Activists are calling attention to historical ties between universities and defence contractors linked to Israel\u2019s war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Los Angeles, California<\/strong> \u2013 As the war in Gaza<\/u><\/a> enters its eighth month, Israel\u2019s military campaign, one of the most destructive in modern history, has killed nearly 35,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The death toll, as well as the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, has many progressive and pro-Palestinian activists in the United States critical of their country\u2019s role in the war<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The US has long been Israel\u2019s closest ally, supplying the country with about $3.8bn each year in military aid. Critics have blasted that support, as well as the billions of dollars in additional assistance used to bolster the war<\/u><\/a> since its start in October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On US college campuses<\/u><\/a>, though, the pushback is especially fierce, as students question their universities\u2019 relationships with weapons manufacturers and other companies with ties to Israel\u2019s military.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThese are supposedly social justice-oriented institutions, but their actions say entirely differently,\u201d said Sinqi Chapman, a freshman at Pomona College, a liberal arts institution in Claremont, California.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chapman was among the student protesters arrested last month for setting up a pro-Palestinian encampment on school grounds. The demonstration was part of an effort to force the college to sever its ties with Israel and any companies that support its military campaign in Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEventually we will look back on this and see that we were on the right side of history,\u201d Chapman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnd the administration will have blood on their hands for waiting 209 days and counting into a genocide to respond to student, faculty and staff demands for divestment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n For decades, institutions of higher education in the United States have collaborated with the country\u2019s defence and aerospace sectors, the largest such industries in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Concerns about the implications have lingered for decades, too. In 1961, for instance, former President Dwight Eisenhower warned of the dangers of the \u201cmilitary-industrial complex\u201d entering the academic sphere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPartly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity\u201d in university research, he said in a speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Daniel Bessner, a professor of international studies at the University of Washington, told Al Jazeera that the Cold War set the stage for relationships between universities and military contractors to flourish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When the Soviet Union launched the world\u2019s first artificial satellite, Sputnik, in 1957, the event forced the US to confront the possibility it could fall behind its rivals\u2019 technological achievements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So the US Congress passed the National Defense Education Act in 1958, to put universities on a \u201cwar footing\u201d. Lawmakers found that funding for higher education could win greater political support if it was promoted as enhancing the country\u2019s military and technological prowess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bessner also notes that President Eisenhower signed the act into law, despite the misgivings he would later voice. Money from the Pentagon began pouring into universities and research institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That entanglement between academics and the military became particularly prominent in California, a state known for its mild weather and its defence and aerospace sectors. The state\u2019s Office of Business and Economic Development estimated the defence industry alone brings in more than $158bn a year<\/u><\/a>, as of fiscal year 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBlue skies are good for two things: filming movies and flying planes,\u201d Bessner said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But California was also a hotbed for student activism, a tradition that continues to this day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chapman, the Pomona College freshman, said she drew inspiration from a long history of protests when she took a leadership role in her campus\u2019s encampment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the past, for instance, students have organised against the war in Vietnam, US support for apartheid South Africa and the Iraq War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe only reason that students are protesting is because our institutions are aiding and abetting genocide in Gaza, in the same way that in the past they were funding apartheid in South Africa,\u201d Chapman told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe are following the courageous students before us who dared to challenge their school\u2019s investments in war.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many student demonstrators have zeroed in on their schools\u2019 multimillion-dollar endowment funds as a target for their activism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Those financial endowments often use investments in a range of industries, including defence, to ensure the campus can fund its operations over the long term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But while endowment funds are often at the centre of calls for divestment<\/u><\/a>, activists say that collaborations between universities and defence companies can come in myriad forms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Those ties are especially prevalent in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) departments, where activists say weapons and aerospace companies wield influence through research projects, recruitment, job fairs and school donations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At Harvey Mudd College, a STEM-focused school in southern California, a participant in the student group Mudders Against Murder told Al Jazeera such influence is rarely linked directly to weapons production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA lot of it is masked as something more neutral-sounding, like aerospace. They aren\u2019t advertising the fact that they make weapons,\u201d said the participant, who declined to give their name due to concerns of retaliation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe school prides itself as producing \u2018socially conscious scientists\u2019, but you\u2019re never encouraged to think about the role you\u2019ll be playing if you go work at one of these companies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many schools still proudly market their ties with defence companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The engineering and sciences centre at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB), for example, features ties with the defence contractor Raytheon as a \u201csuccess story\u201d on its website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Weapons companies such as Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Boeing and Lockheed Martin are also listed on a website of the university\u2019s corporate affiliates programme. All but Lockheed Martin were included on a list of companies that cumulatively donated $1m to the university in the 2022-2023 fiscal year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Raytheon did not respond to an inquiry from Al Jazeera about cooperation with US universities, but weapons contractors have defended such connections as mutually beneficial partnerships that offer students valuable experience while advancing scientific research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not everyone trusts those motivations, though, and schools across the country have faced calls to distance themselves from weapons manufacturers and government defence operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA lot of graduate students were asking themselves what their response should be to the genocide in Palestine,\u201d Isabel Kain, an astronomy graduate student at the University of California at Santa Cruz, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She organises with the group Researchers Against War, which encourages graduate students to mobilise against ties between academic institutions and the military.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Palestinian Federation of Trade Unions issued a call for workers to disrupt weapons deliveries, including military funding and research, and we thought, as workers at these universities, this is something we can use our labour to disrupt.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kain added that the increased unionisation of graduate students has provided them with more power to exert their demands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Starting on Monday, UAW 4811, a union representing about 48,000 graduate student workers in California, will vote to authorise a strike in response to university crackdowns on pro-Palestine protesters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In recent weeks, police have been called in to break up protest encampments<\/u><\/a> at schools like the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), leading to a harsh crackdown<\/u><\/a> on demonstrators and dozens of arrests. The encampment was previously attacked by a pro-Israel crowd wielding metal pipes and mace as law enforcement largely stood by.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The union\u2019s vote aims to send the message to school administrators that the law enforcement action violated students\u2019 free speech rights and that universities should instead engage with the demands of the protesters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019re in a very different moment, because graduate students are unionised to a much greater extent,\u201d said Kain. \u201cThat gives us leverage that wasn\u2019t previously available.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The tensions between students and campus military ties stand to go beyond the present-day war in Gaza, though.<\/p>\n\n\n\nHistorically close ties<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Clashes with campus activism<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Calls to divest<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Influencing the next generation<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n