Stanford Professors Call for Further Fossil Fuel Divestment

300 senior faculty publish letter criticizing oil and gas investments.

January 11, 2025

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STANFORD, CA — Last May, Stanford announced it was divesting from the coal industry, making it the largest endowment so far to make such a decision. In a letter published by the Guardian this Sunday, Stanford faculty are demanding further action.

300 Stanford professors have signed on to a letter published today, addressed to Stanford’s President Hennessy and the university’s Board of Trustees. While applauding last year’s coal divestment, the letter argues, “The urgency and magnitude of climate change call not for partial solutions, however admirable; they demand the more profound and thorough commitment embodied in divestment from all fossil-fuel companies.”

The Stanford letter includes diverse support, with faculty from the English department, to Economics, to Earth Sciences, to Engineering.

Professor Mark Jacobson, known for his research on the feasibility of 100% clean energy generation in the United States, is one of many notable signatories. “The Governor of California, during January 2015, set a goal to run the state on half renewable power and reduce oil use for transportation by half within 15 years,” Prof. Jacobson said in a statement. “This goal was inspired and justified by Stanford's own scientific results. Stanford and other universities should follow the lead of the state in the transition."

Also among the signatories are former Stanford president Donald Kennedy, and two Nobel Prize winners, Professor Douglas Osheroff (Physics, 1996) and Professor Roger Kornberg (Chemistry, 2006). Professor Maryam Mirzakhani, among last summer’s recipients of the Fields Medal, known as the “Nobel Prize of Mathematics,” also signed on.

The letter from Stanford academics follows a series of faculty initiatives at peer institutions, including a Harvard Faculty for Divestment letter with 226 signatories, and a Faculty Association resolution at the University of California, Berkeley.

“When university faculty get this organized, you know something momentous is happening,” said Stanford Senior Michael Peñuelas. Peñuelas is the Faculty Liaison for Fossil Free Stanford, the student campaign that has been spearheading the charge for fossil fuel divestment.