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Boston College Attorney General Maura Healey Office of the Attorney General Non-Profit Organizations/Public Charities Division One Ashburton Place, Boston, MA 02108 Dear Attorney General Healey — As the climate crisis worsens, powerful institutions must take responsibility for their contributions to global warming. The Trustees of Boston College, as managers of a non-profit educational institution, are bound by the laws of the Commonwealth to promote the well-being of Boston College’s students and community and to further the university’s commitment to the “pursuit of a just society.” Instead, the Trustees have invested a portion of Boston College’s $2.6 billion endowment in the fossil fuel industry — damaging the world’s natural systems, harming poor people and communities of color, and imperiling the university’s financial and physical well-being. As concerned students, faculty, political leaders, civic groups, and community members, we ask that you investigate this conduct and that you use your enforcement powers to order the Trustees of Boston College to cease their investments in fossil fuels. Massachusetts law lays out the rules that charitable managers and investors must follow in managing institutional funds. As stewards of the Boston College endowment, the Trustees are required to act in good faith and with loyalty, taking care that their investments further the purposes of the university. The Trustees may not simply seek profit at all cost: the privileges that Boston College enjoys as a non-profit institution — including exemption from many state and federal taxes — come with the responsibility to ensure that its resources are put to socially beneficial ends. By dedicating university assets to destructive and illegal activity — an estimated $200 million in fossil fuel stocks — the Trustees have violated these duties to Boston College and the public. The values that should guide the Trustees’ investments are clear. Boston College’s mission statement includes commitments to “the pursuit of a just society,” “academic freedom,” and “careful stewardship of its resources.” Boston College touts a dedication to environmental and social justice: its Institutional Master Plan “encourage[s] the University community to contribute time and talent to the larger communities in which they live and work, including efforts in sustainability to ensure the quality of life for future generations.” As a Catholic and Jesuit institution, Boston College commits itself to upholding and promoting the Catholic Church’s teachings on and guidelines for care of the environment. But, despite Pope Francis’s recent directive to Catholic institutions to divest from fossil fuels — and despite the successful divestment efforts of hundreds of Catholic universities — the Trustees have remained steadfast in their support of an industry whose business model is based on environmental destruction and social injustice. Climate change is not simply an environmental problem. In addition to sea level rise, extreme weather events, and species die-off, climate change causes injuries to all members of society, and particularly to the most vulnerable. Pollution from the combustion of fossil fuels results in an estimated ten thousand premature deaths daily. Communities of color disproportionately experience the pollution and health effects that result from fossil fuel extraction and combustion. Poor people bear the brunt of climate-based economic disruption, as 1 seen in the plight of migrants and refugees forced from their homes by drought, flooding, and social conflict. Indigenous communities are regularly invaded and harmed by the spread of fossil fuel infrastructure. As a result of the economic precarity and increased burden of care work that results from climate disruptions, women suffer more serious injuries from rising temperatures. The need to refrain from promoting such outcomes is obvious for any institution that calls itself a charity. Yet the Trustees have steadfastly refused to apply Boston College’s values to their investment activity. This conduct is especially galling for managers of an institution of higher education. Fossil fuel companies have long engaged in a well-documented campaign to undermine climate science and to distort public debate about how to deal with the climate crisis. The industry’s spread of scientific misinformation undermines the work of Boston College faculty and students who are researching and designing solutions for a sustainable future. Likewise, the flow of fossil fuel money to politicians and think tanks has prevented serious government action to address the climate crisis, placing a special burden on young people whose futures will be most impacted by this passivity. Even as they espouse commitments to “academic freedom” and to “to ensure the quality of life for future generations,” the Trustees thwart these goals by channeling funds to an industry dedicated to winning short-term profits at the cost of the public good. A similar inversion of values is seen in the Trustees’ funding of climate degradation despite their duty to protect Boston College’s physical property. In the coming decades, sea level rise, higher temperatures, pest invasions, and many other environmental changes will pose serious threats to university land and buildings. Administrators will be forced to retrofit facilities and manage infrastructure disruptions, even as air quality on campus deteriorates. Instead of facilitating such injuries, the Trustees should be doing everything in their power to prevent them. The Trustees are bound by an additional legal duty: the requirement to manage Boston College’s assets with prudence. Prudent investment practice simply cannot be squared with the ownership of fossil fuel assets. Investment in the oil, gas, and coal sectors has become excessively risky thanks to increased government regulation and the fossil fuel industry’s own failure to diversify its operations and to avoid capital-intensive extraction. Fossil fuel stocks have performed significantly worse than market averages in recent years. In the last several months, the oil industry has begun to crumble, with the COVID-19 pandemic adding to already historic losses. Coal and natural gas likewise stand to lose much of their value as cheaper, more sustainable energy sources become more readily available. For any prudent investor, these signs clearly indicate that continued investment in fossil fuels is a losing proposition. Exacerbating the industry’s poor financial performance is a well-documented pattern of fraud. Fossil fuel companies such as ExxonMobil have long misled investors by concealing the anticipated impact of climate change and energy regulation on the value of assets like untapped oil reserves. Your office is currently suing ExxonMobil over this practice, building off of years of investigative reporting showing that fossil fuel companies’ purported values are grossly inflated. The Trustees continue to invest in the sector despite their legal duty to exercise care and prudence in avoiding dangerous securities. The Trustees cannot plead ignorance of their duty to divest. For years, Boston College students and faculty have pushed for investment practices that align with the university’s mission. This pressure was instrumental in the Trustees’ decision in the 1980s to withdraw investments from companies doing business in apartheid South Africa, an acknowledgment that their investment activity must comport with Boston College’s missions and values. In recent 2 years, the undergraduate governing body has overwhelmingly passed resolutions calling for the creation of a socially responsible investment committee and for divestment from fossil fuels. An undergraduate referendum calling for divestment passed with 84% of the vote. Numerous letters have been sent to the Trustees on the issue, often in tandem with other Catholic and Jesuit groups. Nonetheless, the Trustees have spurned all efforts at persuasion. In recent months, this intransigence has extended to a refusal even to meet with student leaders advocating divestment. Such behavior cannot be squared with the duty to manage the university’s assets in good faith. It is too late for the Trustees to deny the relation between their investments and climate change. Their obligation under Massachusetts law and the governing documents of Boston College is clear: they must divest from fossil fuels. We have included below a fuller description of the Trustees’ violations, along with documents and reports supporting the claims made in this complaint. Sincerely, Concerned alumni, scientists, politicians, and advocacy groups: Michelle Wu, Boston City Councilor Our Revolution Mass Emily Norton, Newton City Councilor Resist the Pipelines James Hansen, Director of Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions at Columbia Adreinne Allen, ’01 University’s Earth Institute; Former Husband Allen, GCSOM MBA ’09 Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Raymond Bakaitis, MCAS ’71 Space Studies Matthew Barad, MCAS ‘19 Joshua Behrens, MCAS ’18 350 Mass Robert Boberg, LSOE ’63 Atlantic Coast Conference Climate Justice David Brooks, BCSSW ’72 Coalition Edward Byrne, MCAS ’18 Awakening for Earth Evelyn Cassara, BSN ’60 Better Future Project Aaron Cecil, parishioner, St. Ignatius Boston Catholic Climate Movement Church Catholic Divestment Network Anni Cecil, GMCAS ’97, Professor of Climable History, Wheaton College Climate Code Blue James Congo, MCAS ’71 College Climate Coalition James Connor, parishioner, St. Ignatius Divest Ed Church Extinction
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