{"id":7169,"date":"2015-03-25T17:13:43","date_gmt":"2015-03-25T17:13:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/?p=7169"},"modified":"2015-03-25T17:13:43","modified_gmt":"2015-03-25T17:13:43","slug":"over-50-bowdoin-students-pledge-to-sit-in-for-fossil-fuel-divestment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/over-50-bowdoin-students-pledge-to-sit-in-for-fossil-fuel-divestment\/","title":{"rendered":"Over 50 Bowdoin Students Pledge to Sit-In for Fossil Fuel Divestment"},"content":{"rendered":"

This guest blog post was written by students from Bowdoin Climate Action and cross-posted from their website.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Brunswick, ME \u2014 After having its proposal for fossil fuel divestment ignored by the Board of Trustees last October, Bowdoin Climate Action (BCA) has gathered pledges from more than 50 students to \u201cSit-In for Climate Justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do not undertake this lightly, but unfortunately both the Board and the President have refused to take responsibility. The Board has failed to communicate with us, which demonstrates it doesn\u2019t take climate justice and the calls of our community seriously,\u201d said said Bowdoin senior Matthew Miles Goodrich. \u201cWe exhausted our options, and so turned to the history of civil disobedience at the College for inspiration.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the trustees were at Bowdoin in early February, BCA hung a banner from a building to remind them that campus expected action. The banner\u2019s text, a quotation from the College\u2019s first president, read, \u201cLiterary institutions are endowed for the common good.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo value the Common Good means to value climate justice, but right now our investments support a rogue industry rather than the College\u2019s own students,\u201d said first-year Shinhee Kang. \u201cBy divesting, Bowdoin can choose its students and its values over climate chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n

On February 13th, spurred by continued silence from the Board, BCA helped organize a meeting in the student union to call attention to injustice on campus and beyond. At the meeting, which drew over 250 students, BCA asked for a trustee to be appointed divestment liaison by March 6th, and announced its intent to escalate if this request was not met.<\/p>\n

The group did not hear from the Board.<\/p>\n

\u201cBowdoin is falling behind. We\u2019ve faced more than 140 days of silence from our trustees, and in that time, the New School divested, the UMaine system divested from coal, and the UN endorsed divestment,\u201d said junior Allyson Gross. \u201cThis is a growing global movement, and it pays to be an early leader. Since the trustees refuse to act for climate justice, we will by sitting-in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bowdoin Climate Action joins other students escalating their divestment campaigns this spring, including at Swarthmore and Harvard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This guest blog post was written by students from Bowdoin Climate Action and cross-posted from their website. Brunswick, ME \u2014…<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":7170,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[152,124],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-divestment-2","category-education"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}