Staffordshire becomes first UK higher education institution to remove both sectors from its investment portfolio

~ Cristina Sykes ~

Student campaigners have hailed a significant first after Staffordshire University committed to exclude fossil fuel companies from its investment portfolios as well as those involved with border surveillance, incarceration and forced migrant deportations.

Although the student-led network People & Planet University League has already achieved 111 wins for its Fossil Free campaign over 12 years, and five for Divest Borders four years on from its launch, Staffordshire is the first UK university which has jettisoned the interlinked industries.

“Students are unequivocal in their position that we must recognise that these systems of injustice are deeply interconnected, and that universities must lead by example”, said André Dallas, co-director of migrant justice at People & Planet.

Cardiff Metropolitan, Kent, Northumbria and Worcester universities have already committed to divest from the border industry, while Staffordshire is the first to acknowledge the interconnection between climate and migrant justice with its action.

“The exploitation of people and the planet cannot be separated”, said Dallas, “they are both symptoms of the same underlying forces privileging profit over integrity. It is the same systems of capitalism and colonialism that appropriate land, resources, and labour for profit, and that use the border industry to maintain a relationship of extraction with the Global South”.