Northwestern could become a less free-thinking university as a result of its recent alliance with Boeing and Ford Motor Company, three-time presidential candidate Ralph Nader said Friday in a speech about corporate influence in the United States and what students can do against it.
The funds Ford and Boeing have pledged to conduct nanotechnology research at NU could commercialize topics of study, he said. He suggested publicizing the contract.
“After a while, which dominates: The university or the corporation?” he said. “Who’s the progenitor? Who’s the one that has the money? – Down the pipe, you start losing the independent integrity of the university, one of the last remaining institutions of intellectual freedom in our country.”
Nader’s skepticism about the alliance came during a two-hour speech and question-and-answer session about how corporations such as automobile companies have gained control in the country, depleted the environment and limited independent thought. About 550 attended the sold-out speech, held in Tech Auditorium and sponsored by SEED and Campus Greens.
The speech drew a crowd of students and members of the community. One avid supporter wore an Uncle Sam hat covered in political buttons and a cape made out of an American flag. About one-third of the audience walked out during the question-and-answer session. At the auditorium entrance, a man handed out flyers for the 2005 Midwest Socialist Conference before the speech and a woman showed a video of a cow being slaughtered after the event.
Nader urged students to take action at the university level against corporations. He advised students to investigate corporate influence at NU by posting university contracts online and meeting with trustees. He also suggested holding colloquia with professors and learning how to lobby, access city documents and build coalitions.
Weinberg freshman Ben Farah said Nader highlighted issues that were important to students, like analyzing the impact of corporate financial contributions to universities.
“I don’t think students really know who’s running the university,” Farah said.
Nader has run as a Green Party or independent candidate and spoken out against spreading corporate influence and dwindling environmental protections. On Friday he discussed several different types of corporations and their appearance in everyday life. He said students have grown up in the shadow of corporations, which are often tied to universities, like Ford’s recent deal with NU.
Nader said advertisers pound audiences with messages of speed, sex and status, and the tobacco industry caused 400,000 American deaths last year.
Corporations aren’t human, but they have taken on human attributes, he said.
“They are able to lobby, they are able to contribute to political campaigns, they are able to influence universities, and they are able to buy elections,” Nader said. “They are able to do all kinds of things that non-human beings should not be allowed to do.”
By wielding this power, corporations have hurt the environment, Nader said. There has been little progress toward more efficient cars because gas companies would lose business, which is also why solar energy has not been completely adopted, he said.
“You know what the holdup is? ExxonMobil doesn’t own the sun,” Nader said.
Nader encouraged students to make NU a model of ecological excellence.
“If you do it where you live and work and study, you’re going to be more likely to do it as a matter of habit when you graduate,” he said.
Nader’s corporate and political insights to environmental problems is perceptive, said Panah Bhalla, co-chair of SEED.
“It’s important to address the environment in the context of economics, politics and globalization, because the environment is everywhere,” said Bhalla, a Weinberg senior. “It’s not something that’s isolated.”
SEED’s previous fall speakers have included Paul Krugman of The New York Times and Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation.
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