College Campus Activism:
Editors Note: This piece is a part of a series called 'College Campus Activism'. Start exploring here. For a list of sources, visit our bibliography.
What makes Stanford care?
by Rhea Karuturi
December, 2016
Fossil Free Stanford
Fossil Free Stanford is also a student run group at Stanford University, started in 2012, which calls on Stanford University to “freeze new fossil fuel investments and fully divest from fossil fuels within the next five years.”
The group is a part of a larger movement nationally to divest from fossil fuels and follows Stanford’s historic divestment from coal — giving the movement a recent moment in history to draw on for parallels in rhetoric and to show that this move is very much within the scope of possibility for the University.
The group's website states, “In 2014, 75% of the Stanford undergraduate body voted in favour of divestment” — revealing the impact the group's’ message has had on its audience. FFS uses methods like teach-ins and sit-ins to raise awareness about their cause and make it urgent enough to capture people's attention. Like WTU they also use a recognisable logo tying it to a larger movement nationally and the hashtag ‘#Divest’.
