Calls to divest from oil-and-gas companies have intensified on campuses amid rising awareness of climate change. Demonstrators protested at a Harvard-Yale football game last year.
Photo: Nic Antaya for The Boston Globe/Getty ImagesAn activist group of Harvard University alumni opposed to the fossil-fuel industry won three of the five seats on the college’s Board of Overseers up for election this year. The victory is part of the group’s campaign to force Harvard’s $40 billion endowment to end its investments in oil-and-gas companies.
The election results could embolden similar movements at other U.S. universities, which are increasingly deciding to pull their money out of fossil fuels. An organization at Yale University that is affiliated with the Harvard activists is running a candidate for a seat on its board of trustees to put pressure on the school’s roughly $30 billion endowment.
“This win proves that alumni want Harvard to be a leader in the fight against the climate crisis,” said Jayson Toweh, an Environmental Protection Agency program analyst and Harvard alumnus who won one of the seats, in a statement.
Harvard and Yale run two of the largest university endowments, and investment managers at campuses across the country view them as bellwethers.
Harvard’s Board of Overseers doesn’t supervise the school’s endowment but takes part in appointing members to the Harvard Corporation, which oversees managers of the endowment.
“All of us on the Board welcome this year’s new overseers,” said R. Martin Chávez, president of the Board of Overseers, in a statement. “These are extraordinary times, posing extraordinary challenges, and the Board will do all we can to help Harvard navigate them as thoughtfully as possible.”
A spokeswoman for Yale couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
The divestment movement has grown more popular over the past decade before accelerating in the past year, gaining traction at schools including the University of Michigan, Cornell University and Georgetown University. Increased awareness of climate change and the steep decline in many traditional energy investments has helped fuel the movement.
Shares of Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. have fallen by about 40% and 30%, respectively, this year, compared with a 5% gain in the S&P 500 index, and some Wall Street analysts say major oil firms might have to consider the once-unthinkable step of cutting their dividends.
Mr. Toweh was one of five candidates that the group, called Harvard Forward, entered in the election by soliciting petition signatures from the school’s alumni. Professional soccer player Margaret “Midge” Purce and lawyer Thea Sebastian also won spots. The school’s official alumni organization nominated eight candidates, two of whom were also elected.
The last time a protest organization successfully ran petition candidates for Harvard’s governing body was in 1989 when Archbishop Desmond Tutu ran on a platform for divestment from apartheid South Africa.
The race for seats was surrounded by some controversy this month when members of the Harvard Alumni Association wrote an open letter alleging that Harvard Forward, which accepts contributions, was trying to buy the election. The group received donations from thousands of alumni, with an average size of $200 and a median size of about $20, according to a Harvard Forward statement.
Write to Matt Wirz at matthieu.wirz@wsj.com
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