The Board of Trustees has decided to revisit its choice to not divest from publicly-traded oil and natural gas companies, instead opting to invest more in fossil fuels.

The Board of Trustees previously concluded that fossil fuel divestment was simply “not practical” because of the fossil fuel industry’s support of research, especially with respect to the School of Earth. 

Stephen Graham, dean of the School of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences, has said that the fossil fuel industry funds a significant portion of environmental and alternative energy research on campus.

However, with the Boards’ recent pledge to accelerate Stanford’s transition to at least net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, the Board of Trustees decided it best to invest more in fossil fuels.

“If we want to do more environmental and alternative energy research, we ought to invest more in these companies so they’ll invest more in us,” said Gene Sykes M.B.A. ’84, chair of the Board’s Special Committee on Investment Responsibility.

“Nothing is more abhorrent and ethically unjustifiable than seeing fossil fuel stocks tumble,” he added.

Fossil Free Stanford noted its disappointment in the Board’s unsurprising vote, arguing that the industry has undoubtedly captured the university’s interests.

“Honestly, we would make shirts of the Stanford logo with a $ instead of the S to show how they’ve been bought out, but Stanford would probably sue us on grounds of propriety,” said Fossil Free Stanford.

Editor’s Note: This article is purely satirical and fictitious. All attributions in this article are not genuine and this story should be read in the context of pure entertainment only.

Contact Richard Coca at richcoca ‘at’ stanford.edu.