Daily Sitka Sentinel

Former Sitkan Joins in Suit Against Harvard

By SHANNON HAUGLAND and

The Associated Press

A former Sitkan is among seven Harvard University students who filed a lawsuit this week to force the university’s governing body to divest investments in fossil fuel companies.

Kelsey Skaggs. (Photo provided)

The lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday in Suffolk County Superior Court in Boston, alleges investment in fossil fuel companies violates the university’s duties as a public charity. The complaint asks the court to compel Harvard Corp., the governing body, to stop investing any of its $36.4 billion endowment in gas, coal and oil companies because their products contribute to global warming.

Kelsey Skaggs, who grew up in Juneau and worked in Sitka for two years, was among the seven students who filed the lawsuit. She is currently a student at Harvard Law School. In Sitka she was pro bono program coordinator for the Alaska Network on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault legal program from 2011 through 2013.

Speaking to the Sentinel today from Cambridge, Mass., Skaggs said she has been involved in the divestiture campaign since last winter. The university has $79 million in direct holdings, in addition to indirect holdings, in fossil fuel companies, she said.

“Climate change is the most urgent issue that we’re facing,” she said. “I felt as a Harvard student I have a platform – because we have the privilege of being part of a great institution, we have the responsibility, too, to ensure that Harvard lives up to its values or at the very least doesn’t contribute to the destruction of the planet.”

Skaggs and two other law students wrote the 11-page complaint, with about 100 pages in supporting exhibits. Three others are undergraduate students, and the seventh is a graduate student in applied physics.

Skaggs, a second-year law student, said filing the suit has been a learning experience in itself.

“We think we will be able to force Harvard to fulfill its legal obligation even if it fails to recognize the moral implications of its investments,” she said.

Benjamin Franta, another plaintiff, commented in an Associated Press story: “Climate change is now causing harm through mortality, economic damage and political instability. The Harvard Corporation has a moral and legal duty to avoid investing in activities that cause such grave harms to its students and the public.”

Harvard spokesman Jeff Neal said university leaders agree that climate change must be confronted but “differ on the means” to do that. Neal says Harvard continues to focus on supporting research and teaching to create climate change solutions.

In a letter to the Harvard community in October 2013, university president Drew Faust called climate change “one of the world’s most consequential challenges,” but said she and her colleagues on the Harvard Corporation do not believe that divestment from the fossil fuel industry is warranted.

“The funds in our endowment have been given to us by generous benefactors over many years to advance academic aims, not to serve other purposes, however worthy,” Faust wrote. “The endowment is a resource, not an instrument to impel social or political change.”

Skaggs belongs to the Environmental Law Review, and is a member of the Environmental Law Society at Harvard Law School. She is also a member of the Harvard Law School Forum.

“The important thing here is Harvard has an obligation to us as students not to contribute to this (environmental) harm,” Skaggs said. “We feel we have to do everything we can. The university has refused to discuss the issue openly.”

Sitka attorney Christine Pate, who worked with Skaggs during her two years with the domestic violence network, said she was not surprised to hear Skaggs was involved in this lawsuit because she knew she was an activist on the divestment issue.

“Kelsey has always been a passionate advocate for causes she believes in,” Pate said. “She’s a rabble-rouser, so good for her.”