University of Denver trustees delayed a decision Friday on a student-led request to pull investments from oil, natural gas and coal companies.
The private university’s board of trustees was scheduled to vote on the matter Friday, but a school spokeswoman said the board’s answer now isn’t expected until next week. The board’s meetings are closed to the public.
A DU task force to study fossil fuel divestment has held seven hearings, from July through October. The panel, which includes three university trustees, was formed after an April presentation from students, who focused on the “urgency of the climate crisis, its environmental costs and the University of Denver’s moral obligation to combat it,” according to a statement by task force chairman Jim Griesemer.
The idea has been , and the Independent Petroleum Association of America held a Denver forum last month. The forum kicked off a counterattack on 350.org, a New York-based climate-activist organization focused on persuading institutions to purge fossil fuel investments.
The University of Colorado, Colorado College and Fort Lewis College, along with Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have rejected similar student-led petitions in recent years. Naropa University in Boulder is the only Colorado higher-education institution that has pledged to divest. Yale University, Stanford University, the University of California and the University of Washington have dropped investments in coal or otherwise “partially” divested in fossil fuels.
