Buyer of stolen Harvard Medical School human remains pleads guilty
Jeremy Pauley, a Pennsylvania man accused of the knowing purchase and resale of body parts stolen from the Harvard Medical School morgue, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and interstate transportation last week, according to The Harvard Crimson.
According to prosecutors, former Harvard Medical School morgue manager Cedric Lodge sold the remains to Pauley and multiple other buyers across the country. Lodge faces an indictment from a Pennsylvania grand jury and a class-action lawsuit filed against him and Harvard.
The class-action suit also implicated two other employees in the Anatomical Gift Program, where Lodge worked, for neglect. According to The Crimson, neither faces criminal charges.
New York University announced divestment from fossil fuels, pledge to achieve net zero by 2040
NYU announced its decision to divest from fossil fuels in an August letter from Chair of NYU’s Board of Trustees William R Berkley to Sunrise student organizers.
NYU pledged to have no direct investments in companies having primary business in the “exploration or extraction” of fossil fuels — applying to the top 200 coal, oil and gas companies — and no associations with private funds investing in the exploration or extraction of fossil fuels, according to The Guardian.
In 2014, 4% of NYU’s endowment — which sat at a little over $3 billion — was invested in coal, oil and gas in 2014. The university doesn’t directly own any public securities of fossil fuel companies today.
The school also plans to reduce food-related emissions and has slashed greenhouse gas emissions from building energy, pledging to achieve net zero by 2040, The Guardian previously reported.
Trinity College joins fellow University of Toronto federated colleges in committing to fossil fuel divestment by 2030
The University of Toronto’s Trinity College announced that it would fully divest its endowment from fossil fuel companies by 2030, according to The Toronto Star.
The announcement comes a few months after the University of Toronto’s two other federated colleges — Victoria College and St. Michael’s College — committed to divest from fossil fuel companies. In October 2021, the University of Toronto itself pledged to divest its $4 billion endowment from fossil fuel companies by 2030.
While Trinity College does not currently hold direct investments in fossil fuel companies, it does hold a small portion of externally managed pooled funds that have indirect investments in the industry.
The college’s board of trustees will form a subcommittee to develop a plan to remove any remaining indirect investments in fossil fuel companies while preserving the “quality and diversity” of its endowment funds’s investments, The Star reported.
Climate Justice UofT, a student organization at the university, stated that divestment by 2030 is “not good enough” according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which stated that global emissions must go past their peak after 2025 to prevent the most catastrophic impacts of climate change, The Star reported.
