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by Students Against KGI
Thursday, Oct. 26, 2000 at 7:00 PM
stopkeck@wildmail.com
The Claremont Colleges plan to build nation's first biotechnolgy school in east LA County on local nature preserve. Call or email the presidents of the colleges to help stop it!
errorCALL TO ACTION: COUNTRY'S FIRST BIOTECH SCHOOL FOUNDED IN CLAREMONT, CALIFORNIA!
THE PROBLEM: You may have heard of the Claremont Colleges, a consortium of mostly undergraduate schools in southern California. These include liberal arts schools such as Pomona College, Pitzer College, Scripps College, Claremont McKenna, and the science school Harvey Mudd. Unfortunately, the Claremont Colleges have decided to add another college to the consortium: the Keck Graduate Institute (KGI).
The Keck Graduate Institute is THE NATION'S FIRST SCHOOL DEVOTED ENTIRELY TO BIOTECHNOLOGY. This is a field that is coming under increasing fire from scientists, environmentalists, and concerned citizens worldwide, because whatever its potential for good, biotech research is being carried out with a recklessness to rival the chemical and nuclear technologies of previous centuries, with a much greater potential for severe and irreversible damage. Why? Because, like the previous industries, biotech research is being spearheaded by corporations. Therein lies the sinister nature of KGI.
KGI prides itself on its ties with the biotech industry. It has "corporate partners," a "corporate roundtable," and many of its trustees are current or past employees of biotech corporations. These corporations will take an active role in setting the curriculum of the school. Furthermore, they will sponsor student research, then RETAIN ANY PATENTS resulting from it, including patents on living organisms. In essence, these graduate students will be paying to work for biotech companies.
Who are these companies? They are some of the worst corporations worldwide, with histories in Nazi medical experiments, stolen genetic information, recurring fines for severe pollution, stockpiling of carcinogenic pesticides in third world nations, illegal exportation of potential biological weapons . . . the list goes on. Some of the names may be familiar: Bayer, Celera, duPont, Genentech. A complete list of KGI's corporate roundtable is given at the end of this email.
KGI WILL NOT BE OFFERING TENURE TO ITS FACULTY, thus at one stroke eliminating all pretense of academic freedom from the institution. Professors will never speak out about ethical violations or questionable research going on at the college, because they can easily lose their jobs.
To top it off, the colleges have decided to build KGI on the Bernard Biological Field Station, a plot of undeveloped land currently used by the colleges as an outdoor research lab. The Bernard Field Station (BFS) contains one of the largest remaining concentrations of Coastal Sage Scrub, the severely threatened ecosystem that once covered all of LA County - building on this site would do irreparable environmental harm. KGI has not even addressed the risks of potential escape onto the land of genetically modified organisms in the case of earthquake or fire. Furthermore, the BFS was the site of a pre-Columbian village, and the Gabrielino-Tongva who lived there strongly oppose the plan to build on the BFS. There is a high likelihood that there are still undiscovered artifacts on the land, and the Tongva consider the BFS a vital link to their past. They, as well as the students and faculty of the Claremont Colleges, have been ignored. Faculty resolutions at four of the six Claremont Colleges condemned the plan to build on the Field Station; five faculty resolutions condemned KGI's lack of tenure. At least two student polls over the last few years have found that the majority of students are opposed to building on the Field Station. Jeremy Rifkin (author of The Biotech Century) voiced his opposition to a biotech school being built on the Field Station when he visited campus last year, and just recently Ralph Nader resoundingly criticized KGI's corporate ties. But the plan to build KGI proceeds apace.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
This is a serious issue. Corporate sponsorship of biotechnology, the patenting of life, the rape of the environment, and the trampling of indigenous rights concern us all. TELL THE COLLEGE PRESIDENTS THAT YOU OPPOSE THE KECK GRADUATE INSTITUTE, and that KGI IS BAD FOR THE CLAREMONT COLLEGES! Important points to make:
1) The Claremont colleges will suffer from negative association with biotechnology, a controversial new science receiving increasingly negative press in Europe and America.
2) The Claremont colleges will suffer from negative association with KGI's sponsoring companies.
You might mention that this is already happening; the Inland Valley section of the LA Times (10/21/2000; "Nader Stumps in Valley," Rene Luna) reported on Nader's criticism of KGI: "Nader encouraged students to oppose the planned Keck Institute, saying that biotechnology is a 'technology ahead of its science.' He added that by courting corporate sponsorship of the school and having graduate students and professors sign confidentially agreements, the proposed college would be little more than a research and development department for big business."
If you are a high school student, you might want to consider telling the presidents how your image of the Claremont Colleges has been adversely affected by their stance on KGI and the BFS.
Call or email the following people and have your voice heard today! (CC any emails you send to stopkeck@wildmail.com, so we can keep track of how we're doing! If you receive a response, we'd appreciate it if you'd forward it to us as well)
Brenda Barham Hill: Chief Executive Officer, Claremont University Consortium (909) 621-8026 bhill@cuc.claremont.edu
Peter Stanley: President, Pomona College (909) 621-8131 Peter_Stanley@pomona.edu
Steadman Upham: President, Claremont Graduate University (909) 621-8025 steadman.upham@cgu.edu
Nancy Bekavac: President, Scripps College (909) 621-8148 (909) 607-2514 president@ad.scrippscol.edu
Jon Strauss: President, Harvey Mudd College (909) 621-8120 (909) 621-8121 jon_strauss@hmc.edu
Marilyn Massey: President, Pitzer College (909) 621-8198 (909) 607-2690 marilyn_massey@pitzer.edu
Pamela Gann: President, Claremont McKenna College (909) 621-8111 president@mckenna.edu
For more information, check out: http://www.kgi.edu (official site) http://www.keckgrad.com (counter-site) http://sites.netscape.net/studentBFS (Students for the Field Station) http://home.earthlink.net/~alto/boycott.html (The Great Boycott)
KGI'S CORPORATE ROUNDTABLE Agouron Pharmceuticals Allergan, Inc. Amgen, Inc. Axiom Venture Partners Baxter Healthcare Corporation Bayer Corporation Beckman Coulter, Inc. Celera Genomics Corporation COR Therapeutics, Inc. Edwards Life Sciences E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company Genentech, Inc. IDEC Pharmaceuticals Corp. Illumina Inc. Johnson & Johnson/LifeScan, Inc. Medtronic, Inc. MiniMed, Inc. Motorola, BioChip Systems Nanostream Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc.
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by Sarah
Saturday, Oct. 28, 2000 at 10:21 AM
I am a student at the Claremont Colleges. I have seen the way that the administration pretends to listen to student concerns. the truth is simple: money talks. Any ideas about "social responsibility" are easily abandoned at the prospect of financial gain for the colleges. Please join us in protesting KGI. The only thing the colleges feel more strongly about than earning money is maintaining a good reputation. Please get the word out and encourage anyone who cares to let the colleges know that people are watching, and that they are outraged. Thank you.
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