Los Angeles, California – As the war in Gaza Entering its eighth month, Israel’s military campaign, one of the most destructive in modern history, has killed nearly 35,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children.
The death toll, along with the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, is prompting many progressive and pro-Palestinian activists in the United States to criticize the situation in their country. role in the war.
The United States has long been Israel’s closest ally, providing the country with about $3.8 billion each year in military aid. Critics have lambasted this support, as well as the billions of dollars in additional aid used to strengthen the war since its launch in October.
In the USA university campusesHowever, the backlash is particularly fierce as students question their universities’ relationships with weapons manufacturers and other companies with ties to the Israeli military.
“These are institutions that are supposed to be about social justice, but their actions say otherwise,” said Sinqi Chapman, a freshman at Pomona College, a liberal arts institution in Claremont, California.
Chapman was among student protesters arrested last month for setting up a pro-Palestinian encampment on school grounds. The protest was part of an effort to force the university to cut ties with Israel and all companies that support its military campaign in Gaza.
“At the end of the day, we will look back and see that we were on the right side of history,” Chapman said.
“And the administration will have blood on its hands for waiting 209 days and counting as genocide to respond to divestment demands from students, faculty and staff. »
Historically close ties
For decades, U.S. higher education institutions have collaborated with the nation’s defense and aerospace sectors, the largest such industries in the world.
Concerns about the implications have also persisted for decades. In 1961, for example, former President Dwight Eisenhower warned of the dangers of bringing the “military-industrial complex” into the academic sphere.
“Partly because of the enormous costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity” in academic research, he said in a speech.
Daniel Bessner, a professor of international studies at the University of Washington, told Al Jazeera that the Cold War paved the way for relationships between universities and military contractors to flourish.
When the Soviet Union launched the world’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik, in 1957, the event forced the United States to confront the possibility of falling behind the technological achievements of its rivals.
Thus, the American Congress adopted the National Defense Education Act in 1958, to put universities on a “war footing”. Lawmakers reasoned that funding for higher education could gain greater political support if it was promoted as a way to bolster the country’s military and technological prowess.
Bessner also notes that President Eisenhower signed the law, despite reservations he would later express. Pentagon money began flowing to universities and research institutes.
This entanglement between academics and the military has become particularly important in California, a state known for its mild climate and its defense and aerospace sectors.
“Blue skies are good for two things: shooting movies and flying planes,” Bessner said.
Clashes with campus activism
But California was also a hotbed of student activism, a tradition that continues today.
Chapman, a freshman at Pomona College, said she drew inspiration from a long history of protests when she took on a leadership role in her campus encampment.
In the past, for example, students have organized against the Vietnam War, U.S. support for apartheid in South Africa, and the Iraq War.
“The only reason students are protesting is because our institutions are aiding and abetting genocide in Gaza, the same way they once funded apartheid in South Africa,” Chapman told Al Jazeera.
“We follow the courageous students who dared to challenge their school’s investments in the war. »
Many student protesters have targeted their schools’ multimillion-dollar endowments as the target of their activism.
These financial endowments often use investments in a range of industries, including defense, to ensure the campus can fund its operations over the long term.
But while endowment funds are often at the center of calls for divestmentActivists say collaborations between universities and defense companies can take multiple forms.
These connections are particularly prevalent in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) departments, where activists say arms and aerospace companies exert influence through research projects, recruitment, trade shows employment and donations to schools.
At Harvey Mudd College, a STEM-focused school in Southern California, a participant in the student group Mudders Against Murder told Al Jazeera that such influence is rarely directly linked to weapons production.
“A lot of these activities are masked by something more neutral, like aerospace. They don’t advertise that they make weapons,” said the participant, who declined to give his name for fear of reprisals.
“The school prides itself on producing ‘socially conscious scientists,’ but you are never encouraged to think about the role you will play if you go to work at one of these companies.”
Calls for divestment
Many schools still proudly tout their ties to defense companies.
The University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) Engineering and Science Center, for example, touts its ties to defense contractor Raytheon as a “success story” on its website.
Arms companies such as Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Boeing and Lockheed Martin are also listed on a website for the university’s corporate affiliate program. All except Lockheed Martin were on a list of companies that made a cumulative $1 million donation to the university in the 2022-23 fiscal year.
Raytheon did not respond to an Al Jazeera inquiry about cooperation with U.S. universities, but the weapons makers have defended the ties as mutually beneficial partnerships that provide students with valuable experience while advancing scientific research .
Not everyone trusts these motives, however, and schools across the country have been called upon to distance themselves from weapons manufacturers and government defense operations.
“Many graduate students were wondering what their response to the genocide in Palestine should be,” Isabel Kain, a graduate student in astronomy at the University of California, Santa Cruz, told Al Jazeera.
She is organizing with the group Researchers Against War, which encourages graduate students to mobilize against ties between academic institutions and the military.
“The Palestinian Federation of Trade Unions called on workers to disrupt arms deliveries, including military funding and research, and we thought, as workers at these universities, that this was something something we could use our work to disrupt. »
Kain added that the increased unionization of graduate students has given them more power to press their demands.
Starting Monday, UAW 4811, a union representing about 48,000 graduate students in California, will vote to strike in response to the university’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian protesters.
In recent weeks, police have been called to disperse protest camps at schools like the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), leading to a severe repression on demonstrators and dozens of arrests. The encampment had already been attacked by a pro-Israeli crowd brandishing metal pipes and a sledgehammer while the police remained largely inactive.
UPDATE: The UC had the option to de-escalate the situation and negotiate with the protesters, but instead chose to demolish the Palestine solidarity encampment using flash grenades and rubber bullets. Arrests took place, particularly among members of UAW 4811.
-UAW 4811 (@uaw_4811) May 2, 2024
The union’s vote aims to send a message to school administrators that the actions taken by law enforcement violated students’ free speech rights and that universities should instead respond to protesters’ demands.
“We’re in a very different time because graduate students are much more unionized,” Kain said. “It gives us leverage that wasn’t available before.”
Influencing the next generation
Tensions between students and military ties on campus, however, are likely to extend beyond the current war in Gaza.
Analysts say investments in college campuses can be seen as part of a broader effort by the military and related industries to gain a foothold in the university sector, culturalscientific and political institutions.
Access to universities, they explain, can give companies access to young professionals ready to enter a number of fields.
“Wherever you turn, you can see the influence of these companies, from think tanks and universities to popular video games and movies,” said Benjamin Freeman, director of the Foreign Policy Democratization Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, an American organization. based think tank.
“These are huge industries, and when it comes to college campuses, especially in STEM fields, it has a huge influence on where talent is headed. »
Freeman wonders how young students might be shaped by their first professional encounters with defense and aerospace companies — and how the ideals of those companies might shape their contributions to society at large.
“Instead of a promising young student going to work in green energy, for example, they are directed to companies for which weapons development is the largest source of income,” Freeman explained.
“Telling an idealistic young student that he can come work for you and do exciting research that will make a difference in the world when in fact he is more likely to work on weapons – that’s bait quite nasty and a change.”
