Fossil Fuel Recruitment

The fossil fuel industry is poison. Why is it still allowed to recruit Harvard students?

In October 2022, ExxonMobil held a recruiting event at the offices of the MIT Earth and Planetary Sciences department. The event was advertised to both MIT and Harvard science students, intending to draw them into a career at ExxonMobil. Around thirty students from Harvard and MIT showed up to protest this event, compared to less than ten who had real interest.

The reason for that discrepancy is clear: young people don't want to work for a company that undermines their future. In recent years, ExxonMobil has devoted less than a quarter of a percent of its annual expenditures to clean energy, and numerous independent analyses have found the corporation has no credible net-zero plans. In 2021, with its announced divestment, Harvard determined companies like ExxonMobil were too dangerous, too antithetical to science and progress, to continue investing in. 

So why are fossil fuel companies still allowed to recruit Harvard students? Why isn't Harvard looking out for its students and their futures?

Working for Harvard, or for Exxon?

Part of the problem could be that many top administrators, faculty, and decision-makers at Harvard also work for fossil fuel companies. Even some people who work for Harvard climate initiatives are being paid handsomely by companies that undermine the climate at every turn. 

Theodore Wells

At Harvard: Member of the Harvard Corporation, Harvard's highest governing board; holds power over Harvard's endowment decisions

Outside Harvard: A lead attorney for ExxonMobil as well as fossil fuel financiers Citigroup, JP Morgan, and Bank of America