By Eli Farrington
The California State University has always been vocal about the role of higher education in fighting climate change, but a new report from climate research group F Minus suggests that the University’s ‘pro-climate justice’ stance may not be as transparent as it seems.
Founder and Executive Director of F Minus, James Browning, previously worked for Common Cause, a non-profit watchdog organization that promotes the core values of democracy and works to hold the American government accountable. During his time there, he worked on several campaign finance issues and corruption cases, which piqued his interest with lobbyists who had seemingly incompatible clients. As he continued to investigate, a pattern began to emerge.
“If you look at all these lobbyist lists, you see thousands of lobbyists who are clearly working to promote fossil fuels while also representing institutions like Cal State, whose students, faculty and neighbors are being devastated by the climate crisis,” Browning said.
The Origin of F Minus
In July 2023, Browning launched F Minus, which he describes as a divestment campaign with a goal of pressuring institutions like the CSU system to stop working with lobbyists who are also employed by coal, oil and gas companies. His goal with F Minus is to raise awareness amongst educational institutions that employing lobbyists with ties to fossil fuels makes them responsible for byproducts of the fossil fuel industry.
On Jan. 14, F Minus released a 25-page report titled “Hypocrisy 101: How Lobbyists for Higher Education Are Making the Climate Crisis Worse.” The report contains a list of every university in the country that employs a fossil fuel lobbyist. There are over 200, but the report focuses specifically on the top 20.
“We profiled the top 20 schools because these are [the] schools where there’s a lot of good things happening on climate,” Browning said. “These schools have divested, but this good work is radically at odds with the bad things their lobbyists are doing on climate.”
The Cal State University section of the report articulates their hypocrisy regarding the climate crisis, highlighting the many ways in which the university’s contracts with oil lobbyists contradict its Higher Ed Climate Action Plan.
This plan, which was in part spearheaded by CSU Chancellor Mildred García — who sits as co-chair of the Higher Ed Climate Action Task Force — advocates for swift and immediate action to be taken by higher education institutions in the fight against climate change.
“The effects of climate change are harming people and communities across our country and the globe,” the plan reads. “These effects will only worsen in the decades to come … There is a critical opportunity for higher education to leverage its strengths to build knowledge, foster innovation, enhance communities, and model solutions to help build a sustainable, resilient and just world.”
In the Hypocrisy 101 report, F Minus points out the irony of this statement, noting that the CSU Chancellor’s office is directly responsible for the employment of lobbying firm Sloat Higgins Jensen and Associates, which is employed by Chevron as well. The firm also represents Pacific Gas & Electric, which has been blamed for over 30 wildfires since 2017, according to both NPR and PBS News.
“In June 2023, the California Faculty Association, representing 29,000 CSU faculty and staff across all 23 of its campuses, testified in favor of a bill (SB 253) that would require businesses with revenues exceeding $1 billion to disclose their Scope 3 emissions,” the report said. “Opposing the bill was CSU’s own lobbying firm, Sloat Higgins Jensen, on behalf of its client Chevron … CSU’s lobbying firm has represented Chevron on the wrong side of every major California climate bill over the past two years.”
Backlash Against CSU
Luis Angel Martinez, campaigns organizer for Fossil Free California, shared the report’s frustration with CSU, adding that the catastrophic LA fires are yet another example of the impact that the fossil fuel industry has on the environment.
“I think it’s completely unacceptable that the CSU system understands [the harm] that their students are going through when these climate disasters happen, and is still working with the perpetrators of that harm,” Martinez said.
Martinez believes that the only way to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for the harm that they have caused to these communities — and to the planet at large — is to cut contact and demand financial reparations.
“As a former CSU student and a Los Angeles native, I am appalled that CSU and the UC system continue to employ lobbying firms that also represent fossil fuels,” Martinez said in an F Minus press release. “In the midst of the most devastating fires in our city’s history, it’s time to sever all ties with the industry that is responsible for this harm. The CSU system must no longer employ lobbying firms that also represent fossil fuels if they are to stand in solidarity with their own students and low-income communities of color being disproportionately harmed by the climate crisis.”
Jennifer Marlow, an associate professor of environmental law at Cal Poly Humboldt, said in an email that the Hypocrisy 101 report provides more evidence of the fossil fuel industry’s pervasive underbelly. She noted that Cal Poly Humboldt has its own Climate Action Plan, which details, “strategies to reach carbon neutrality and climate resilience,” by 2045.
“The timing of this [hypocrisy] is interesting, as the federal governmental structure for addressing climate change is being dismantled by the incoming administration,” Marlow said. “So my confidence is guarded right now — I can’t be confident about anything.”
Responses from Climate Activists
Marlow’s uncertainty echoes the general consensus among many climate justice advocacy groups, especially with President Trump beginning his second term in office. In his first few days, Trump signed executive orders withdrawing the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement, and terminating the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights. These orders imply that the president intends to keep his “drill, baby, drill” promises, striking fear in the hearts of environmentalists everywhere, including student climate activists across the California State University system, whose tuition dollars are helping fund an industry that directly opposes the messages of the CSU’s Higher Ed Climate Action Plan.
Alicia Colomer is Managing Director of the Campus Climate Network, a coalition of student-led climate justice organizations fighting to push the fossil fuel industry off college campuses.
“The fossil fuel industry has been lying to the public about the causes and severity of the climate crisis for years,” Colomer said. “These companies use tactics like lobbying, PR and biased research to promote a false debate about climate change in order to continue business as usual.”
The Campus Climate Network wants universities to have the opportunity to be climate leaders, innovate and find just solutions to the climate crisis.
“It’s time for our universities to prioritize our futures over their relationships with the fossil fuel industry and cut all ties,” Colomer said. “It is hypocritical for our schools to on the one hand claim to care about climate justice and sustainability and on the other continue to fund and support the lobbyists that do Big Oil’s dirty business.”
Many climate activists and members of the environmental movement across California were disappointed to learn of CSU’s problematic relationship with Sloat Higgins Jensen, including Scott Kelley, Associate Professor of Biology at San Diego State University. Kelley is quoted in Hypocrisy 101 expressing his disdain for the decisions of the Chancellor’s Office.
“Chancellor García has been vocal about the pressing need to address the climate catastrophe, which makes it shocking to learn that her office directly employs a lobbying firm that also works for Chevron, one of the biggest fossil fuel polluters on the planet,” Kelley said in the report. “Surely, CSU can find a higher-ed firm that does not also work for a company that is actively destroying California.”
As a lifelong climate justice advocate, Kelley has watched the fallout of the climate crisis unfold before his own eyes.
“This has never happened in my lifetime,” Kelley told The Lumberjack. “No one has ever heard of this many fires. Nobody has ever seen this many hurricanes. Nobody has seen tornadoes in New York, where I grew up … These are the hottest days we have ever seen in human history — that is not normal.”
Kelley expanded on his interpretation of Cal State University’s relationship with Sloat Higgins Jensen, saying that while he knows that CSU did not hire the firm based on their clients in the fossil fuels industry, he is sure that CSU is aware of these clients, and believes that the University should be seeking out a lobbyist with a more neutral or climate-friendly clientele portfolio.
“I know faculty whose houses have burned to the ground [in LA],” Kelley said. “The climate crisis is real. It’s hitting us in the face like a freaking sledgehammer. F Minus has shown that [CSU] is supporting, through lobbyists, the fossil fuel companies. We’ve got to take this seriously. Our own students are being hammered with it. Our faculty’s houses are burning to the ground … That is nuts. Anyone who says otherwise is just a liar, or has something to sell you.”
Eli Farrington is a highly intelligent human life form working as the opinion editor for The Lumberjack. In his free time, he enjoys analyzing the complexities of the human condition. His passion for journalism knows no boundaries and exceeds time and space itself.
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