Coal Tattoo

WVU students protest ‘dirty coal money’ donations

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This just in via an e-mail message from the West Virginia University student chapter of the Sierra Club:

At 11:00 AM, delegates from the West Virginia University Sierra Student Coalition will be presenting over 1,000 petition signatures to university president Jim Clements at his office in Stewart Hall on the university’s downtown campus.

In the petition, faculty, students, and Morgantown residents ask the university to reject future donations from coal corporation CEOs Bob Murray and Don Blankenship, and demand that the WVU College of Engineering and Mineral Resources chair be named in honor of the miners who made the ultimate sacrifice, and not Murray, whose criminal negligence caused their death.

The Sierra Student Coalition will issue a statement at the event.  The press is invited to attend.

The WVU Sierra Student Coalition is a grassroots environmental organization striving for real improvements in our campus and community.

Coal Tattoo readers will recall that WVU named a chair’s position in its mining engineering department for a $1 million donation from Bob Murray of Murray Energy. WVU also recently collected a $500,000 donation from Blankenship’s Massey Energy.

I’ve asked to talk to WVU President  Jim Clements to get his reaction to the student petition. Let’s see if Clements has decided to be any more open with the press and the public than he was the last time I wanted to talk about WVU’s dealings with the coal industry.