Monsanto CEO should not receive a Wash. U. honorary degree
Last week, Washington University announced it will award retired chair and CEO of Monsanto, Richard Mahoney, an honorary degree at the upcoming graduation ceremony. While Monsanto has strong financial ties to the University, they are complex and controversial. Monsanto is an international agricultural biotechnology company that is most famous for monopolizing the herbicide and genetically engineered seed markets. Along with several other companies, Monsanto is responsible for the disaster that has come of our global agricultural system. If Wash. U. awards honorary degrees to “distinguished men and women who have made outstanding contributions to their fields,” then the University has incorrectly selected Mahoney as a recipient.
When Richard Mahoney worked at Monsanto, he helped transform it into the biotechnology patent factory that it has become today. Monsanto is not improving agriculture; it is a company that manipulates life, endangers our environment and bankrupts farmers while claiming that it improves the lives of the starving people of Third World countries. Ask a Bt cotton farmer in India why he is abandoning his farm and he will tell you that the pesticide treadmill that Monsanto put him on failed him. I want to be clear Richard Mahoney is not a bad person. However, Wash. U. should not award such a prestigious honor to someone responsible for a company that seeks to profit off the destruction of our agricultural system.
While I understand the benefits of biotechnology and genetic manipulation such as the production of modern medicine and biodegradable plastics, Monsanto is a for-profit business that goes beyond playing the role of God. Monsanto generates profits by acquiring intellectual property patents for the genes that they produce for agricultural seeds. However, when you patent the genes of a plant or any other living organism, you are patenting life itself. Genetic engineers have no control of their product once it has left their hands, and the genes manipulated in plants are in a sense alive, often affecting the plant in unintended ways.
Monsanto is also the leading producer of Roundup herbicide. Obviously, this liberally-sprayed pesticide is toxic to humans, animals and the environment, and by producing Roundup and Roundup Ready crops, Monsanto encourages destructive agriculture practices. This company is further infamous for their aggressive lobbying techniques that have put countless innocent farmers out of business. Farmers who grow Monsanto crops sign a technology agreement that obligates them to never save their seed, ensuring that they purchase Monsanto seeds every year. Invariably, seeds containing Monsanto’s genes may blow into another farmer’s field either from wind dispersal or from casualties of shipping seeds. Frequently, Monsanto investigators will illegally trespass onto land owned by farmers who are not planting Monsanto seed, find a Monsanto seed and sue the farmer for illegally using their product, even if the farmer never planted Monsanto seed.
Our university is heavily connected to Monsanto, and their funding negatively transforms the way that Wash. U. teaches and conducts research. It is dangerous to mix education with corporations, and in the end, our university is being used by Monsanto. No longer is our biological research about gaining knowledge, but when Monsanto funds a study, they have the ultimate say in the outcome. If they do not find the results of a study favorable to generating profits for the company, they can immediately eliminate funding and prevent any results from being published. Like other departments at Wash. U., research should not be controlled or manipulated by a for-profit company because education is not a for-profit business.
If we want an unbiased education free from corporate control, then we need to cut the ties that our university has to multinational mega-corporations. We certainly should not be recognizing their CEOs for the “outstanding contributions” they make to the destruction of our environment, health and global agricultural system. Monsanto has far too much control of our university and our education, and it is wrong for Wash. U. to give such a distinguished honor to Richard Mahoney.
@ Chris Singer: so you are suggesting being a CEO is a morally-neutral position. I could not disagree with you more. How one makes money is a moral issue. We judge people by how they make money all of the time. Please don’t delude yourself into thinking that just because a company is a legal entity that it is necessarily any more moral than a street thug, drug dealer or con man. Most corporations, while not morally perfect, compared to Monsanto are saints. It seems that Monsanto has actually gone out of its way as a corporation to do morally suspect and often reprehensible things under the veil of “business”. Their Agent Orange, for which they deflected responsibility created 500,000 birth defects and adversely affected millions. It made their stockholders wealthy. Is that the moral standard we should use. A corporation can become a moral leader or a moral failure, and, fellow writer, over recent decades, Monsanto has excelled at the latter.
Stupid 3rd world people,not willing to starve to death or to continue to live in poverty so that Monsanto can be seen as evil. The important people are clearly the Western college students who can get plenty to eat at the local supermarket.
Here is some local news coverage of the commencement protest of the former Monsanto CEO’s honorary doctorate: http://fox2now.com/2012/05/18/washington-university-graduation-friday/
The author of this article, Amanda Wolff, is interviewed, and so are Steve Givens of Wash U’s Public Affairs Department and commencement speaker Mike Peters, who claims not to have seen the protest though he supports protest in general (“I’m for illegal,” he said in jest, though this protest was certainly not illegal).
This low key and polite protest consisted of flyer distribution, wearing of buttons saying “No Monsanto U” (one is shown close up), and standing up and turning around, on the model of the University endorsed 2008 Phyllis Schlafly protest. Had more more buttons been available and more flyers distributed, more students and their parents would have participated. I know many who could not get a button or a flyer.
I protested in my own way, clapping only for the first honoree, David M. Becker of the Washington University Law School, though I have no strong opinion of his work, because he fits my personal criteria for an honorary degree: he is a long serving Wash U insider who is also a scholar. I withheld my applause for the others, even the ones I like (Gloria Steinem, Mike Peters) out of principle. In 2008 I supported honorary degrees only for distinguished scholars. Since then my views have changed. I now favor the honorary doctorate only as an internal service award, for distinguished college teachers, administrators, and community builders who are also fine scholars, especially if they lack an academic doctorate (e.g. former lecturer Caroline Brown, whose termination was justified on grounds that she lacked the doctorate, though it was more probably a political termination in retaliation for her participation in the 2005 Living Wage Sit-In, in violation of the University’s promise not to retaliate).
An honorary degree should be a rare honor, most certainly not a mere badge of seniority. On the other hand, nobody should ever be terminated for not being “Doctor.”
I thank the Washington University Administration and its security forces in advance for not retaliating against these student protestors, who followed the rules of etiquette worked out by the University community and general public during our Schlafly protest. I look forward to the convening, sooner rather than later, of our commission to determine Wash U’s compliance, or lack of compliance, with the agreements reached during the 2005 Living Wage Sit-In. We are watching even as we are watched.
Jerome Bauer, under the transparent pseudonym shevek
per veritatem vis
This is terrible, thank you for writing this to make others aware.
I like to change the title of this article to ‘Washington University should not award Monsanto CEO honorary degree’. I am really disappointed to hear a public institution which is supposed to educate people could honor a person who represented the company that has done so much harm to the world.
Monsanto is infiltrating the school systems all over the world by offering grants. It seems the schools are completely unaware of the information readily available about this company. The families of the students have a right to know who wants to teach their kids and what they want to teach them. If they knew the facts…well…
So…
Wash U awards honorary degree to a former CEO of Monsanto. This means that Wash U supports everything Monsanto does. Monsanto is for-profit, and that is bad. Monsanto funds Wash U thereby manipulating and controlling the research at Wash U. All education at Wash U is tainted because Monsanto gives money to Wash U.
For realz? Was this your go-to outline to convince the masses?
I fully agree with the views expressed by the author.I have worked as the CEO of Monsanto India for eight years out of a total of eighteen years and am now retired and an anti Monsanto activist.I was disgusted with the dirty tricks that Monsanto employed by bribing top Govt officials and politicians and University researchers to produce fake data in favour of GM crops like cotton Brinjal(egg plant) and many more.The Canadian Canola farmer Percy Scmeiser is a typical example of victim of Monsanto.See the film”Behind the label’ on BT cotton in India and the suicide of tens of thousands of farmers.Monsanto is an evil company.I have worked personally with Dick Mahoney and he does not deserve Washington U’s honour.T.V.Jagadisan-Bangalore India
pics or it didnt happen
You can’t be serious… Are you really that ridiculous of a skeptic? Mr. Jagadisan is a former CEO of Monsanto India who worked with Mahoney personally and knows about Monsanto’s practices first hand. He cites his own experiences as well as a documentary, and all you have to say back is “pics or it didn’t happen?” What other evidence do you need? Seriously… Pic’s or it didn’t happen. haha… I guess the constitution wasn’t really signed by the founding fathers because there weren’t any paparazzi around to take any pics. I mean, we could use first hand accounts by people who were there to confirm that it actually occurred, but apparently “pics” are the end all be all of epistemology, and we can’t be certain of anything without them… thanks for clearing that one up letsgetreal
Hi! I’m Bill Gates and I worked at Microsoft.
I took time out of my schedule to write on Studlife.
Hey Bill. What’s Up
LOL shut up Amanda
“Invariably, seeds containing Monsanto’s genes may blow into another farmer’s field either from wind dispersal or from casualties of shipping seeds. Frequently, Monsanto investigators will illegally trespass onto land owned by farmers who are not planting Monsanto seed, find a Monsanto seed and sue the farmer for illegally using their product, even if the farmer never planted Monsanto seed.”
By frequently do you mean never? They do sue seed savers, that’s true. But if you’re talking about the Schmeiser case, that’s a complete mischaracterization.
“While I understand the benefits of biotechnology and genetic manipulation … However, when you patent the genes of a plant or any other living organism, you are patenting life itself.”
Uh. If you understand the benefits of genetic manipulation, it is completely incoherent to be against gene patents. It is the only way for GMO development to be economically feasible, which means its the only way for progress.
With more than 7 billion people on this planet, you completely ignore the important contribution that Monsanto makes to feeding the world. Try to sustain the globe with organically produced, locally grown crops from tradional varieties of saved seeds.
THe reason the US produces 10 tonnes of corn on a hectar of land versus 7 in South America, 6 in Europe and 1-2 in Africa is due to technicological advancements by US agribusiness companies like MOnsanto. Not to mention that Roundup is much more environmentally friendly than alternative herbicides and Monsanto’s Bt corn varieties has dramatically reduced the need to use pesticides.
I chose not to demonize those that feed us and keep us healthy.
I completely agree with this article. Monsanto undermines our food supply, health, and farmers autonomy and livelihood. How can this honorary degree be stopped?
Could not agree more and this is why Wash.U. seldom sees a dime of my money, much as I often want to donate. The school is so wildly political in so much of what it does and this is yet another example. Even bringing Steinem was clearly a political move to make up for its Schlafly invitation. If they want to bring Steinem, fine, but don’t offset a political move (ie bringing her in to make up for past transgressions) with another political move (ie, people won’t notice that we’re inviting an environmental raider if we invite a feminist to please those still not donating based on Schlafly). Obviously, a national institution with a brand to protect like WU has to make difficult decisions and has to chase capital sources in a difficult climate (and Monsanto, as a big stl company, surely gives dough to wu). That said, there’s a fine line between seeking revenue and crass pandering and it’s one that Wrighton’s admin has seemingly crossed way too many times. Mark strikes me as a great guy, but he’s clearly a research scientist first and a tactical leader second. I’m just not sure what he stands for besides growing the endowment which, come to think of, he’s been darn good at…still, I’d like to see him take a stand and for that stand to be consistent, whatever it happens to be.
You probably don’t have much money to donate anyway.
Amanda Wolff. Props.
This title is deceptive, and as an alum, I would expect more from Stud Life. Get a reality check, stop being so naive, and step up the journalistic integrity. Your conclusion- “If we want an unbiased education free from corporate control, then we need to cut the ties that our university has to multinational mega-corporations-” forms a biased and unsupported conclusion, with little alternative to the status quo, not to mention its blatant assumption that financial support from corporations in some way provides a compromised education. Seriously?
Last thing- I understand that this is an op-ed- but please in the future reference facts to support your opinions, rather than sweeping generalizations you gleaned from an anti-Monsanto website.
This is an op-ed. I think the article is good, but whether you like it or not, good newspapers publish submission like this.
This saddens me. I’ll shortly be attending WashU for graduate school in plant biology and I was hoping the students there would be more open minded and well-informed about this topic. I hope that is the case.
Im sympathetic to thus article for the most part, but easy on the “playing god” stuff. It’s not persuasive to me, and also slightly turns me off of your position. Coming dangerously close to the “naturalistic fallacy.”
Please show me actual facts to your claims such as when “frequently, Monsanto investigators will illegally trespass onto land owned by farmers who are not planting Monsanto seed.” Facts should NOT include one or two accounts on a stupid documentary.
You live in fairy tale land thinking that companies would continue sponsoring research if it doesn’t produce a result. For that matter, academically or industrially, research shouldn’t continue if there is not a foreseeable beneficial result coming from that research. If you disagree, than don’t expect a company to pay for that research. You can’t blame them for cutting funding on something that won’t pay dividends. You wouldn’t be able to do a lot of useful research that DOES pay out without their support.
Monsanto is not a bad company, but I love listening to the masses of Wash U spout off about the “destruction of our agricultural system.”
Completely agree with the author.
YES! Thanks for shedding light on this and standing up for the earth, for farmers, for all of us. http://www.gmofilm.com
Shame on the University for selling its soul…..it’s all about the money. And I find only one thing wrong with this article Amanda, at the end of the second paragraph you wanted to make clear that Mahoney wasn’t a bad person…. but he is. He is a evil,, despicable, deadly man with the sole intention of controlling the world’s entire food supply. And don’t forget what Kissinger said long before you were probably born: control the world’s food, control the world. Great job on the article though!
I really don’t see how you could tell this person is personally evil. He was a CEO of a company doing what the CEO of that company was supposed to do. If there’s something evil about that and the outcomes of his actions, it was the system that ultimately enabled and promoted his obedience to profit before anything else. I wouldn’t doubt that he and Hugh Grant (the current CEO) are good people, but they’re just highly (let’s say obscenely) paid cogs.