Students expose Big Oil ties at universities around the country.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 18, 2024 5:30P ET

Students expose Big Oil ties at universities around the country.

 NATIONWIDE - Students from six universities, including public and private institutions, hosted a virtual press conference entitled: Big Oil’s Stain on Our Universities. At the conference, students presented research on the fossil fuel industry’s influence on the research, curriculum, and academic programs at their universities. The conference included reports from American University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Princeton University, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and University of California San Diego.The conference highlighted case studies from Columbia University and Princeton University. 

The six reports demonstrated significant contributions from the fossil fuel industry, including over $100 million in direct fossil fuel industry funding to universities and 1,507 fossil fuel industry-funded academic articles, and shined a spotlight on the biased research and narrative that this funding produces. 

This research was conducted by student researchers in the Campus Climate Network, a coalition of student-led climate justice groups who are pushing their universities to cut ties with Big Oil. The reports add more detail and evidence to what these students have already been campaigning for – fossil fuel funding has no place in universities’ climate research. Campaigns for Fossil Free Research have gained momentum around the country at schools like Stanford University, Harvard University, Duke University, Brown University, MIT, and more. 

“It’s time for our universities to become real climate leaders and cut ties with the fossil fuel industry once and for all. These student-written reports are only the beginning – we have a strong, national student movement that will continue to expose and cut the ties with Big Oil,” said Maddie Young, Research Manager at Campus Climate Network and student organizer at Sunrise Movement American University.

The revelations come on the heels of a Congressional investigation on Big Oil’s Denial, Disinformation, and Doublespeak. The investigation demonstrated how Big Oil has systematically deceived the public on the realities of climate change, in part by co-opting our universities. The press conference also featured speaker Geoffrey Supran, co-author of the recent study on how university funding from fossil fuels is slowing the switch to green energy. “Most of what we already know about the oil industry’s relationship to academia, we know actually from students and NGOs, not actually from academics. I’m really proud to have an ongoing formal research collaboration with CCN that bridges the gap between academia and activism.” said Supran at the conference.

As we face yet another summer of record-breaking heat and see climate disasters affect communities around the world, fossil fuel companies continue to rake in record profits and protect business as usual. Students know it’s time for their universities to cut ties with this destructive industry. The first step is to expose those ties.

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