The Committee on Investments and Social Responsibility has yet to finalize a decision on whether or not it will recommend GU Fossil Free’s divestment proposal to the university’s Board of Directors after a meeting on Jan. 16.
Fossil Free’s proposal, which it has been revising for over two years, calls for the university to divest its endowment from the top 200 fossil fuel companies. In order to earn the proposal a place on the agenda at the Board of Director’s meeting this February, the group first needs CISR to recommend that their proposal warrants further consideration.
Fossil Free first presented its proposal to CISR on Oct. 27 with the hope that the committee would vote on it by the end of the academic year. During the meeting on Friday, CISR had its final discussions on the proposal and was expected to give a final statement of review afterwards.
Deliberations on recommending the divestment proposal to the Board are still in progress, according to a statement from Committee Chair Dr. Jim Feinerman.
“The Committee on Investments and Social Responsibility today had a thoughtful and engaged discussion on the Fossil Free proposal and is making progress,” Feinerman wrote in the statement. “We continue to finalize our work and will make a public statement when our deliberations are complete.”
According to GU Fossil Free core group member Chloe Lazarus (COL ‘16), a conclusive result from CISR was not anticipated from the meeting.
“We did not really expect a finalized decision on Friday,” she wrote in an email to the Voice. “We assumed there would have to be a more thorough deliberation. We have been working with the committee for almost two years and none of the information was new to any of the members. That being said, we value their recommendation and are looking forward to hearing their decision soon.”
Fossil Free issued a statement on Thursday morning to pre-empt any non-endorsement decision CISR may have reached. According to the statement, “Kicking a can down the road only works as long as there’s still road left; the end of the line, increasingly, is being reached, and passing the buck is no longer an acceptable ‘solution.’”
