NYU Divest Protestors Step Aside As University Announces Divestment Of Anadarko Petroleum & Noble Energy

Protestors from NYU Divest have temporarily halted their occupation of the NYU’s Administrative Elevator upon news that the University has divested its direct holdings in Anadarko Petroleum and Noble Energy.

Last week on December 1, 18 students and alumni began occupying the New York University’s (NYU) Administrative Elevator in Bobst Library in protest of the school’s unwillingness to divest from fossil fuels back in June of 2016. NYU Divest — “a group of NYU students, faculty, staff, and alumni demanding that NYU live up to its stated values of sustainability and global community” — spent months investigating the NYU’s Board of Trustees, finding that at least ten of the Trustees have ties to the fossil fuel industry, including its chairman, William Berkley. Specifically, Berkley’s company insures Anadarko Petroleum — one of two fossil fuel companies that a 2014 Investment Committee report determined NYU has direct holdings in (the other being Noble Energy).

Last week, NYU Divest delivered a letter to NYU’s Administration outlining the conflicts of interest it had discovered.

“It is a clear conflict of interests for a Trustee who benefits from the fossil fuel sector to participate in a decision on fossil fuel divestment,” states the letter. “Fossil fuel divestment is a means to accelerate the phase-out of the fossil fuel economy by revoking the industry’s social license to operate, with the aim of leaving remaining fossil fuel reserves unexploited.”

However, within hours of NYU Divest’s occupation beginning the group of students and alumni temporarily suspended their protest on news from NYU’s Executive Vice President Martin Dorph, explaining that NYU has divested its direct holdings in both Anadarko Petroleum and Noble Energy — news which was confirmed later in the day by NYU Vice President of Student Affairs Marc Weiss.

“We are heartened that NYU has dropped its investments in Anadarko and Noble, companies that have been involved in a slew of recent public safety and contamination debacles,” said Olivia Rich, CAS ‘17 and NYU Law ‘20. “However, we are disappointed that NYU is at this point unwilling to provide us with information about when and why these investments were dropped, and why we only found out about it this morning.”

“We still expect the University to answer for the clear conflicts of interest on our Board and will not stop pushing for a reconsideration of full divestment,” said Malcolm Kim, NYU Law ‘16. “We will resume our escalation after we have considered what these new developments mean for our campaign asks.”