In response to calls for the university to divest from various interests in the fossil fuel industry, the Stanford Board of Trustees recently reaffirmed their commitment to the support of marginalized communities, noting that one such community is found among companies related to the fossil fuel industry, which comprise only 3% of all companies currently in operation.
The Flipside reached out to the Trustee’s Chair of its Special Committee on Investments, Gene Sykes, for comment. “Fundamentally, we want the same thing that protesters do—for minority voices to be treated with the same consideration and dignity that those in the majority have,” Sykes explained, face betraying no emotion except for a persistent twitching in his right eye. “That’s the root behind our support of the protests—you’ll note, after all, that they’re using gasoline to light things on fire.”
Sykes also referred the Flipside to a statement issued by the Faculty Senate, which remarked that, “while we understand and acknowledge student concerns around divestment, it’s important to keep in mind that our relationship to marginalized communities goes both ways. Just like admitting students of color lets us decorate our brochures with splendidly diverse smiles, accepting oil money lets us continue research like a recent study on why oil spills are great for your skin, or this promising experiment showing that carbon emissions help plants grow bigger and healthier because they use carbon dioxide as food.”
Our interview with Sykes ended earlier as he had to leave to oversee construction of his billion-dollar apocalypse bunker, but he denied any rumors that Stanford’s refusal to divest stemmed from losing the password to the endowment management account when an intern dropped their phone while skateboarding off of MemChu’s roof that one time and it totally broke. He left us with these words of inspiration: “Remember that the only thing that can stop a bad guy investing in fossil fuels is a good guy investing in fossil fuels.”
