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SIGNATORIES SO FAR: 820]

3 February 2020
Professor Maggie Snowling, President, St. John’s
Professor Andrew Parker, Principal Bursar, St. John’s
St. John’s College, Oxford


Dear Professor Snowling, Professor Parker, and all Oxford college leadership,

We are alumni and alumnae of the University of Oxford who have watched in admiration as students brought their deep concern for this planet to your front door. Of all of the reactions to their protest, one in particular has stood out to us: after St John’s Principal Bursar, Professor Parker, wrote to students with the suggestion that he turn the central heating off instead of divesting from fossil fuel companies, he lamented to The Times that, before “emitting slogans”, he would rather “if everyone stops and thinks.” (1)

The suggestion seems to be that the students who decided to spend cold days and nights in the St. John’s quad – after years of publishing reports (2), meeting with bursars, and passing motions in student common rooms (3) – have not done any thinking.

We each remember a moment in our own studies when we were encouraged to think on larger scales, dive into the root of a phenomenon and critically examine the status quo. This is what is expected of students in their coursework. It is very clear to us that these student campaigners have taken this mode of thinking outside of the lecture hall and applied it to the greatest injustice of our time. Here is what they have done:

1. Their consideration of climate change on a large scale identifies extraction of fossil fuels as a primary cause of catastrophically high carbon emissions.
2. Their deep dive into the root of the problem recognises an economic system committed to infinite growth at the expense of ecosystems and human communities.
3. Their critical examination of the status quo sees investors and insurers propping up the fossil fuel industry while offering no serious challenge to their business model of burning carbon (4).
4. Finally, they have asked themselves where they stand in all of this, and how they might best leverage their power. They have concluded that it is through requesting policy change as members of a wealthy, respected, and influential investing institution.

They have stopped and thought. Alongside thousands of campaigners worldwide, they have offered a systemic analysis of a global crisis and have chosen to put pressure on those systems so that we might transition to renewable energy rapidly, safely, and together. This is a far cry from the narrow vision of turning off a building’s heat, or the demand that students make “personal sacrifices” (5). (Indeed, many of them already do.)

Moreover, the students have listened. They reference the demands of indigenous and marginalised communities to cut ties with the industry intent on seizing their land and endangering their water with no sign of stopping (6). They have listened as divestment has become a doable, even mainstream, tactic to stigmatise and pressure fossil fuel companies that still only invest 3% of their capital, on average, in low-carbon activities (7). It has become so doable that your neighbours at Balliol College fully committed to removing fossil fuel exposure in the part of their endowment that they control earlier this week. The $13 trillion worth of endowments, portfolios and funds that have divested from some or all of the fossil fuels includes the Rockefeller family charities (heir to the first great oil fortune); the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund (largest pool of investment capital on the planet); the massive pension funds of New York City; large religious denominations including the World Council of Churches; the University of California’s $80 billion endowment and pension fund, and no less than half the colleges and universities in the UK (8).

We are immensely proud of these younger generations of Oxford students for having the clarity to connect themselves to a global, strategic movement for change rather than addressing the climate crisis solely as individuals. We are dismayed that as they escalated the volume of their request with a legal protest, leadership at St. John’s marginalised and dismissed them, disabling their room keys and blocking blankets, sleeping bags, and food. We hope that any future peaceful direct action students take is met with humanity and respect for the urgency with which they act.

In light of your troubling response to this peaceful occupation and continued refusal to align your endowment with climate justice, as alumni and alumnae, we cannot in good faith donate to St. John’s, the University of Oxford, or any college which has not made a divestment commitment at this time. We join the nearly 1,000 alumni and donors who have previously pledged to withhold donations (9) until the University of Oxford makes a commitment to full fossil fuel divestment. The St. John’s graduates among us now apply this pledge to the College, and the rest of us apply it to our own Colleges.

It is our hope that you see these brave students as thinking, dreaming, and struggling with all of us in mind. We stand with them and will continue to support them as they seek systemic change.

Yours,

the Undersigned

Sources:
(1) The Times, “Professor at St John’s College, Oxford, turns oil row into a heated debate”, 31 January 2020
(2) Oxford Climate Justice Campaign, Averting a Climate Crisis, Investing in a Sustainable Future at Oxford University https://oxfordunifossilfree.wordpress.com/about/our-report-averting-a-climate-crisis/
(3) https://cherwell.org/2018/06/15/divestment-rally-held-at-clarendon-building/
(4a) Fossil Free Index, SHAREHOLDER RESOLUTIONS IN THE CARBON UNDERGROUND 200 COMPANIES, 2012-2016: A COMPLEX PICTURE, September 2016
(4b) As You Sow, Shareholders Must Demand Oil & Gas Companies Implement Paris Compliant Plans, September 2019
(5) Professor Parker: “It is all too easy to request others to do things that carry no personal cost to yourself. The question is whether you and others are prepared to make personal sacrifices to achieve the goals of environmental improvement (which I support as a goal).” The Times, “Professor at St John’s College, Oxford, turns oil row into a heated debate”, 31 January 2020
(6) https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/09/climate-movement-takes-aim-wall-street-because-money-only-language-fossil-fuel
(7) InfluenceMap, How the oil majors have spent $1Bn since Paris on narrative capture and lobbying on climate, March 2019
(8) The Guardian, “Half of UK universities have committed to divest from fossil fuel”, 13 January 2020
(9) https://campaigns.gofossilfree.org/petitions/oxford-university-alumni-call-for-divestment