This week students have the opportunity to vote in a Student Government Association (SGA) sponsored referendum on the university’s investment in fossil fuels. Though the results of these referendums are generally meaningless for all practical purposes, the intent and message of divestment’s proponents are worthy of attention.
In a world filled with humans, mistakes are bound to happen. It is part of who we are and what we do. But we have marked a gap between mistakes and crimes, making the latter a punishable offense – although not necessarily if you’re an Army general.
In 2007, 2010 and 2013, Congressional hearings on climate change were cancelled or postponed due to snow. While short term weather patterns do not prove or disprove long-term trends, one cannot help but chuckle at the juxtaposition of the two events. In the same vein, DivestNU is pushing for Northeastern’s endowment to cease investing in the fossil fuel industry in the throes of a winter that seemingly will not end.
It’s 2 a.m. on a Saturday, and even though you told yourself you’d catch the last T, you’re still downtown, just heading out of Ned Devine’s. You’ve already dished out a couple of bucks for two beers, but you need to get home somehow. With T service long over for the night, you try feebly to hail a cab, but with such high demand it isn’t until 20 freezing minutes later that you finally get one and hand $15 plus tip to the driver before walking up the stairs to your Mission Hill apartment.
Today, Northeastern University makes investments in the fossil-fuel industry that threaten the stability of our future and directly undermine our mission as an institution.
Edward Snowden’s dispersal of classified National Security Agency (NSA) documents last year raised numerous questions about how much of our lives the government actually sees. Since the release of this information, the public has thrown around words like “big brother” and “spying” to describe the NSA’s information gathering methods. The public outcry has seemed, at times, near-universal – this was a serious breach of trust.
The notices began by telling students that their dorm was scheduled for demolition, and continued on to explain that every year thousands of Palestinians have demolition orders applied to their homes solely because of their ethnicity.
What did you do to pay for college? Perhaps you broke the piggy bank or hoped Grandma would be generous with your graduation gift. Maybe you found a summer job, or two, or three. But for some, even that is not enough.
Northeastern’s temporary suspension of Students for Justice in Palestine over the group’s latest Apartheid Week stunt is a despicable display of censorship not becoming of any academic institution, nonetheless Northeastern, an aspiring “global leader.”
As members of the Northeastern Adjunct Faculty Organizing Committee, we want to tell you about our union campaign and the ways in which we believe our effort will benefit the entire Northeastern University community.
