'Unless and until institutions like Harvard act to stigmatize the root causes of global warming, we will remain addicted to a system of energy production and economic injustice that guarantees catastrophe.'
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The suit charges that the Harvard Corporation is breaching its duties under its charter by investing in fossil fuel companies.(Photo: Harvard Climate Justice Coalition/Facebook/Overlay)
The administration of one of the world's most elite higher education institutions has called the intensified tactics of its students a form of "coercive" protest and lawyers representing Harvard University will be in a court room on Friday as they try to persuade a judge to throw out a lawsuit which is part of the same effort: a push to get the Ivy League school to divest its $36 billion endowment from the fossil fuel industry.The lawsuit, filed on by seven graduate and undergraduate students last fall, argues Harvard's continued holdings in the oil, gas, coal, and related sectors is a "mismanagement of charitable funds" controlled by the board of trustees in the form of the endowment and a direct violation of its obligations to the future of the university's financial health as well as the planet's well-being.Read More.Source: Common Dreams/Jon Queally