Harvard Climate Justice Coalition v. Harvard College

In 2014, Harvard Climate Justice Coalition and individual Harvard students filed a lawsuit against the President & Fellows of Harvard College (Harvard Corporation) and Harvard Management Company, Inc. and asked them to divest from fossil fuel companies. Plaintiffs argued that the university’s investment in fossil fuel companies was a breach of its duties because it contributed to climate change and other harms to “the public’s prospects for a secure and healthy future".

Background
The Harvard Climate Justice Coalition is a group of Harvard students concerned about climate change and Harvard University's involvement in it. The students are Alice Cherry, Benjamin Franta, Sidni Frederick, Joseph Hamilton, Olivia Kivel, Talia Rothstein, and Kelsey Skaggs. Additionally, the Harvard Coalition said it was acting as a "next friend of Plaintiffs Future Generations, individuals not yet born or too young to assert their rights but whose future health, safety, and welfare depends on current efforts to slow the pace of climate change". The students brought the lawsuit because Harvard refused to divest from fossil fuels, despite widespread student support. The suit argues that the effects of climate change are serious, immediate, and severe that Harvard's involvement with fossil fuels is a violation of its nonprofit duties since the investment harms both students and future youth.

The President of Harvard, Drew Faust,

The Massachusetts Superior Court dismissed the action in 2015 because the individual students did not have the standing because their rights as students were “widely shared” with thousands of other Harvard students and were not “specific” and “personal” enough to endow them with standing. The Massachusetts Appellate Court upheld the decision in 2016