From the Newsstands: This story appeared in The Eagle's December 2024 print edition. You can find the digital version here.
The following piece is an opinion and does not reflect the views of The Eagle and its staff. All opinions are edited for grammar, style and argument structure and fact-checked, but the opinions are the writer’s own.
University administrations and governing bodies play a significant role in developing campus communities, especially through the values they implement and set for student bodies. Board members are critical in the establishment of such values. At American University, the Board of Trustees is tasked with making fiscal and policy decisions for the University, as well as representing the school’s mission as its ambassadors. However, many of the sitting members on the Board’s business interests conflict with the values of sustainability and peace held by the school and student body.
Board members who directly contradict the established values, commitments and goals of its community are a significant concern amongst student movements. In their contradictions, the Board of Trustees limits, and at times undermines, the voices of the student body it is meant to represent. As decisions made by board members often supersede all other governing bodies at the University, such limitations can rule out student input in critical decision making processes.
AU has development-based campus-initiatives, but sustainability is often in the forefront of its operations. However, the school and members of the Board of Trustees, including Gaurdie Banister, Alan Meltzer and Jeff Sine, maintain ties and interests to the fossil fuel
industry.
Banister is a member of the Board of Directors at oil Enbridge, an energy company that builds and maintains oil pipelines. Despite investments in renewable energy sources, Enbridge’s maintenance of pipelines threatens local ecosystems and impedes upon the rights of local indigenous populations. Enbridge also established Line 3, an oil pipeline that has been met with national protest from climate justice activists and indigenous groups. Banister’s vested interest in a crude oil pipeline conflicts with the school’s commitment to sustainability and the student body’s resolve to address climate change.
Banister is not the only trustee with ties to the fossil fuel industry. Meltzer is the CEO and Founder of the National Financial Partners Corporation, which has connections to offshore
There are clear divides between the values that the University claims to establish versus the values they directly support. These divisions spotlight the school’s potential lack of commitment to positive global change.
Sine is another member of the University Board and founder of the Sine Institute of Politics and Policy for university-wide collaboration and policy innovation. He is a co-founder of the Raine Group, a financial advisory group that works with BlackRock. BlackRock has invested several billions in weapons and arms that endanger people from Ukraine to Palestine, profiting from the very conflicts that students are protesting and striving to resolve. BlackRock denies the core value of human dignity that the University prioritizes on its campus to the global community.
American University, particularly the School of International Service, has committed to resolving
conflicts and “wage[ing] peace,” a commitment that has been reflected in the student body. Students often table on the quad advocating for climate action, an end to gun violence or
supporting victims of domestic violence. Sine’s affiliation with BlackRock highlights yet another conflict between trustee member interests and the values and mission of our school community. As students look to promote peace, the University’s Board seems to hold interest in tools that encourage violence.
More pressing, one member of the Board, Wes Bush, formerly served as the CEO of Northrop Grumman, the world’s third-largest weapons manufacturer. It is an industry that profits from the sale of arms, and by extension, their use. The company is affiliated with and benefits from the violation o f international human rights law, supported by the ICJ ruling on the occupation of Palestine, which is facilitated by weapons supplied by Northrop Grumman. The company is also tied to militarization along the U.S.- Mexico border and surveillance and privacy concerns raised by their involvement in the HART system.
It is difficult to have faith in a board “committed to peace and justice” while still holding a vested interest in the opposite, but it is harder still to believe that their decisions are in our best interest. As arguably the most influential governing body within our institution, it does not seem unreasonable to say that the members of the Board embody the true values our University prioritizes.
This is not to say that the University should not take donations nor that it should not have a board of trustees. However, the presence of these partnerships highlights conflicts of interest that make it difficult, and at times unwise, to believe that our Board of Trustees serve as ambassadors of the community values this school claims to uphold.
Students feel these conflicts of interest when they call for divestment or climate action. While students attempt to develop our school into the leader of sustainability, change and justice that we know it can be, our Board of Trustees conducts policy in a different direction. Our primary decision-makers must follow community values, and in this way, establish our University as a changemaker. We need board members who have an express and dedicated commitment to our school values and are representative of the aspirations of the student body. Such a board would not only demonstrate the institution's commitment to these values as educators and on an international stage, but exhibit a commitment to its student body as well.
Correction: Jeff Sine has worked with sustainability and engaging the campus community, including with creating the Sine Institute at American University. Raine Group was an advisor for funds and accounts managed by BlackRock on their minority investment into MACRO.
Urjita Mainali is a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences and a columnist for The Eagle.
This piece was edited by Alana Parker, Rebeca Samano Arellano and Abigail Turner. Copy editing done by Luna Jinks, Emma Brown, Sabine Kanter-Huchting, Ella Rousseau, Nicole Kariuki and Charlie Mennuti. Fact Checking done by Sasha Dafkova and Hannah Paisley Zoulek.
