By Erasmus Baxter
The Associated Students in an awkward situation.
In November, the Associated Students board of directors issued a resolution of solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.
“[The AS] support the efforts of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe to preserve Native burial grounds, to maintain cultural heritage and to preserve Treaty Rights against the harmful transport of fossil fuels across vulnerable and protected lands,” the resolution read.
However, the university’s current banking situation means that the Associated Student’s funds are held in an account at Wells Fargo, one of the financial backers of the DAPL.
Mary Moeller is the AS Vice President for Business and Operations. She says that there is support among the AS board for divesting from Wells Fargo, but they are unable to separate from the university’s bank due to the way that funds are managed.
Student fees that fund AS programs are placed into the university’s general fund. From there they are distributed between the AS, Department Related Activities Committee (colloquially known as “DRAC,” this committee covers music, forensics, theatre, dance, publications, and international affairs association), varsity athletics and sports clubs. The AS then distributes their chunk into specific programs.
However, the money never actually leaves the university account until it’s spent. Any movement of funds is just an accounting device.
“It seems like it’s impossible for the AS to not use Wells Fargo, because we go through the university [for our banking],” Moeller said.
However, she sees room for the AS to push the university to move to a local credit union, like the Whatcom Educational Credit Union instead.
“I think now would be a good time to begin pushing for [divestment from Wells Fargo] with the political climate and Seattle divesting from Wells Fargo,” Moeller said. “We have a pretty strong case to make because our money is closely tied to [the fund].”
Wells Fargo has been having a rough year.
In September of 2016, Wells Fargo was fined $100 million by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for widespread fraud. Employees had been routinely opening fraudulent accounts and credit cards in customers’ names. In addition to the fines, Wells Fargo was required to repay $2.6 million in fees that had been inappropriately charged to customers.
Wells Fargo has also been targeted by activists for its financial support of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) and investments in private prisons.
As a result, the cities of Seattle and Chicago, the states of Illinois and California and the University of California system have all cut ties with Wells Fargo in the last 6 months over a combination of these issues. Even more customers have closed their personal accounts in protest.
Currently, Western contracts with Wells Fargo for banking services. Western’s accounts total $5 million to $6 million, according to Paul Cocke, Western’s director of communications and marketing.
“It is important to note that, unlike changing a financial institution for an individual, which can easily be accomplished in a day, changing financial institutions for a large university such as Western is complex and time-consuming,” Cocke said. “In the case of the City of Seattle, according to media reports, the city council ordinance does not end the city’s relationship with Wells Fargo immediately. The ordinance says instead that it will not renew its contract with the bank when it expires at the end of 2018.”
Western’s contract with Wells Fargo is up for renewal next year, and the university will undertake a competitive bid process open to all financial institutions, according to Cocke.
For her part, Moller says she plans to meet with WECU to talk about submitting a proposal when the bidding opens. In the meantime, she is considering a resolution by the AS board to ask Western to move away from Wells Fargo.
Raquel Wilson is the Business Manager in the Dean of Students Office at the Viking Union. She believes that student input could have an impact on the choice of a bank.
“The university responds to students,” Wilson said.
As of February 17, university administration had not heard from any student groups about divesting from Wells Fargo, according to Cocke.