Photo via UCDavis.edu
The academic landscape in America has shifted a tremendous amount in the past few decades as more and more corporations seek to gain influence through the use of donations and other means designed to “level the playing field.”
While the spotlight has been white hot on the problem of money in politics, the problem of money influencing academia to produce studies and research congruent with corporate ambitions has become a massive problem in its own right.
One area where corporate influence is clearly dominating policy at the university level is in agriculture, where Monsanto has been caught funding and enlisting prominent academics to act as “independent” voices in the media on their behalf, and universities have been known to receive millions in grant money in order to support the current paradigm of GMO crops and synthetic chemical pesticides.
Now, one major university is being sued for its alleged failure to disclose its own potential ties to the controversial industry.
UC-Davis Hit With Lawsuit By Right to Know Group
According to this article from the website NationofChange.org, the organization U.S. Right to Know has filed a lawsuit against the University of California, Davis for failing to comply with requests for public records relating to its relationship with the aforementioned agrochemical industry and GMO seeds industry.
The group reportedly has filed 17 public records requests with UC-Davis since January 2015, the article said, but only 751 pages worth of records have been provided despite the fact that similar requests at other universities have been met with thousands of pages each.
The U.S. Right to Know organization also alleged that there has been a lack of response from the university as far as providing a timeline for responding to unfulfilled requests, as mandated by law, since its original estimate of April 2015, just months after it was filed.
It’s been suspected that the university may have something to hide, as their only response has been for documents related to the soda industry, but none of the 16 requests related to the highly controversial agrochemical industry have been honored thus far.
“We are conducting a wide-ranging investigation into the collaboration between the food and agrichemical industries, their front groups and several U.S. universities,” Gary Ruskin, co-director of U.S. Right to Know, said.
“So far, documents obtained from other universities have shown secretive funding arrangements and covert efforts to use taxpayer-funded university resources to promote the products of various corporations. The public has a right to know what is going on behind the scenes.”
Ruskin is the plaintiff for the lawsuit, which alleges Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) violations.
“Fifty years later, FOIA is a crucial tool for uncovering corruption, wrongdoing, abuse of power and to protect consumers and public health,” Ruskin said, referring in this case to the California Public Records Act, which the article noted is the state’s version of the FOIA.
As far as UC-Davis’ potential Monsanto connection, it has been speculated that at least one professor with deep Monsanto ties has taken to the media in the past to share opinions that sound an awful lot like GMO industry talking points. As noted in this column by public health lawyer Michele Simon, UC-Davis agricultural researchers may be heavily influenced by money from Monsanto and other companies.
The university also has offered a “Monsanto fellowship,” and its agricultural college is funded in part by DuPont and Calgene.
For more info on the lawsuit, including how the GMO industry’s potential next move, check out the full article from NationofChange by clicking here.
