A new campaign aims to reveal how American universities are embroiled in the wider American military-industrial complex
Princeton University receives millions of dollars worth of contracts from the US Department of Defence as well as weapons manufacturers, tying it to several sites of conflict around the world, including Gaza and Sudan, a new report released by an anti-war group has revealed.
Several sources told Middle East Eye this week that the report is one of the first to showcase how modern American academia thrives as a US war machine service provider.
The report, published in early February and produced by a new anti-war group made up of independent researchers, comes on the heels of a student movement around the country that has called for universities to disclose and divest from companies purportedly profiting from the Israeli occupation and war on Gaza, which has been called a "genocide" by legal experts, human rights bodies and political leaders.
The student movement, considered by many observers as the largest since the anti-Vietnam War protest movement in the sixties and seventies, continues to face a severe crackdown from administrators, culminating in arrests, suspensions, as well as ongoing surveillance as university leadership leaned on a US political establishment determined to crush protests they label as antisemitic.
At Princeton, more than a dozen students continue to face criminal charges for "trespassing" after conducting a sit-in on the main campus in April 2024.
Meanwhile, members of the university community have been operating over the past 16 months in an atmosphere of repression and constant surveillance by university administrators.
The new report, student organizers and faculty say, is not merely an indictment of Princeton's entanglement with the military or large corporations, it also shows that material considerations primarily drive the crackdown against protesters.
"It’s not simply that protesters offended the delicate sensibilities of university administrators, it’s about their bottom line - the investments, contracts, and endowments they are desperate to protect," Ruha Benjamin, professor of African American studies at Princeton University, told MEE.
"This report exposes the deep hypocrisy that has been festering long before this latest wave of academic repression. Universities claim to be 'in service to humanity' while helping to develop technologies that obliterate flesh and blood human beings," Benjamin added.
The 17-page report was written primarily by a PhD graduate from Princeton and released by a group called the "Antiwar Initiative".
The report argues that despite Princeton plugging itself as a pioneer in the study of the humanities, it has periodically focused on streams of funding and research that in part "rely on contracts and subcontracts that either directly involve private defense contractors and foreign governments or are explicit in their applications to war".
The report is the first in a new campaign to reveal how American universities are entangled in the wider American military-industrial complex. (more...)
Princeton University implicated in Gaza and Sudan wars, report says
Related:
No comments:
Post a Comment