SCHOOLS OF MASS DESTRUCTION: These are the universities that help to build U.S. nuclear weapons

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What is in the report?

Universities across the United States are implicated by this new report for work on nuclear weapons, ranging from directly managing laboratories that design nuclear weapons to recruiting and training the next generation of nuclear weapons scientists. Much of universities' nuclear weapons work is kept secret from students and faculty by classified research policies and undisclosed details from contracts with the Defense Department and the Energy Department.

US plans to spend $100,000 per minute

over next 10 years for nuclear weapons

How are universities complicit

Universities pursue different pathways to help to develop U.S. nuclear weapons. Some directly manage the laboratories that design nuclear weapons. Others partner with laboratories to recruit and train the next generation of weapons scientists. Still others use U.S. government funding to do basic research that is applied to nuclear weapons work. This report identifies four concrete categories of involvement: direct management, institutional partnerships, research programs and partnerships, and workforce development programs.

• Direct Management
• Institutional Partnerships
• Research Programs and Partnerships
• Workforce Development

Why is this a problem?

• The nearly 14,000 nuclear weapons in the world today pose an existential threat to every living being on earth. Universities would be complicit in the U.S. use of these inhumane and immoral weapons. Working on producing and maintaining them directly contradicts many university mission statements to equip students to make the world a better place.
  
  
• Most universities keep much of their nuclear weapons work secret from students and faculty by allowing classified research and not disclosing details from Defense Department and Energy Department contracts.
  
  
• Meanwhile, 122 countries have adopted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which bans nuclear weapons, including their research and development, for the countries that join it. University activities shouldn’t contradict international law.