Student Hunger Strike, Day 2: Columbia University To Meet Students
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 20, 2019
Student Hunger Strike, Day 2: Columbia University To Meet Students
Four Columbia students are on the second day of a hunger strike that started at 9 AM, Monday, November 18.
University officials will meet with the students on Wednesday morning.
The strike will continue until Friday evening or until the university declares a climate emergency and publicly agrees to an immediate, community-led divestment from fossil fuels.
Photos, videos and background information: http://bit.ly/XRCU-hunger
New York, NY, 20 November 2019—Four Columbia students are on the second day of a hunger strike aimed at compelling Columbia University to respond to the climate and ecological emergency. After the first day, the university agreed to a meeting with the students—but not until Thursday, four days into the hunger strike. The students, who range in age from 19 to 24, requested that the meeting be moved up and include Columbia president Lee Bollinger or a trustee representative. The university has agreed to meeting the students at 10 AM on Wednesday, November 20.
Their action is part of a global hunger strike of rebels from the international nonviolent direct- action movement Extinction Rebellion. More than 400 rebels in 27 countries joined the hunger strike Monday, demanding that their systems of power respond appropriately to the climate and ecological emergency. Hunger striking has been used as part of many previous nonviolent movements including women’s suffrage, Mahatma Gandhi’s struggle in India, and the students of Tienanmen Square.
Extinction Rebellion Columbia University, composed of students, staff and neighbors, maintains that the university must engage in a divestment campaign led by a community assembly, including leaders from local communities as well as representative members across the university.
“Universities all around the world have been divesting their endowments from fossil fuels and if Columbia wants to be a climate leader, which it says it does, it only makes sense for them to do the same,” said Abby, from her seat below a painting of Athena. “The support of all the people who came by and talked to us yesterday only makes me think we are on the right track.”
The strikers will continue refusing food until the university declares a climate and ecological emergency and publicly announces plans for a community-led divestment. Extinction Rebellion Columbia University is open to ending the strike when a meeting with proposed outcomes is scheduled, and looks forward to speaking with key members from the Earth Institute and from the Advisory Committee for Socially Responsible Investing.
Extinction Rebellion is an international movement framed within regenerative culture that uses nonviolent direct action to achieve radical change to reduce the risk of human extinction and ecological collapse. The four demands of Extinction Rebellion Columbia University are:
1. TELL THE TRUTH
The university must declare a climate and ecological emergency, acknowledging that its current plan is a lie of omission, erasing the hundreds of thousands already dead and the weight of the crises to come.
2. ACT NOW
The university must plan to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions—including complete divestment from fossil fuels—by 2025.
3. FORM A COMMUNITY ASSEMBLY
The university must create an assembly of community members, modeled on Citizens’ Assemblies, in order to deliver a binding resolution on the university’s path towards divestment and net-zero emissions.
4. ENACT A JUST TRANSITION
This assembly must include leaders from the surrounding communities, and foreground the voices of frontline populations, in addition to representative numbers from all stakeholders within the University (staff, students, faculty, and administrators alike).
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