 As a president for more than a decade at Wesleyan, Roth has been made to react to various divestment demands from students over the years, often being the target of protests.See "Condemnation of BDS"

Various student groups, including WesDivest and Climate Action Group, have been pushing for the Wesleyan University endowment to divest from fossil fuel companies since the early 2010s.After a 2015 protest to divest from the fossil fuel industry, private prisons, and the Israeli occupation, Roth posted a blog post, stating,"Try as I might, I have a hard time understanding how Wesleyan (and even all universities) selling stock in fossil fuel companies would have any impact on climate change.