Amid schisms, political division, and accusations of racism, Tufts Climate Action (“TCA”) is traversing the worst storm of its 12-year existence.
Since 2012, TCA’s primary goal has been convincing Tufts to divest from fossil fuels. To achieve this end, they set up meetings with the administration, organized protests at Tufts and in Boston, and even filed a formal legal complaint against Tufts regarding the university’s investments. Before COVID, Tufts boasted a wide array of climate activist organizations with a variety of focuses. TCA was the only one that survived COVID and has since shifted from its once-singular focus on university divestment from fossil fuels. Surprisingly, TCA’s change of course was not spurred by new environmental objectives, but rather other political issues.
After the October 7th, 2023 terrorist attack and subsequent Israel-Hamas war, some TCA members began informally discussing the environmental impacts of the conflict. Many club members felt that, as organizers concerned with environmental issues, the war in Gaza compelled them to speak up about what they saw as a climate-related matter.
The organization engaged in multiple discussions about the possibility of making a public statement. Most members who argued for the statement desired for it to be explicitly pro-Palestine. However, other members were opposed, maintaining that if a statement was made, it should be in support of Israel instead. Another contingent thought it was best to stay neutral on the topic. The organization was at a deadlock, and their “solution… was just to mostly stay quiet,” according to Will Soylemez, a TCA member who spoke with the Tribune.
Some members, however, were not willing to tolerate this silence. In early November of 2023, three club leaders sent a statement to the TCA email list explaining why the inaction and “neutrality” of the organization was obliging them to resign. These three students believed that for TCA, neutrality toward the war in Gaza was oppressive, signaling their complicity. Although TCA’s expressed mission centers on climate activism, they argued that the situation in Gaza is inherently an environmental issue. In the email, they explained that “climate movements, including TCA, must operate with solidarity and intersectionality, centering the rights of marginalized people and amplifying their voices.” They also asked other TCA members to “rethink what it means…to be a climate organizer, and what it means to be in TCA.”
According to the statement, the issues with TCA began long before October 7th. TCA had previously reached out to the Indigenous Students’ Organization at Tufts (“ISOT”) regarding land acknowledgments at TCA events. In the spring of 2023, the organization received an email highlighting how ISOT had felt disrespected by TCA’s members for years. ISOT alleged that their members “ha[d] been harassed [and] tokenized by [TCA]” and that “every time” the club has met “with Indigenous students, it has resulted in trauma.” By focusing only on divestment and thus taking a narrow view of climate justice that prioritizes personal benefit, ISOT argued that TCA “fails to acknowledge the intersecting layers of oppression faced by marginalized communities, including Indigenous students, who are disproportionately impacted by environmental injustices.”
TCA made some internal efforts to address ISOT’s allegations. The departing TCA members say that they endeavored to restructure the club, expand the organization’s mission beyond a single-issue focus, and build solidarity with other justice-oriented groups on campus. Sanya Desai, one of these three former members, spearheaded the organization’s creation of a working group focused on community engagement, environmental justice, and racism. However, others in the club leadership did not mirror these reform efforts, according to Desai: “It quickly became clear that there wasn’t much motivation to actually follow through, and that it was… pretty performative.”
According to the letter from the departing TCA leaders, the failure to enact genuine change generated a rift within the club. The former members “urge[d] the rest of TCA to reflect on why every effort to expand [its] focus from divestment this semester has been driven by…students of color.”
Desai feels that TCA’s institutional structure exacerbated the club’s internal division. Officially, the leadership board consists of 15 equal individuals with loose roles tied to specific working groups within the organization. However, according to Desai, it was not so egalitarian in practice. A de facto hierarchy based on seniority emerged, entrenching practices that Desai thought undermined other justice goals.
With these building frustrations, the club’s lack of a response to the Israel-Palestine conflict convinced the three members to defect. Their parting letter stated that “TCA as a whole has no desire to reflect and reform. Those who do are impeded by the overall leadership’s resistance to growth.” Desai said they decided to author this statement because they “thought it was really important that everyone who’s part of the organization knew what kind of harm they were being complicit in.”
After the three members left the organization, those who remained decided to release a statement regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict on Instagram in mid-November of 2023, well after the war had started. The post condemned anti-semitism and Islamophobia in all forms, acknowledged the devastation and loss of life in both Israel and Gaza, and supported calls for a ceasefire that included the return of Israel’s hostages. According to Soylemez, the organization deliberated extensively to formulate this statement. Soylemez remarked that “[i]t was really difficult, and honestly, it kind of tore us apart.”
After posting the statement, more club leaders resigned, while other members simply stopped attending meetings. Soylemez said that the remaining members were discouraged by the lack of attendance, deciding to pause club operations for the spring 2024 semester.
This year, Soylemez and two other members are attempting to revive TCA after much reflection about their role on campus. “I think we were sort of self-centered in our collaboration sometimes,” Soylemez said. Going forward, the organization plans to be more proactive in reaching out to and collaborating with other clubs rather than simply seeking to advance TCA’s interests.
Ironically, it was TCA’s focus on climate action that led to its fracturing. Despite their identity as a single-issue club, some members expected the organization to adhere to a broader policy platform. This expectation raises questions about the viability of single-issue political clubs at Tufts.
TCA faced pressure to divert its attention and resources towards the Palestinian cause at the expense of pursuing its primary mission of focused climate activism. The letter from the departing members expressed the “hope that [TCA] reflect[s] on this email and join[s]” the departing members in the fight for true justice—climate justice, human rights, and liberation—starting with Palestine.”
The letter also asked TCA to temporarily pursue Palestinian advocacy in lieu of their initial climate goals. Though the defectors expressed a desire “to continue working on climate justice on campus,” they resolved to focus their “energy on justice in Palestine.”
According to Desai, the reasoning behind the requests was to strengthen collective student action focused on these issues. She claims that unified student action signals to administrators that these movements are not merely composed of “a couple organizers that the school can just suspend, or isolate.” By amalgamating different interests under the umbrella of collective action, Desai believes that, “student movements in the past, like Vietnam…[were] successful because of the collective power that was being built.”
In TCA’s case, the confounding variable was that their membership disagreed on the Israel-Palestine issue. TCA boasted diverse gradations of political thought, united by the common goal of environmental activism. There were members of TCA who wanted to make a pro-Palestine statement, others who wanted to make a pro-Israel statement, and some who felt uncomfortable speaking on the issue at all.
By pressuring TCA to redefine its identity from a club dedicated to climate action to one based on climate action, pro-Palestinian issues, Indigenous rights, and other objectives, the unifying thread of TCA unraveled. Should participation in an environmental advocacy club be limited to those who also champion pro-Palestinian issues? Should an intellectually diverse club have to homogenize in order to survive?
TCA’s schism is a microcosm for the internal division that any single-issue advocacy organizations on campus may confront in the future. They were faced with the choice to either adhere to the politics of intersectionality or pursue their founding principles. TCA was not initially decisive and suffered dissolution as a result. As TCA attempts to rebuild its organization on the principles of intersectionality, their story serves as a cautionary tale for any issue-focused campus organization without broad ideological conformity.
Photo: Students for Justice in Palestine Protest Outside Tufts Career Fair (September 27th 2024)