In the United States, universities have become the epicenter of student-led movements opposing Israel’s war in Gaza. Local authorities and university administrations unleashed intense repression against these demonstrations, under the false pretext of protecting campuses and combating anti-Semitism. But in the face of violence and threats, students remained firm and the protests show no signs of slowing down.
What we are witnessing from student protesters is not new. In fact, students have historically been at the forefront of resisting and denouncing colonialism and imperialism.
In the 1530s, during the violent colonization of the Americas, a group of Spanish students at the University of Bologna publicly rejected war, considering it contrary to the Christian religion. The anti-war protest so worried the Catholic Church that the pope sent Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda – a renowned Spanish priest and scholar who felt strongly that the enslavement and expropriation of Native Americans were justified – to deal with the pacifist students. .
This type of dissent and activism has reverberated throughout history. From the student demonstrations against segregation and racism in the US in the 1920s and 1930s, to the protests of the 1960s against the war in Vietnam and the protests against apartheid in South Africa in the 1980s, to the camps of today calling for an end to After the genocide in Gaza, student movements challenged colonialism, militarism and injustice.
From the colonizer’s point of view, such student mobilization is dangerous. This explains the ongoing violent crackdown on student protests in the US and some European countries, and may also explain why all 12 universities in the Gaza Strip were bombed and destroyed.
But it would be naive to think that universities are just places for dissent. As the student protests insisted, higher education institutions actively facilitate and support colonial projects. Places like Harvard, Columbia and many other universities continue to increase their endowments, investing in companies like Airbnb, Alphabet (parent company of Google) and other companies that do business in illegally occupied territories or have ties to the Israeli military. Not surprisingly, the youth mobilization spurred by the Israeli war in Gaza has also spread to some of these companies, with protests recently taking place at Google’s offices.
In addition to their investment choices, universities also contribute to the colonial project by educating students to design, justify and implement the means and mechanisms of colonialism. The pipeline that takes recent graduates to the defense industries is well documented and it has been around for a long time. And as wars are increasingly dependent on data technologies, new channels are being created.
Consider recent graduates working at companies like Anduril, which recently won a contract with the US military to develop unmanned combat aerial vehicles powered by artificial intelligence. These weapons will use data to determine where and what to attack, which the war in Gaza has already demonstrated can result in huge civilian casualties.
The Israeli army has been using Lavender, an AI system designed to produce targets for fighter planes and drones to bomb. Researchers have he said the system is using various sets of data, including people’s use of messaging apps, to decide on targets, which is causing the loss of many innocent lives.
We have to ask ourselves what kind of college education – or rather, bad education – results in someone capable and willing to design and use an AI system like Lavender. We do not want science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students to graduate with a worldview similar to that of Sepúlveda, who saw the colonized as nothing more than barbarians and slaves whose lives were disposable.
I do not believe that most of my colleagues in STEM are intentionally preparing their students to serve colonial interests. I believe most of them simply don’t see these issues as something their resumes should address.
As students lead the challenge to a higher education system that is complicit in imperial wars and colonialism, we, the faculty, must consider the role we play within it. Ethical questions about how science and technology are entangled in colonial domination and militarism must be addressed in the classroom.
Universities have long served as a place where students learn to think critically and challenge the status quo; they also supported and reinforced structures of colonial rule.
The current protests on campus are a further escalation of the tension between these two roles. The demonstrations may not result in a complete overhaul of the higher education system, but they are certainly pushing in the right direction.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
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