Coalition groups
Yale Organizations
Alternative Senior Class Gift
The Alternative Senior Class Gift campaign invites seniors to question whether Yale, an institution with a $30 billion endowment that refuses to pay taxes to New Haven, should be the recipient of student donations, and encourages seniors to contribute to organizations in the city working directly against Yale's exploitation of New Haven. The 2020 campaign raised over $4600 for the Connecticut Bail Fund, Integrated Immigrant and Refugee Services (IRIS), Unidad Latina en Acción (ULA), and the Yale Prison Education Initiative.
Native and Indigenous Student Association at Yale (NISAY)
The Native and Indigenous Student Association at Yale is a political and cultural student group dedicated to raising awareness of contemporary issues affecting Indigenous peoples on campus and beyond. In addition to raising cultural awareness within the Yale community through events like the Indigenous Peoples' Day celebration and the powwow, NISAY organizes around issues impacting Native students at Yale, including hiring more Native faculty and counting Indigenous languages towards the language credit requirement, as well as issues impacting Indigenous communities worldwide, including the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) and the Wet'suwet'en resistance to the Coastal Gas Link pipeline.
Take action: Subscribe to Indigenizing the News, a digital news source run by former NISAY President Meghanlata Gupta at www.indigenizingthenews.com. To stay up-to-date on events and student work within the Yale Native community, subscribe to the Native American Cultural Center newsletter.
Despierta Boricua (DB)
Despierta Boricua is Yale's Puerto Rican student organization. Founded in 1972 as one of the first Latinx cultural groups on campus, DB hosts events to celebrate the culture, history, and traditions of Puerto Rico and also engages in activism and education around issues facing Puerto Ricans on the island and in the diaspora community, including demanding that Yale cancel its holdings in Puerto Rico's $70 billion debt and fighting for self-determination in the face of centuries of colonial administration, extractivist violence, and austerity politics.
Environmental Justice at Yale (EJAY)
Environmental Justice at Yale is a student interest group at the Yale School of the Environment that promotes environmental justice scholarship and activism. EJAY works to get more YSE students involved in campus activism, including the campaign to divest the endowment from fossil fuels and cancel Puerto Rico's debt, and also to dismantle racism and colonialism within YSE through education and organizing.
Fossil Free Yale (FFY)
Fossil Free Yale has been fighting for the past nine years for Yale to divest its $30 billion endowment from the fossil fuel industry. FFY is part of a global movement that has already won divestment commitments totaling over $14 trillion from faith-based institutions including the Catholic Church, governments including Norway and Ireland, and universities including Georgetown, Oxford, Middlebury, and the University of California system. FFY has worked extensively with Yale's Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility, held rallies, disruptions, and sit-ins, and conducted a student-wide referendum in 2013 in which 83% of students voted in favor of divestment.
Students Unite Now (SUN)
Students Unite Now works to make Yale more accountable to its constituents: students, faculty, workers, and the city of New Haven. SUN demands that Yale eliminate the student income contribution, a punitive measure that disproportionately burdens low-income students, and provide better mental healthcare, by reducing wait times and hiring more LGBTQ therapists and therapists of color. SUN has organized alongside Yale unions and community group New Haven Rising, and fought for Yale to recognize Local 33, the graduate student union.
Take action: Read student stories at sunatyale.org and sign up to get involved.
Yale College Council (YCC)
The Yale College Council is the student government body that represents all undergraduates. YCC elected representatives work directly with the Yale administration to advocate for policy change within the college, organize and sponsor student events, and provide student services. Recently they have advocated for a Universal Pass grading system during the COVID-19 pandemic and raised over $57,000 for Black and Indigenous organizations through the Yale Together fund. Following the 2013 referendum on fossil fuel divestment, YCC unanimously voted to join the Endowment Justice Coalition in 2020, a historic first step for a university student government.
Yale Forward
Yale Forward is an organization of students and alumni working to elect alumni to the Yale Corporation in order to move Yale toward divesting from fossil fuels, committing more resources to climate-focused initiatives, aligning the endowment with the university's values, and making Yale's governance more democratic and representative.
Yale Student Environmental Coalition (YSEC)
The Yale Student Environmental Coalition is an umbrella organization for student environmental groups in Yale College, working to promote an awareness of the environment and climate justice, educate and engage the Yale community through debates and advocacy, advocate for ambitious university policy on sustainability, and foster an energetic environmental community on campus.
Yale Students for Prison Divestment (YSPD)
Yale Students for Prison Divestment is fighting for Yale to divest its endowment from the prison industrial complex and end its complicity in mass incarceration. Established as part of the Yale Undergraduate Prison Project, YSPD has worked with the Yale Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility, published op-eds, participated in teach-ins, and co-hosted a panel with activists who fought for Yale to divest from apartheid South Africa in the 1980s.
Yale Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)
Yale Students for Justice in Palestine is an organization of students and other Yale affiliates dedicated to standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people's struggle for freedom. SJP has held teach-ins on Palestine and Israel, film screenings, and fundraisers for humanitarian aid in Gaza during the COVID-19 pandemic. SJP seeks to contest settler colonial narratives of the Middle East in Yale curricula, events, fellowships, and investments.
Yale Students for Yemen
Yale Students for Yemen is a student-led campaign to raise awareness of the Yemeni crisis, end U.S. involvement in the war, fundraise for humanitarian aid, and promote peace. Students for Yemen has held educational events including a Night of Solidarity with Dr. Cornel West, social media awareness campaigns, fundraisers, national phonebanks, and fasts.
Yale Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA)
Yale Young Democratic Socialists of America is the Yale chapter of the YDSA, a national organization of students organizing in their universities, colleges, and high schools around the immediate needs of workers and students, while building the capacity to fight for more radical and structural changes. YDSA campaigns for local and national DSA candidates, and hosts film screenings, reading groups, and other political education initiatives.
New Haven / Connecticut Organizations
New Haven Climate Movement (NHCM)
The New Haven Climate Movement is an intergenerational, grassroots nonprofit pushing for strong action and policies on climate change in New Haven, CT, and beyond. In 2018, NHCM helped pass the Climate and Sustainability Framework, a comprehensive plan to address the climate emergency. In 2020, the city committed to a zero emissions target by 2030 and dedicated $560,000 towards climate infrastructure projects. NHCM works on education initiatives, community efforts for solar energy and low-carbon transportation options, and advocates for a Green New Deal in CT.
New Haven Rising
New Haven Rising is a community organization of New Haven residents committed to winning economic, racial, and social justice through collective action. In collaboration with local unions, New Haven Rising fights for good jobs for New Haven residents, increased revenue, safe streets, and opportunities for city youth. Most recently, they led a 6 year jobs campaign that secured 1,000 full-time jobs with benefits for New Haven residents at Yale.
Sunrise New Haven
Sunrise New Haven is the local New Haven Hub of Sunrise Movement, an organization of young people building people power to win a Green New Deal, stop climate change, and create millions of good jobs in the process. Sunrise New Haven campaigns in support of local candidates who have pledged to reject fossil fuel donations and to support a Green New Deal, trains organizers, participates in national Sunrise actions and phonebanks, and engages in mutual aid and fundraising support for local racial justice efforts.
Is your organization interested in signing the demands and/or becoming a member group of the EJC? Email yaleendowmentjustice@gmail.com