Widgets Magazine

OPINIONS

We are not going away

On Monday, 375 students and faculty members rallied in front of the Office of the President and the Provost. Since then, between 80 and 100 students have been sitting in, camped in tents surrounding the building. Three dozen faculty have expressed their support by holding classes and teach-ins alongside our camp, furthering the call of hundreds of professors who have already called, twice, for full fossil fuel divestment in letters published this year. Yesterday, 30 alumni traveled to campus to rally alongside the student body for divestment.

For three years, the Stanford community has been reiterating our support for full fossil fuel divestment through resolutions passed by the ASSU senate, the Graduate Student Council and the student body at large. This week, the Stanford community did so again by bringing our collective call to the offices of our President and Provost. We have proven that Stanford is ready for comprehensive divestment. We have shown our dedication. We have shown that we are not going away.

Last night, University officials delivered us a second official notice, which in part stated, “The University is considering suspending Fossil Free’s request to APIRL until they are in compliance with University policies.” By threatening to suspend our request to APIRL, the administration is not penalizing us — for us, this process has been stalled for nearly a year. Rather, by their threat the administration is condemning all of the people on the front lines of climate change and pollution, who face injustices perpetuated by the oil and gas industry every day. In their threat, the administration has made clear its failure to recognize the moral imperative to do everything Stanford can to address the injustices of climate change by divesting from the companies causing the crisis. We are not asking Stanford to divest for us. We are asking Stanford to divest for our world and for our future.

The University’s notice also warned that we are “violating University policies about use of the Main Quad” as well as “the Policy on Campus Disruptions,” and that they “will be filing Fundamental Standard charges” against us if we remain in the Quad past 5 p.m. Friday.

Today, Fossil Free is drawing a close to a powerful week of direct action. Over the course of the last five days, hundreds of people — faculty, staff, students and alumni — have engaged in education and solidarity. Now, we are heading home to spend time with our families.

We are leaving on our own terms, but to the University’s notice, we have this to say:

The Fundamental Standard binds all members of the Stanford community to “show… such respect for order, morality, personal honor and the rights of others as is demanded of good citizens.” As students whose education and ethics are at odds with the position of their administration, this is a matter of morality. We will never apologize for demanding that our administration consider ethics over profits and pay heed to international scientific consensus. It would be a violation of the Fundamental Standard to do so, and it is unquestionably a violation of the Fundamental Standard to threaten students with sanctions for challenging corporate complacency.

If President Hennessy is willing to appropriate Stanford’s code of ethical conduct to avoid action, we are willing to accept the consequences of our own. If we will have earned a charge under the Fundamental Standard at 5 p.m., we have earned it already. Come charge us at 11 a.m. in our encampment. We are not just Fossil Free Stanford. We are Stanford. And we are not going away.

-Fossil Free Stanford

 

Contact penuelas ‘at’ stanford.edu.

  • Mike

    “We are Stanford.” Don’t claim to speak on behalf of “Stanford,” you speak on behalf of Fossil Free Stanford. No one else gave you permission to pretend to be the voice of every student.

  • Krabb

    This is definitely larger than Fossil Free Stanford. 75% of the student body is for divestment. 381 faculty members are also for it. And then there is the alumni. Do your homework before posting here.

  • Clueless

    Citation please. Do you own homework.

  • There’s one born every minute

    > We are leaving on our own terms

    Sure you are….

  • Homework

    ASSU Senate Resolution, Grad Student Council Resolution, and Letter from student body President and Vice President:
    http://www.fossilfreestanford.org/student-government-resolutions.html

    Election Results from vote of student body: http://elections.stanford.edu/archives/2014-elections-results

    Faculty Letter w/ 381 Names:
    http://www.stanfordfacultydivest.org/

  • Protestor

    If they charged us at 5pm with misdemeanor trespassing, we may well have had to wait until Monday for arraignments, which is a manipulative tactic for the Administration to utilize in an attempt to increase the impact of its threat. We called their bluff and invited them to come charge us at 11am. We had already broken two deadlines they had set, and thus anything we would have violated by 5pm, we had already violated by 11am. We were fully prepared to, if our Administration chose to follow through on their threat, accept the consequences of our actions. The Dean of Students came just before the invited time (11am) and announced that the University was backing down on its threat and would not press charges.

  • Bzzzzzt

    Nice try, but the ASSU and GSC hardly equate to “75 percent of students” and you don’t even have 1 in 4 faculty members. And even 75 percent of students woul not be “Stanford”.

  • DoTheMaths

    It’s not even 75 percent, but only 60 percent in the referendum. And even that is a soft-pedalled general statement short on specifics. Certainly not the extreme of FFS, FFS.

  • Posers

    In fact so few people voted for the referendum that those in favour represent just 15% of the student body. Speak for Stanford? Ha, not even close.

  • Joke’s on you

    a manipulative tactic for the Administration to utilize in an attempt to increase the impact of its threat.

    Paranoid much?

    We called their bluff

    Is everything is a Machiavellian conspiracy?!

    invited them to come charge us at 11am. We had already broken two deadlines they had set, and thus anything we would have violated by 5pm, we had already violated by 11am.

    Nice spin!!! Only one problem: you were about to lose face and you knew it. The cracks were beginning to show; it was clear that commitment was weak and the kids would cut and run by the 5 pm deadline, so you tried to provoke a crisis before everything fell apart. The administration saw through it and refused to play your games.

    The Dean of Students came just before the invited time (11am) and announced that the University was backing down on its threat and would not press charges.

    Sure, and I bet that that is a verbatim quote. :-)

    In reality, these were your “own terms”: “104 students … announced that they would be participating in a sit-in until the President John Hennessy and the Board of Trustees agreed to full divestment from fossil fuel companies“.

    Has “President John Hennessy and the Board of Trustees agreed to full divestment from fossil fuel companies”?

    Um… no.

    QED.

    Not only did you fail to live up to your own terms, but as events revealed you could not even hold out until the administration’s deadline! 😀

  • Mike

    You speak on behalf of the 75% of students, NOT ALL STUDENTS, and NOT ALL OF STANFORD. You ARE NOT STANFORD. You are 75% OF STANFORD.

    The reason why it’s stupid to support divestment is that only Stanford’s investment committee knows about the financial implications of divestment, the student protestors only know about the “moral reasons.” Sorry if I want to be informed about the consequences of what I am “supporting” before supporting it.

    Have fun flying or driving home for Thanksgiving, using fossil fuels.

  • Kenneth Cole-Rieser

    This protest is a joke, bunch of rich Jewish kids trying to divert from the real Divestment, from Occupied Palestine, and the Black Lives Matter movement, you should all be ashamed! Probably the most “undiverse” group of kids ever.