For decades, fossil fuel companies have known that burning fossil fuels would cause climate destruction. Shell’s own reports from the 70s revealed that “increases in the CO2 content of the atmosphere could… induce major climatic changes.” And they were right. In the past few years alone, we’ve seen record-breaking temperatures, abnormal storms, and unprecedented climate displacement. And yet, these companies have systematically downplayed the gravity of climate change and pushed for deregulation that would help their bottom-line. They have consistently and systematically prized profit over human lives.

But these companies couldn’t do it alone. They needed the prestige of our elite institutions to make their biased reports believable and to leverage universities’ prestige and credibility. So while poisoning our planet, these companies also poisoned our schools. They took over our centers of learning and research and used them to their advantage, spreading their toxic influence all over our academic processes. They then used the reports they created, with the prestige of the universities they polluted, to influence public policy and law, strategically pushing for ways to keep business as usual untouched. All while wreaking havoc on the planet.

But we are not letting them get away with this anymore. Students and faculty want to make their universities sites of innovation and breeding grounds for real climate solutions. We want to create the future we want and deserve, not help destroy it. So we are kicking Big Oil out of schools.

Fossil Free Research is the flagship campaign of Campus Climate Network. Already, we’ve uncovered millions of dollars in research funding at our universities and won Fossil Free Research policies among individual faculty members, academic departments, at centers and institutes, and university-wide. Your school could be next.