Executive Summary - Inside Divestment: The Illiberal Movement to Turn a Generation Against Fossil Fuels

Rachelle Peterson

  • Article
  • November 10, 2015

The campaign to get colleges to sell off their investments in coal, oil, and natural gas companies is an attack on intellectual freedom, democratic self-government, and responsible stewardship of natural resources. The fossil fuel divestment campaign projects itself as an organic, student-led movement for “climate justice.” But it is a nationally orchestrated campaign meant to turn the university endowment into a billboard for virtue signaling.

The fossil fuel divestment movement, now on more than 1,000 American college campuses, aims at capturing a generation of college students as lifelong climate activists. This report is the first comprehensive account of how that is happening. 

Download the report (PDF): Inside Divestment: The Illiberal Movement to Turn a Generation Against Fossil Fuels

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Press release

Two-page media packet

Untitled photo by James Ennis, CC BY, edited

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