Students Are
Pushing US Colleges to Sever Ties With Military-Industrial Complex
Students and young people are witnesses to the ways in which U.S. education is deeply complicit with war and militarism.AU DISSENTERS
November 7, 2021
The violence wreaked by U.S.
wars since 9/11 has been immense — more than 929,000 total deaths, including an
estimated 380,000 civilian deaths. And the U.S. has spent a
staggering $14 trillion in Pentagon expenditures since the Afghanistan War in
2001, up to one-half of which went directly to defense [sic] contractors like Boeing,
Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics and Raytheon.
While these facts are
outrageous, they aren’t surprising in a country built on colonial violence — a
country whose power and expansion are derived from war-making, with such
militarism being grounded in every institution arising from the state,
including education.
Students and young people are
witnesses to the ways in which the U.S. education system is deeply complicit
with war and militarism, and in increasing numbers we are demanding change. As
student organizers with Dissenters — a national movement
that is building local teams of young people across the country and mobilizing
to reclaim our resources from the war industry, reinvest in life-giving
institutions, and repair collaborative relationships with the earth and people
around the world — we were part of a weeklong effort at the end of October, in
which students at 16 campuses across the country rose up to unite around three
central demands: 1) Universities must divest all holdings and cut all ties from
the top five U.S. war profiteers: Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman,
Raytheon and General Dynamics; 2) All cops off of all campuses; 3) All recruiters
off all campuses.
Such a statement lies at the
heart of Dissenter’s organizing and the Dissenter’s overall “Divest from Death”
campaign, which helps students mobilize against any war-making institutions
their schools may be invested in. In fact, U.S. colleges and universities are
complicit in lining the pockets of war profiteers and overall defense [sic]
contractors. Colleges like American University award lucrative board positions
to war profiteers like Wesley Bush, the former CEO of Northrop Grumman; and just this February, a $75 million donation from major shareholders of General Dynamics — the Crown Family — was approved by the University of
Chicago’s newly renamed Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy and
Practice. Meanwhile, hundreds of other U.S. universities continue to renew
contracts with U.S. defense [sic] companies to fund and fuel internship
programs, arts and cultural buildings on campus, and to maintain a steady
STEM-to-war pipeline at the nation’s top engineering schools.
With the clear stake that U.S.
institutions have in perpetuating endless war, it’s no wonder that young people
at colleges across the country are rising up to demand our schools sever ties
with the military-industrial complex.
The rising momentum of antiwar
organizing among students was especially apparent on Oct. 25-31 during
the Dissenters Divest from Death Week of Action, as young people from Chicago, to Washington, D.C, to
California, to Hawaii explicitly centered humanity over profit by disrupting
“business as usual” at their institutions through direct action.
Students
Fight Investment in Militarism
On October 11, the University
of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) sent out an email to its student body
proudly claiming that its city was one of the first to recognize Indigenous
Peoples’ Day in the United States, and asking students to research and
acknowledge the land we are on to honor the day. All the while, the University
of California and CalTech have received upwards of $300 million to build the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) project located on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. – a project that has been
actively opposed by Indigenous Hawaiian protesters. Mauna Kea is a sacred
place, and to build a large telescope on top of it would be a desecration.
While protesting the construction of TMT on their land, Indigenous Hawaiians,
including elders, have been met with arrests by settler-state police and
threats of even greater violence, including the calling in of the National
Guard. Where is the honor in ignoring and trampling over the calls being made
by Indigenous Hawaiians to put a stop to the development?
Hawaii Dissenters workday at
Ka’ala Farm and Cultural Learning Center. HAWAII DISSENTERS (@HAWAIIDISSENTERS)
Now more than ever, UC Berkeley
students are building coalitions with organizers throughout Hawaii as they
fight to protect Mauna Kea from TMT. However, they are not the only university
contributing to the construction of TMT. In fact, Punahele Kutzen, a student
organizer of Hawaii Dissenters in Manoa, emphasizes that while the University
of California is a full partner in the construction of TMT, “so many
universities are direct profiteers of this desecration,” including the
California Institute of Technology and Association of Universities for Research
in Astronomy (AURA) associate schools like Johns Hopkins, Yale, and more.
Student organizers involved
with the Hawaii Dissenters in particular have continued to make their
resistance to such funding and imperialism known against this construction, as
well as various other forms of desecration on Hawaiian land. During the Divest
from Death Week of Action, Hawaii Dissenters’ main focus was on highlighting
the climate imperialism resulting from the U.S. military’s ongoing occupation
of Hawaii.
Students and
young people are witnesses to the ways in which the U.S. education system is
deeply complicit with war and militarism, and in increasing numbers we are
demanding change.
Stressing the imminent threat
to the water supply and ecosystem by the Navy’s underwater missile testing and
fuel tanks, Hawaii Dissenters directly confronted military officials and
settler state politicians about their role in Red Hill — a military fuel
storage facility in Hawaii.
Conducting a community teach-in
titled “Red Hill 101” as part of a coalition of O’ahu-based Water Protectors,
Hawaii Dissenters also made public comments at last week’s Red Hill Task Force
Meeting, in which they challenged the military and state’s claims of national
security as justification for poisoning O’ahu waters and overall Hawaiian land.
Beyond their week of action, Kutzen clarifies that Hawaii Dissenters are
“continuing to plant pilina [relationship or union] and build connections with
folks from the ground up, connecting with ʻĀina [the land] as we fight for
genuine security.”
In Chicago, students at
University of Chicago have been fighting a different battle against their
institution’s direct investment within militarism and destruction. University
of Chicago Dissenters spent their week of action partnering up with #CareNotCops and other student organizations to protest Paul
Alivisatos’s inauguration as president of UChicago.
“President Alivisatos may be a
new face, but he is beholden to the same donors, billionaire trustees,” said a
representative of #CareNotCops, who wished to remain anonymous.
Alivisatos proposed 10 “vectors and culture of engagement” for his new direction of the University — but none of them
promises true change.
“The vectors do not denounce
UChicago’s active role in domestic militarism, through CPD and the University
of Chicago Police Department, where ‘engagement’ is the harassment and
surveillance of our Black neighbors and peers. Nor do they address UChicago’s role
in international militarism — in fact, these ‘vectors’ only mention an
expansion of UChicago’s investment portfolio, which currently includes four of
the five largest weapons manufacturers in the country (Boeing, Lockheed Martin,
General Dynamics, and Raytheon), and other war profiteers,” said the
representative.
History shows us that “elite”
U.S. schools like UChicago do, and will — without apology — displace and
demolish whole swaths of Black neighborhoods, fund warfare and deforestation
through investing multibillion-dollar endowments, bust unions, steal wages,
force out disabled students and sexual assault survivors, send cops to shoot
those in crisis, harass Black neighbors with private police forces, and more as
it suits its financial interests.
“That’s why we want the
university to divest precious money and resources from the UChicago Police
Department, and invest in funding #EthnicStudiesNow, #CulturalCentersNow and
#ReparationsNow for the South-Siders whose lives have been affected by university
expansion,” said Nico Emmanuel-Henderson, a Dissenters organizer at UChicago.
Students
Fight the Revolving Door Between the University and the Military
Besides direct investment in
funding and research to war-making institutions, universities have other insidious
ways of ingraining militarism in the school structure. Most prominently, these
include recruitment to military and policing programs like the Reserve
Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC), which often have a major presence on our
campuses. Programs like the ROTC often offer students money in grants and
scholarships — or even payment of future scholarly endeavors — if they were to
sign up. Such promises ensure a steady stream of college students — who too
often struggle to pay for outrageous tuition on top of the other crucial
resources like books, food, rent, and more — to participate in and perpetuate
violent militarism and oppression.
Moreover, recruitment looks
like universities making space for weapons-manufacturing companies to scout out
potential employees on campuses, both formally and informally. At schools like
Howard University (HU), Lockheed Martin is especially prominent, and has been
targeting Howard’s Black student population to “diversify” its own team and
staff. In other words, the company is searching for Black computer science,
engineering and business majors — science, technology, engineering and
mathematics (STEM) students — to contribute in doing the work of militarism and
oppression.
We won’t
stop until we turn the tide against war and militarism.
But when we consider this
horrific STEM-to-militarism pipeline, it leads us to the important question
of who is behind such recruitment strategies and what stakes
they have in militarism. Too often, higher-ups at universities who approve or
even advocate for programs that benefit militarism have a deep connection, and
thus fealty, to war-making and militarism.
American University
Dissenters posing with banner at their school’s School of International
Service. AMERICAN UNIVERSITY DISSENTERS (@AUDISSENTERS)
American University (AU) most
recently approved Wesley Bush — former CEO of the weapons-manufacturing company
Northrop Grumman — to the Board of Trustees in January 2021, leading to a
school-wide campaign against him. For their Divest from Death Week, AU
Dissenters organized a “trick or treat” canvassing event to garner more
signatures on their petition to remove Bush from their Board, and orchestrated
a banner drop within the School of International Service — the most renowned
department at American University. On top of on-campus organizing, AU
Dissenters dedicated this week and beyond to standing in solidarity with Howard
University students organizing the Blackburn Takeover. In fact, for almost a month
now, HU students have been protesting their hazardous dorm living conditions–
including mold, roaches and vermin– by occupying their Blackburn Student
Center. Students’ list of demands include a meeting with the Howard administration, full
academic, disciplinary and legal immunity, that student rights to vote for the
Board of Trustees be reinstated, and a legitimate housing plan. As temperatures
continue to drop and with the Howard administration continuing to antagonize
them, student protesters rely on outside sources for food, encampment materials
and things to keep warm. For the week of action, AU Dissenters was able to
raise enough money to purchase a generator for them, and are making weekly
supply runs for students at Blackburn, “for however long it takes.”
AU students are making strides
in their organizing, and have even caught the attention of other administrative
members. In fact, in response to students sending letters for Bush’s removal,
American’s University’s current president (and former Secretary of Health and
Human Services under the Obama administration) Sylvia Burwell sent an email to
students about Bush’s presence on the board, saying, “Members of the Board of
Trustees represent a wide range of backgrounds and experiences, all of which
are critically important for advancing the university’s mission. Wes Bush’s
extensive experience in the corporate and philanthropic sectors will augment
the board’s efforts and contribute to our work and our community.”
Burwell is right about one
thing: Board of Trustees members play a crucial role in advancing the
university’s missions. In fact, the Board of Trustees is a critical structure
in university administration, as it controls the development of the school’s
overall objective, school policies, and how money can be used to implement
these programs and policies. In other words, the Board of Trustees handles
where students’ money goes and how that money is used. So when the board has
vested interests in war and militarism, we must recognize how this can and does
take precedence over the needs of students attending the university.
Mya Franklin, a member of
Northwestern University’s chapter of Dissenters, emphasized this in a statement
made during the Divest from Death Week of Action: “Divesting from militarism is
deeply personal because there are people on the Board of Trustees at
Northwestern that have not only the power, but the ability, to provide services
like stipends for low-income students, expansion of CAPS [Counseling and
Psychological Services, the school’s primary mental health service], viable
avenues to support survivors of [sexual assault], but they don’t. Instead, they
are actively fueling death and destruction.”
A banner
dropped over an arch on Northwestern University’s campus. NORTHWESTERN
UNIVERSITY DISSENTERS / @WEARENUDISSENTERS
The Board of Trustees members
Franklin is talking about include Phebe Novakovic, the former CEO of General
Dynamics, as well as Dennis Muilenburg, whose developments as the former CEO of
Boeing include creating weapons used by the Israeli military to massacre
Palestinians. Northwestern Dissenters were quick to call this out in their week
of action, doing a banner drop and flyering their Research and Technology
building with posters reminding students of how these board members and the
institution as a whole are actively fueling death and destruction.
The work to purge university
administrations of war criminals isn’t easy. After all, these are powerful
individuals whose connections and resources can be weaponized to terrorize all
opposition — even if they are young students. And with these profiteers being
well-integrated (and monetarily beneficial) to the internal administrative
structure, universities will do anything to protect them. Most of the time,
this includes harassing and surveilling students on campus.
As a member of the American
University Dissenters, I (Ngakiya Camara) personally recall instances of being
surveilled on campus and have been agitating against AU’s practice of doing
nothing to protect Black students on campus, while simultaneously doing
everything to protect Wes Bush.
Meanwhile, Mya Franklin of
Northwestern Dissenters recalls being harassed by Northwestern University
Police Department (NUPD) officers while doing the banner drop and flyering,
stating, “Someone ripped down one of our posters as it was drying. [A] NUPD pig
pulled up and harassed us. That morning, we all acutely experienced militarism
as we were fighting for anti-militarism.”
So long as universities are
prepared to prioritize the role of war criminals on our campus over the
livelihood of their students, these instances will persist. And as long as
powerful war profiteers occupy crucial administrative positions like the Board
of Trustees, resources meant for students will be used to strengthen the
lucrative ties that these profiteers have to the institutions they worked for
and are invested in. But even in the face of powerful war profiteers, we will
not be silent.
Our universities, which boast
to be hubs of progressiveness and inclusivity, partner with the very same death
institutions that perpetuate imperialism and settler-colonialism. From their
direct investments in research for colonial constructions like TMT in Hawaii or
cops in Chicago, to their approval of war profiteers to their Board of
Trustees, these instances too often happen behind closed doors, beyond the
watchful gaze of students whose lives are threatened by these systems of
militarism. But we — students and folks impacted by U.S. militarization — are watching,
and recognize the power we have in faltering the systems of violence our
universities strive to maintain.
It’s now time for universities
to recognize us, and our demands for them to divest from death. From
Washington, D.C. to California to Hawaii, we are seeing other young people
mobilizing on their campuses to call for their schools to sever ties with the
military-industrial complex. We won’t stop until we turn the tide against war
and militarism.
Copyright ©
Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.
Ngakiya Camara is a fellow with Dissenters at American University. An arts-activist, her work and research centers Black healing in mobilization, African independence movements, global Indigeneity and sovereignty, and the history of her parents homeland in Guinea.
Kya Chen is a student and
Dissenters organizer attending University of California, Berkeley. Originally
from Los Angeles, she organizes with groups like LA Tenants Union for the
abolition of policing in our communities worldwide.
Donations can be sent to Max
Obuszewski, Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 431 Notre Dame Lane, Apt. 206,
Baltimore, MD 21212. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski2001 [at]
comcast.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The
master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought
the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while
the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially
their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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