Following 12 years of mobilization from students and faculty, the Board of Governors (BoG) voted on Dec. 14 to divest from all direct holdings in Carbon Underground (CU) 200 fossil fuel companies. This is a significant step toward greater environmental justice and a well-deserved victory for Divest McGill, an organization whose central role in pushing McGill to divest has been entirely neglected by the university.

Since 2012, Divest McGill has carried much of the student and faculty activism on their shoulders, pressuring the university to divest from fossil fuels. Simultaneously engaging in disruption with students and conversation with the administration, multiple generations of McGill students have continuously called on the university to address its role in the climate crisis. Yet McGill’s announcement of their decision to divest makes no mention of Divest McGill, thus completely erasing student activism from their narrative.

Although this commitment to divestment and the relentless student activism that led to it should be celebrated, there is nothing radical or revolutionary about the university’s initiative. Following the path of Harvard and Concordia, McGill’s decision is part of the institution’s performative effort to protect its reputation and keep fueling its greenwashing machine. At other Canadian institutions, such as the University of British Columbia , the divestment plan has been set to take almost 10 years, not to be completed until 2030. On the other hand, McGill has committed to divest from its direct holdings in CU200 companies by 2025. 

Now more than ever, the student body—this generation and the next—must continue mobilizing to hold the university accountable to its commitment to sustainability. Divesting only from direct holdings is not enough—McGill must carry out the same initiative with its remaining indirect holdings in CU200 companies, and also other investments into companies that produce fossil fuels.

But to truly commit to the goal of sustainability in which McGill prides itself, the university needs to acknowledge that climate justice and social justice only exist with each other. The announcement of divestment from fossil fuels occurred strategically after students overwhelmingly voted for the Policy Against Genocide in Palestine and its targeting of investments in companies that fund occupation and apartheid in Palestine. McGill cannot use divestment from fossil fuels as a distraction from student and faculty calls demanding divestment from companies complicit in the genocide of nearly 25,000 Palestinian people in Gaza. Instead, divestment from fossil fuels sets a fundamental precedent for other necessary and urgent forms of divestment.

In 1985, McGill was the first Canadian university to take a moral, political, and economic stance through its investments and divest from corporations complicit in South African apartheid in response to student activism. This commitment to protect human rights must stand the test of time, and the university must stop co-signing murder and genocide by putting an end to their investments supporting both the Israeli regime and violence around the world.

The Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) has a critical role to play in holding McGill accountable to their commitment to divest. With every policy presented by SSMU and voted on by the student body, students’ demands stand behind a united front and become harder for the university to ignore. Although the university’s administration and its governing structures have an overwhelming amount of control over student governance—and has time and again bypassed student democracy—the SSMU President is the sole undergraduate voice sitting on the BoG representing students’ demands. In 2021, SSMU adopted the Divest for Human Rights Policy along with several other student organizations, which played a significant role in pressuring the university to divest from fossil fuels. The policy also demanded that McGill cut ties with companies that enable violence against Indigenous peoples in the Americas, Palestinians, Yemenis, and Uyghurs. SSMU must keep its commitment to this policy and pressure the BoG to implement every single demand for divestment.

The step that McGill took last December is a major victory for student activists, but not the end of the fight. Student mobilization must build on Divest’s success and grow stronger to ensure that the university actively commits to social justice in every aspect, from climate justice to the protection of human rights.