T

he University of Michigan had a total enrollment of 
48,090 students in fall 2019, but apart from people 
flooding Ingalls Mall during Festifall or joining the 
crowd walking toward the Big House on game day, there has 
seldom been a moment I’ve felt the weight of how huge the 
University actually is. People are constantly bustling through 
the Diag, earbuds in, laughing with friends or climbing up the 
steps to Hatcher. However, I’ve never seen such concentrated 
effort and clear community support as on March 15 and Sept. 
20 for the Washtenaw County Climate Strikes. University 
students and community members alike showed up en 
masse to speak out against Ann Arbor’s and the University 
of Michigan’s complacency in the climate crisis and the need 
for immediate, direct action. While activism and protests on 
campus have occurred around me for all five of my semesters, 
the climate movement has made itself visible and loud — 
despite the University’s unwillingness to listen.
The University has a well-documented history of student 
activism that ranges from widespread participation in the civil 
rights movement in the 1960s to strong anti-war efforts during 
the Vietnam War. Students at the University have historically 
invoked their freedom of assembly as a response to social 
and political change off campus and to promote institutional 
accountability and awareness in Ann Arbor. 
Today, students continue this legacy by organizing protests, 
teach-ins, social media campaigns and strikes. They do so with 
the goal of addressing injustices the University has seen in 
recent years — acts of racism on campus, controversial sexual 
misconduct policies and the obvious lack of climate action 
efforts. While the scope of these movements can vary student 
activists have been deliberate in using grassroots organizing 
to make their causes accessible while making clear demands 
for local action. 
Past student activism — particularly the anti-apartheid 
movement — reflects the obstacles institutions create for 
activists who are fighting to have their needs met. The anti-
apartheid movement was prominent on campus from the mid-
1970s to the late 1980s, and was fueled by nationwide protests 
at universities with investments in corporations linked to 
apartheid in South Africa. These conversations were part of 
great political, economic and ethical discourse, not only in Ann 
Arbor, but across the entire U.S. On March 16, 1978, the Daily 
published a near-full page spread headlined “How nation 
views S. African holdings,” with two separate subsections 
titled “Congress frowns on investments” and “Business, unions 
join debate …” The piece includes an editor’s note commenting 
that this article preceded the University’s Board of Regents 
monthly meeting where the board was expected to discuss 
what to do — if anything — about University investment in 
South African companies.
The piece outlines the arguments for and against divestment 
following a report to the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign 
Relations’s Subcommittee on African Affairs, where it was 
determined “the net effect of American investment has been 
to strengthen the economic and military self-sufficiency of 
South Africa’s apartheid regime.” This led to three different 
recommendations by Congress, which included cutting U.S. 
credit to South Africa, denying tax credit to U.S. corporations 
paying taxes to the South African government or withholding 
the official endorsement of private groups that defend South 
African investment. While none of these recommendations 
were direct divestment, the subcommittee commented on the 
potential need for stronger action, should the recommendations 
prove ineffective.
The 
prominent 
national 
conversations 
regarding 
investments were focused on by students and The Michigan 
Daily. As The Daily reported on March 18, 1978, then-editors 
requested the Board of Student Publications to “withdraw 
the paper’s assets from University investment pool” in protest 
of the Regents’ inaction on divestment from South African 
companies. The request was denied. 

The Daily then reported more in-depth on the board’s 
decisions in its March 19, 1978 edition. 
It was explained that the board “adopted Regent Thomas 
Roach’s resolution, which calls on the University to vote at 
shareholders’ meetings in favor of reforming the apartheid 
governmental and social structure in South Africa.” 
This resolution also called for the University to write to 
other corporations to encourage the adoption of the anti-
discriminatory Sullivan principles, which are two corporate 
codes of conduct that promote corporate social responsibility.
To contextualize anti-apartheid sentiment on campus, South 
African graduate student Leonard Suransky commented to 
The Daily for the March 19, 1978 article: “The name University 
of Michigan goes before you and echoes around the world. … 
Always the term education is linked to morality … we are not 
going to change South African policy by politicking with our 
stocks.”
The inaction of the board caused a continual push for 
change, with activists making their concerns and voices 
known and causing significant strife between the board and 
the Washtenaw County Coalition Against Apartheid. This led 
to mass demonstrations in and outside board meetings, with 
events like the March 15-16, 1979 Board of Regents meeting 
where WCCAA organized a protest with over 200 students, 
demanding a review of South African investment and its 
immediate divestment. This prompted the board to issue a 
temporary restraining order against WCCAA — and the arrest 
of two students. University 
President Allan Smith, in a 
letter to the public, emphasized 
that the Regents’ agreement 
to review investments was 
strong enough, and the need 
for “action now”, which the 
students were calling for, was 
inappropriate.
Small wins came alongside 
more student protests, and 
demonstrations 
regarding 
both 
divestment 
and 
the 
administration’s 
silencing 
of student activism became 
routine. On April 19, 1979, the 
Regents meeting was protested 
by 
WCCAA 
participants 
wearing gags, who had stated 
through a press release that 
“we are gagged today because; 
a) the Regents have used the 
courts to stifle the spirit of 
the Open Meetings Act; b) 
for two years the Board of 
Regents have avoided open 
discussion of divestment; c) 
in South Africa, to call for 
divestment is a violation of the 
Terrorism Act of 1967, which 
is punishable by a minimum 
sentence of 5 years and a 
maximum sentence of death.” 
These 
protests 
continued 
alongside the board’s votes 
against divestment, until May 
1979, when “the University 
divested $227,647 from Black 
and Decker Manufacturing 
Company.”
With 
help 
from 
the 
Michigan legislature — led 
by state Rep. Perry Bullard, 
D-Ann Arbor — legally-driven 

divestment became possible. Student protests continued 
to draw attention to the anti-apartheid movement at the 
University, and the protests continued well into the late 1980s 
as the University fought legal battles against state bills, 
particularly Bullard’s House Bill 4553, which was eventually 
signed into law on Dec. 31, 1982 and became Public Act 512. 
This act forced the divestment of Michigan public colleges and 
universities from South African companies, and the University 
had until April 1, 1984, to completely divest these stocks.
While the University fought in court against the law, 
largely over semantics regarding the “unconstitutional 
intrusion upon the powers and the authority of the Regents 
to direct expenditures of the University’s funds,” they did 
come to the “90% Solution,” which divested the University 
from all American corporations that operated in South 
Africa, excluding those with significant impact in the state of 
Michigan.
In the same way that longstanding, public protests 
against apartheid led to campus awareness and support, 
environmental activism has been extremely visible following 
the mass participation of locals and University students in the 
March 15, 2019 Washtenaw County Climate Strike. This strike 
was part of the Global Climate Strike and Fridays for Future 
movement created by environmentalist Greta Thunberg in 
August 2018. The demands of the Washtenaw County Climate 
Strike, an initiative put together by a number of Ann Arbor 
climate activism groups, including but not limited to the 

University’s Climate Action Movement, included a subsection 
titled “Stay Committed in Good Faith: Create Ambitious 
Climate Goals and Accountable Decision-Making Processes,” 
which was echoed by a sit-in staged in the University’s Fleming 
Administration Building following the rally. 
At this March sit-in, protesters had one demand before 
they would agree to leave: President Mark Schlissel commit 
to having a minimum one-hour public meeting moderated 
by a student of the organizers’ choice. Ten protesters were 
then arrested. And despite Schlissel’s letter to the Climate 
Action Movement six days later, following the arrests, in 
which he agreed to meet this single demand with a public 
session that was subsequently planned for and held April 9, the 
charges against the climate protesters continued and are still 
continuing. Calls for the administration to drop these charges 
has become a central push of climate activists, with the 
Climate Action Movement circulating a petition that currently 
has more than 700 signatures. 
The Climate Action Movement is “a coalition of University 
stakeholders … that are driving the President, Regents and 
Deans to enact sustainability policy and ethics that reflect 
the values of the broader U of M community with a focus on 
the commitment to, and attainment of, carbon neutrality.”
U.S. News & World Report published a piece headlined “10 
Universities With the Biggest Endowments” in which the 
University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, was ranked eighth with 
an $11,733,013,000 end of fiscal year 2018 endowment. The 

article defines university endowments as “the value of their 
investments based on donated money and financial assets, 
which can total billions of dollars,” and contextualizes the 
use of these funds across university expenses. A National 
Association of College and University Business Officers 
study from earlier this year, examining 802 U.S. colleges 
and universities, found that an average of 49 percent of 
endowment funds are dedicated to student scholarships 
and financial aid programs, while others are funelled into 
university projects, like the construction of residence halls.
With this understanding of the endowment in mind, the 
topic of divestment has been contentious between climate 
activists and the University administration, with Schlissel 
publicly stating in his April 9 public session that “Essentially, 
we don’t divest. It’s not this cause, it’s essentially all causes. 
… We get more payout from our endowment here than we get 
money from the state of Michigan, so it’s really critical for us 
as a robust university. … If we begin the process of narrowing 
what the endowment can invest in, based on very valid 
arguments and concerns from sincere people, the ability to 
invest shrinks, the value of the endowment goes down and 
the institution suffers. We’re just not going to divest.” 
Despite the endowment’s vast economic complexity and 
the administration’s dedication to maintaining a robust and 
open business strategy, the Climate Action Movement stands 
behind the push to divest the $1.12 billion the University has 
invested in natural resources according to the 2018 Report of 
Investments. Natural resources 
are defined in the report as 
“investments 
in 
companies 
located primarily in the U.S. that 
produce oil and natural gas, and 
companies that service those 
industries, as well as non-energy 
related investments in minerals, 
mining, and wetland restoration.” 
Despite 
Schlissel’s 
statements 
concerning the lack of will of the 
University to divest regardless of 
the cause, members of the Climate 
Action Movement have a clear 
basis to point back to the historical 
precedent of the anti-apartheid 
movement. There are reasons for 
the economic separation between 
the 
University 
and 
ethically 
problematic industries.
When discussing the call for 
divestment and the response of 
the administration, Sasha Bishop, 
a member of the Climate Action 
Movement and Ph.D. student in 
ecology and evolutionary biology, 
stated “one of the arguments 
that we’ve heard a lot from the 
University is that the endowment 
is not political, right, but they 
have actually in the past taken 
the stance that it is, given the 
instances where they divested 
from apartheid and tobacco.” 
Contextualizing the Climate 
Action Movement with pushes 
against 
morally 
abhorrent 
investment from the past gives 
clarity to the extent to which 
student activism must go in order 
to 
receive 
credible 
attention 
from influential institutions like 
the University. In the case of 
apartheid, it took years of student 

protests to prompt the involvement of the state legislature, 
which led to the University’s eventual push toward the 
blatantly clear and ethical choice of divestment. With the 
20/20 vision that historical hindsight gives, the University’s 
eventual, 90-percent divestment from South Africa can 
be seen as a stand against the wrongdoing of an oppressive 
government and something to proudly stand behind — 
despite the University’s shameful years-long fight against 
moral political activism.
Dim Mang, LSA senior and Climate Action Movement 
member, cited two of the Climate Action Movement’s 
biggest demands — divestment from fossil fuels and carbon 
neutrality by 2030 — and commented on the importance of 
care when working with a coalition. She stated that “Working 
in coalition with whether it’s undocumented rights or 
affordable housing … we are trying to be as supportive as 
possible. But our main goals have really been the divestment 
from fossil fuel initiatives, and then carbon neutrality.” 
Mang then went on to comment on the University’s 
response to the activism she’s been involved with on campus. 
According to Mang, “They have the same response to all 
student activism, which is that they’ll give you just a little bit 
so that they can kind of keep you at bay, but they won’t give 
you what you actually need to be able to sustain and do the 
work you want to do.”
Climate activists have echoed Mang’s frustration over the 
University’s cosmetic responses to the activism happening, 
with solutions that only work to placate the movement. 
This is evident in contradictory actions like Schlissel’s 
April 9 public session, despite the University’s choice 
to continue prosecuting the climate activists who were 
arrested on March 15 to have this meeting. Or the creation 
of the President’s Commission on Carbon Neutrality which is 
intended to “(develop) recommendations for how to achieve 
carbon neutrality for U-M, as well as develop scalable and 
transferable strategies that can be used by other institutions 
and larger communities to achieve the same goal.” However, 
the University does not allow the commission to discuss 
either divestment or the expansion of the Central Power 
Plant, an institution that continues and will continue to tie 
us to fossil fuels.
As a touted research institution, with an entire school 
dedicated to sustainability and the environment, the 
University is aware of the dangers of climate change. Climate 
change is upon us. It was stated at a U.N. General Assembly 
this March that there are only 11 years left to prevent 
irreversible damage from climate change. But for many 
communities of color, low-income communities, indigenous 
communities, members of the LGBTQ community and other 
marginalized peoples, the time is already up and the effects 
are already real. Climate action must come now, and the 
University must listen to the voices of its students and faculty 
who refuse to accept complacency. Climate action is ethical 
social justice, and it must be prioritized.
The University continues to respond to climate activism 
with a mixture of appeasement and suppression, but student 
activism must go on and pressure the University to take 
the proper stand against the climate crisis. It is laborious 
work, but necessary in making student voices heard. Bishop 
ended our interview by commenting on the importance 
of student activism on the University campus. After citing 
the University’s mission statement “to serve the people of 
Michigan and the world” she stated “And so in that sense, 
from my perspective, at least, (the University is) beholden 
to actually listen to students when they are saying that 
something is wrong. The University is not actually serving 
the people of Michigan, and the people of the world in the 
way that it should be. … And when it comes to climate change, 
we really are talking about the subject of the entire planet.”
Erin White is a Senior Opinion Editor and can be reached at 
ekwhite@umich.edu.

Wednesday, December 4, 2019 // The Statement
4B
5B
Wednesday, December 4, 2019 // The Statement

ILLUSTRATION BY JONATHAN WALSH

Climate Inaction: 
Historical activism 
and the University’s 
irresponsible 
response to the 
climate movement

Climate Inaction: 
Historical activism 
and the University’s 

irresponsible 

response to the 

climate movement

