Here’s The Email Marc Wais Sent To SLAM and Divest Informing Them That Their Demands Would Not Be Met

“Your Insistence on Setting the Terms of How the Board Should Interact with Students and Take Account of Student Concerns: We would ask that you bear in mind that disruption of campus operations falls outside the wide latitude with which we view dissent.”

In an anticipated move, NYU rejected the demands of student activist groups SLAM and Divest. Last week, they occupied two different university spaces to demand three things: that there be student representation on the Board, that the Board hold another vote on the matter of fossil fuel divestment, and that the Board make itself available to students, faculty, and employees.

The full email from Marc Wais, Senior Vice President for Student Affairs, is in full below.

Dear Members of SLAM and NYU Divest,

I am writing on behalf of the University in response to the materials you left with Lynne Brown last week and the demands you made of the University and the Board of Trustees:

• That there be student representation on the Board
• That the Board hold another vote on the matter of fossil fuel divestment in a manner you specify
• That the Board make itself available to you to listen to what you have to say in a setting, manner, time, and place of your choosing

The Materials You Provided: First, let me assure you that the materials you provided to Lynne Brown last week will be shared with the Board members.

Student Representation on the Board: With regard to the issue of student representation on the Board, the University Senate passed a formal resolution at last week’s meeting endorsing student and faculty representation. That process is underway, and it is those resolutions to which the Board will respond. The Board will review the proposal and respond to the Senate publicly and in writing before the end of June.

Another Board Vote on Divestment: With regard to divestment, there appears to be several faulty premises underlying your demand.

For one thing, your position suggests that the Board has not carefully considered your point of view or made itself available to you to hear your arguments, and that is at odds with the facts. During 2016–17, NYU Divest’s materials were shared with all Board members; NYU Divest had several meetings with senior University administrators; and NYU Divest met with Trustees involved with investment decision-making on more than one occasion.

For another thing, you have mistakenly confused the Board’s unwillingness to prohibit fossil fuel investment with a desire to invest in the fossil fuel industry. The Board is not bent on making fossil fuel investments. Their concern is that prohibiting such investments would exclude NYU from participating in many, many funds that they believe are important to growing the endowment, which in turn supports NYU’s academic mission and student financial aid.

And lastly, you have wrongly imputed to the Board a lack of principle when what is really at issue is a lack of agreement with your point of view. You avidly support divestment for reasons you have made clear; the Board does not believe divestment is the proper course for the University for a set of reasons it has publicly described. Surely in a world in which the vast majority of universities and other non-profits have not divested from fossil fuel stocks, there are principled grounds for disagreement. Yet, time and again, you have ascribed only spurious motives to the Trustees’ decision-making.

The Board dealt with this issue thoroughly last year. They have no plans on addressing the issue again in the near future.

Your Insistence on Setting the Terms of How the Board Should Interact with Students and Take Account of Student Concerns: The Trustees value student input and take seriously student concerns. They are open to various ideas about how to expand student voice. And indeed, it is clear that they have made themselves available to representatives of student leadership: in the last year, they have expanded their formal interactions with student representatives by adding an annual dinner between Trustees and student leaders to the existing twice-yearly lunches between Board members and student leaders, the annual meeting between the Board’s Executive Committee and the leadership of the SSC, and the student presence in the annual meeting between the University Senate Academic Affairs Committee and the Board’s Academic Affairs Committee. And there are many informal interactions between Trustees and students.

The town hall setting — with its tendency to be a forum for speeches and public posturing rather than for discussion — is not among the mechanisms they have chosen to seek student input. However, simply because they seek student input through methods other than you have prescribed is not cause to suggest or claim that they do not consult with, seek the opinions of, or speak frankly to the University community, all of which they do.

Conclusion: We appreciate that you remain committed to pressing for student representation on the Board and for divestment of fossil fuels. We would not expect otherwise. In keeping with our campus’s traditions, we respect your freedom of speech and your right to protest. However, we would ask that you bear in mind that disruption of campus operations falls outside the wide latitude with which we view dissent.

At the end of the day, all of us are committed to making NYU the best it can be going forward. Best of luck with the rest of the school year.

Sincerely,

Marc Wais

Senior Vice President for Student Affairs
New York University
Office: 212–998–4401
http://www.nyu.edu/student.affairs
@marcwais