Friend, We know that universities and colleges across the country have been captured by Charles Koch and his dark money network manufacturing their ideas inside of higher education. Despite their undue influence, universities have still maintained faculty and funding from the Koch network. A parallel issue can be seen in the lobbying industry, where companies, NGOs, universities, cities, and other institutions who are unilaterally opposed to climate change, use lobbyists with ties to large fossil fuel companies. One might argue that this is not a concern due to the fact that it is common for lobbyists and lawyers to work for a variety of organizations with diverse interests and ideological depositions, and while this may be true, lobbyists are not required by law unlike attorneys to protect the information of their clients. Now we have to deal with Koch lobbyists inside higher education… These “double agent” lobbyists are a clear conflict of interest for institutions working to combat the effects of climate change. F Minus is a newly created searchable database that was generated by compiling the public records of lobbyists up to 2022. The new project, which is a partner of UnKoch My Campus, reveals that more than 150 universities have ties to lobbyists who are also involved in fueling the interests of fossil fuel companies. This is exceptionally troubling considering that many of these institutions have publicly announced their commitment to fossil fuel divestment. |
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UnKoch My Campus is a project dedicated to disrupting corporate influence on campuses nationwide by equipping campus activists with education, skills, and ecosystems of solidarity. The Koch network is leveraging its donations to colleges and universities to bolster its corporate agenda to halt action on climate change, put hundreds of thousands of people in prison, deny millions of people healthcare, and strip rights and wages from workers globally. We're building a mass movement of young people who are dedicated to disrupting this harm. |
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