Divest Harvard campaign for fossil fuel divestment, 2012-2016

Starting in 2012, the multi-year Divest Harvard campaign pressured Harvard University to withdraw its financial investments from fossil fuels. Harvard had the largest endowment of any university in the world, valued at approximately $33 billion in the early 2010s. The campaign included at least 20 protests. Initially, student activists targeted the university president and administration. Early on, in September 2012, Harvard student activists secured over 1,300 signatures on a pro-divestment petition, which they delivered to the Vice President of Harvard during a rally. That November, they sponsored a student referendum for fossil fuel divestment at Harvard, which garnered 72% of the student vote. By 2014, over 70,000 people had signed on to the campaign, and support from over 270 faculty members supported it. In April 2015, the campaign mobilized Heat Week, a week-long series of protests led by Divest Harvard, with at least 8 protest actions including a blockade of Massachusetts Hall, which housed the President's office, with 150 people. By 2016, activists began to target the Harvard Management Corporation, with an April 2016 Heat Week demonstration where thirty protesters gathered outside of the Boston Federal Reserve building, which housed the HMC's offices, wearing orange and holding painted signs with “Fossil Free HMC.” University leadership repeatedly offered to meet with students yet refused to divest, claiming that the endowment should not be leveraged for political activism and that change should be pursued through research. Years later, in fall 2021, Harvard University President Lawrence S. Bacow announced a major win for the campaign: a transition to divestment, in which remaining investments of the University's then-$41.9 billion endowment in the fossil fuel industry would expire and the HMC would plan to end further investments.