. Following an almost three year campaign, the purpose of this week was to push university president Drew Faust to engage in a public conversation around divestment. All conversations with Faust thus far have been behind closed doors, where she refuses to consider the possibility of divesting from fossil fuels. Over one hundred Harvard students shut down the campus this week, blockading the doors to all administrative buildings. Faust and other administrates had to find other places to work. To some, it may seem overly aggressive, but the campaign has slowly escalated from where it was three years ago, starting with a student referendum where 72% of students voted to divest, to rallies, to a similar but much smaller blockade last year.
The part of Heat Week that was the most powerful to me was the High School Student Rally on Thursday night. Along with the Alliance for Climate Education, I helped organize a rally where high school students addressed Harvard's inaction. My friends spoke about climate justice, tying in social issues like racism and class to climate change. Their speeches were some of the most powerful of the entire week.
I was also given the opportunity to speak at their student rally on Thursday morning, alongside Harvard students, including an incredibly powerful speech from a young woman whose small island home was being obliterated by both climate change and a massive oil plant. I took the opportunity to speak about what we should expect from universities in our society, a topic that has weighed heavily upon my mind these past few months. Should our universities be apolitical centers of education only, where we study writing and science, and apply it to the world we live after we graduate? Or do universities owe something more to this world? Should they be the pillars of our society that lead us forward with their own actions?
Faust belongs to the school of thought t hat Harvard should keep itself and its money neutral. In a statement about divestment, she told the Harvard community that Harvard exists to"serve an academic mission — to carry out the best possible programs of education and research. The endowment is a resource, not an instrument to impel social or political change." (One important fact to know here is that Harvard has used it's endowment before- it divested from the tobacco industry and partially from South African apartheid).
I disagree with Harvard's president. I see universities as places that are more meaningful than simply academic. Especially in schools like Harvard, they are places where our brightest and most passionate people gather. When I imagine who can lead us on moral and ethical issues, I know it can't be our government. Our government has always followed the people, and we must once again lead on this issue. I can think of no better leader than universities and colleges, if only they listen to their students.
The part of Heat Week that was the most powerful to me was the High School Student Rally on Thursday night. Along with the Alliance for Climate Education, I helped organize a rally where high school students addressed Harvard's inaction. My friends spoke about climate justice, tying in social issues like racism and class to climate change. Their speeches were some of the most powerful of the entire week.
I was also given the opportunity to speak at their student rally on Thursday morning, alongside Harvard students, including an incredibly powerful speech from a young woman whose small island home was being obliterated by both climate change and a massive oil plant. I took the opportunity to speak about what we should expect from universities in our society, a topic that has weighed heavily upon my mind these past few months. Should our universities be apolitical centers of education only, where we study writing and science, and apply it to the world we live after we graduate? Or do universities owe something more to this world? Should they be the pillars of our society that lead us forward with their own actions?
Faust belongs to the school of thought t hat Harvard should keep itself and its money neutral. In a statement about divestment, she told the Harvard community that Harvard exists to"serve an academic mission — to carry out the best possible programs of education and research. The endowment is a resource, not an instrument to impel social or political change." (One important fact to know here is that Harvard has used it's endowment before- it divested from the tobacco industry and partially from South African apartheid).
I disagree with Harvard's president. I see universities as places that are more meaningful than simply academic. Especially in schools like Harvard, they are places where our brightest and most passionate people gather. When I imagine who can lead us on moral and ethical issues, I know it can't be our government. Our government has always followed the people, and we must once again lead on this issue. I can think of no better leader than universities and colleges, if only they listen to their students.