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Oliners for Palestine Military Ethics Screening Policy

Introduction

Engineering, especially in the US, has been critical in enabling mass violence inflicted on people both in and outside the US. The American military-industrial complex has been a central driver of both industry and engineering education, evidenced by Olin College’s roots in ammunition manufacturing—Franklin W. Olin’s businesses were major military contractors.

At the same time, Olin claims to be set apart by our consideration of engineering ethics. It is difficult to reconcile the purported ethical standards Olin seeks to bring into engineering while recognizing the unmatched violence from which its partners profit.

Reckoning with the privilege and access afforded by an Olin education requires, at minimum, a set of baseline ethical standards. We are disappointed by Olin College’s reluctance to do so despite reorienting to a mission where engineering serves everyone. “Engineering for everyone” is hollow if our college’s partners actively profit from death and devastation around the world.

Therefore, we have decided to lead the charge and outline a set of comprehensive ethical standards, to screen our existing and potential sponsors and partners specifically regarding their involvement with the US and other militaries. We take inspiration from the UCSB Society of Women Engineers’ decision to end its partnership with Northrop Grumman, and from MIT’s decision to cut ties with their Lockheed Martin Seed Fund.

We define three tiers, based on the impact of a given partner’s activities and technologies, as opposed to their stated intent. We commit to complete a regular assessment, at least once a year, of all our partners with the following framework. In any situation where a partner changes their tier, we will readjust our relationship appropriately.

Screening Criteria

Each sponsor or partner is evaluated against the following criteria:

1) Does their largest revenue stream come from contracts with military or law enforcement, and/or are they listed on the SIPRI Arms Industry Database of the 100 largest arms-producing and military service companies?

2) Do they develop and/or provide technological goods or services to military or law enforcement?

3) Do their activities, services, or products directly support, exacerbate, and/or cause human rights violations through involvement with military or law enforcement?

Red partners satisfy all of the above criteria. Our relationship with Red partners is clear – completely cut ties, including sponsorship and recruitment events, until and unless they demonstrate proven changes to their core operations that show that they no longer fulfill one or more of these criteria.

Yellow partners satisfy at least one, but not all, of the above criteria. Our relationship with Yellow partners is more complex—this criteria encompasses a significant portion of engineering companies in the US. We aim to sever ties with these companies when possible, but in the many cases where it is not, we commit to proactively educating our communities about the involvement of these companies in enabling or inflicting violence.

Green partners do not satisfy any of the above criteria. Our relationship with Green partners is business as usual while staying vigilant about our partners’ current and future commitments to enabling or inflicting violence both inside and outside the US.

Example Evaluations

Boeing: Red

 

  • As of 2022, Boeing is #4 on the SIPRI Top 100 arms-producing and military services companies. While they make passenger aircraft, they earn far more revenue from military contracts.
  • Boeing develops technologies that are intended for and used in warfare[1], including (but not limited to) fighter jets, attack helicopters, missiles, bombs, and precision-guided bomb kits.
  • Boeing supplies militaries committing known human rights violations.[2].

For example, Boeing supplied Israel with precision-guided bombs in a Nov 1, 2023 bombing of Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp, which killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians and could be a war crime according to the UN Commissioner for Human Rights[3],[4].

[1] https://www.boeing.com/defense#overview
[2] https://investigate.info/company/boeing
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/01/jabalia-camp-airstrike-gaza
[4] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/2/un-rights-office-says-israeli-attacks-on-jabalia-could-be-war-crime

Skydio: Red
  • While it is not possible to determine exact revenue distribution, given Skydio is a private company, major contract announcements and the fact that Skydio has shut down its consumer business indicate that military and law enforcement contracts comprise a substantial portion of Skydio’s revenue[1],[2],[3].
  • Skydio develops drones that are intended for and used in warfare[4]. Despite public records documenting the US military’s violations of Skydio’s Enterprise Terms of Use (which prohibit the use of any Skydio drone as a “weapon” or as a “part of a weapons system”), Skydio continues to sell drones to the U.S. military, demonstrating an indifference to enforcing its terms of use and the vast gulf between intent and impact).

Skydio has supplied the Israeli military with reconnaissance drones. Drone footage is fed into Israel’s AI platform, The Gospel, which has provided the intelligence necessary to attack Gaza with over 10,000 strikes per month[5],[6].

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/10/skydio-closing-consumer-drone-business/
[2] https://www.skydio.com/blog/skydio-selected-sole-platform-for-us-army-srr
[3] https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2023/03/03/defense_innovation_and_venture_capital_skydio_a_case_study_885036.html
[4] https://www.skydio.com/solutions/defense
[5] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/01/the-gospel-how-israel-uses-ai-to-select-bombing-targets
[6] https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/army-says-it-has-hit-some-15000-terror-targets-in-gaza-since-start-of-war/

Microsoft: Yellow
  • Microsoft does not derive the majority of its revenue from contracts with military or law enforcement, nor is it on the SIPRI Top 100 arms-producing and military services companies.

However,

  • Microsoft develops military-specific technological goods and services[1].
  • Microsoft’s activities, services, or products support, exacerbate, and/or cause human rights violations through its contracts with the military and law enforcement[2]:
    1. Microsoft has secured large contracts with the US Department of Defense.[3]
    2. Microsoft has provided AI and cloud computing services to the Israeli military[4], which is currently committing genocide in Gaza[5].

Microsoft provides mass surveillance and facial recognition technology to county and federal U.S. law enforcement agencies[6],[7],[8],[9].

[1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/industry/government/defense-and-intelligence
[2] https://investigate.afsc.org/company/microsoft
[3] https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2022/12/08/microsoft-continues-commitment-to-us-department-of-defense-with-jwcc-selection/
[4] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/apr/18/microsoft-ai-israel-gaza-war
[5] https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/01/gaza-icj-ruling-offers-hope-protection-civilians-enduring-apocalyptic
[6] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/industry/government/public-safety-and-justice
[7] https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/industry-blog/government/2019/07/31/transforming-law-enforcement-with-the-cloud-and-ai/
[8] https://theintercept.com/2020/07/14/microsoft-police-state-mass-surveillance-facial-recognition/
[9] https://www.flipsnack.com/justfutures/eyes-on-atlanta/full-view.html

SparkCharge: Green
  • SparkCharge does not derive the majority of its revenue from contracts with military or law enforcement, nor is it on the SIPRI Top 100 arms-producing and military services companies.
  • SparkCharge, an EV charging startup, does not develop military-specific goods and services.

SparkCharge’s activities, services, or products do not directly support, exacerbate, and/or cause human rights violations through involvement with military or law enforcement. It is important to note that by focusing on the impacts of military violence, this may overlook potential impacts of SparkCharge’s supply chain.

Addendum

As it stands, this screening policy is designed to address the impacts of US (and other) military violence. With a focus on militarism, we fail to account for other extractive industries, such as border/surveillance, prisons, fossil fuels, and mining. A lithium-ion battery company may not have any involvement with military and law enforcement, but nevertheless directly exacerbate human rights violations through, say, cobalt mining in the DRC.

It may be the case that very few of our corporate partners meet the criteria to become a Green partner. This is not a reason to relax our criteria, but simply an indication of the extent to which engineering and the military-industrial complex are entangled. We all benefit from knowing more about sponsors and partners’ complicity with violence.

In practice, it may be difficult to determine whether a given company’s primary revenue stream is from military or law enforcement, especially for private companies. Even public companies often do not report revenue figures for their military divisions. That said, relying on contract awards and news reports can give an indication to a company’s reliance on arms revenue. Moreover, the distinction between whether military contracts comprise a company’s primary revenue stream, as opposed to simply a substantial portion, may not be the most relevant factor in deciding whether to cut ties. It is important to keep in mind the driving force behind this policy: reckoning with the violence embedded in our engineering work.

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Defending Science: For Whom, By What Means, Toward What Ends?

Nearly a decade after the slogan “Believe Science” became popularized, the established scientific profession is once again called upon by the opposition to the second Trump administration to take a political stance. Whereas the first such “defense of science” in 2017 confronted conspiratorial dismissals of the scientific consensus on climate change and science education, the battlefront in 2025 has retreated so far that the rightwing offensive has directly disrupted federal science funding on which much research production in the United States depends. Between 2017 and today, we have faced planetary crises, including the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, wildfires and floods on unprecedented scales, and still-accelerating CO2 emissions, as well as the rising tide of neofascism. Not only has a liberal defense of science been unable to weather the metaphorical and literal storms, it has also contented itself with making technologies that enable more destructive wars and genocide. How did we get here? Why did the “defense” fail? What is to be done differently?

We recognize that science is inherently political. Science is defined as a set of human practices relating to knowledge that arises from, is shaped by, and helps reproduce the social systems in which it is embedded. Thus, science is not an objective good or neutral tool; it interpenetrates with all other social phenomena such as class, race, sex, gender, geography, and culture. Science throughout history is practiced unequally, benefits few, excludes many, and is inextricable from its human consequences. To defend “science,” we must first ask: Science for whom? By what means? Toward what ends? 

Science is subordinate to class interests. Under capitalism, imperialism, white supremacism, cis-hetero-patriachy and other oppressive systems, the owners of science—the corporations, the wealthy elites, the military-industrial complex—dictate the agenda of scientific research, public education of science, and the market supply, demand, and price of scientific labor. This ruling class taunts scientists with the myths of individualism and meritocracy (in its celebration of personalities like Musk and Bezos) while extracting our work and dictating our livelihood. This ruling class exerts full control of the political system under so-called liberal democracy, and both parties and their politicians operate within the constraints of the ruling class consensus. As witnessed during the disastrous pandemic response then and the market-driven neglect now when vulnerable populations continue to die, appealing to the elected officials to defend science is a dead-end. In order to assert political agency as science workers, we must organize our own workplaces and communities in solidarity with the broader working class and social movements in a common struggle.

Science has been made possible by colonialism and imperialism. Scientific advancement in the US in particular, and the Global North in general, is built upon historical and present-day colonial plundering of land, resources, and labor, as well as draining of scientific expertise through migration from the Global South. “Progress” and “enlightenment” for the privileged few are exploitation, destruction, and displacement for the many. American science is complicit in national chauvinism, conquest, and oppression of knowledge production in other parts of the world. Science workers in the Global North must recognize our privileged position and be conscious of the social consequences of our sciences.

Science must encompass all fields of human inquiry. Science involves not only the study of the natural world, but also of society. The demarcation of STEM from other academic disciplines is an artifact of the structure of US science funding, which has resulted in uneven practice of human knowledge. The humanities and social sciences have long been threatened by rightwing offensives including funding cuts, adjunct hiring, departmental mergers, suspension of admissions, and censoring of scholarship—all of which warrant much greater attention and solidarity by those attempting to mount a defense of science. It is crucially important to reject STEM exceptionalism and to join and learn from the wider struggles against repression in higher education, especially facing increased state-sponsored terror against immigrant student workers and academics.

Defending science is not enough; science must defend the people. The attacks on science and academia did not occur on a whim. It is a continuation of the ongoing expropriation of the infrastructure of knowledge production and the accelerated privatization (degradation) of public institutions. It is a logical next step in a class war to defund education, healthcare, and any enterprise that retains the promise of benefiting working people and communities. This informs what types of science are undergoing austerity and what other types might experience booms: privatized high tech, military, agribusiness, and philanthrocapitalist pharmaceutical manufacturing and sales. Thus, instead of defending an abstract notion of science, we must scrutinize: science for whom, toward what ends? We defend a science that is for ecological restoration, vaccine development, transgender healthcare—a science that supports the wellbeing of people and the environment. We reject a science that is funded by the military, the fossil fuel industry, and Israel. We condemn a science that serves no benefit to the people other than accumulating profit.

We believe that a science for the people and a humane future can only be achieved through fundamental transformations of society. Join or start your local SftP chapter, build a militant science worker movement in principled solidarity with Palestine, Congo, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and everywhere imperialist science is detrimental to the oppressed. Organize to redirect society so that society can redirect science.

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Science is Never Apolitical

“Wonder and the Life of Palestinian Astronomy,” an article from Volume 23, Issue 1: Science Under Occupation from the print magazine of our organization, was featured in the lab assignment materials of an astronomy course at Columbia University. It was selected in an effort to highlight the privilege that students and academics in the United States enjoy in conducting science without fear of airstrikes, occupation, and wide scale state violence. The inclusion of this article, and Undark magazine’s, “In Gaza, Scanning for the Sky, not Drones” as assignment materials was an avenue for students to learn about the stories of Palestinians as agents and practitioners of science, in contrast to their widespread portrayal only as subjects of occupation and genocide.

In response, Columbia University released a statement condemning the “unacceptable” inclusion of the articles that “inserted political views within the syllabus,” a stated “violation of University policy,” warranting an apology to the students in the class and initiating an official review process.

Science for the People–NYC unequivocally condemns this statement and action. First, in its failure to uphold its championed tenet of academic freedom, second, in its lack of self-reflection and analysis and third, in its gatekeeping of credibility and means of knowledge production. The university attempts to portray itself as a bastion of neutral analysis and learning that is above class and politics. However, it drowns both analysis and dissent in an ever-changing sea of policies and procedures. Columbia University’s recent suppression of students, teachers and workers makes this draconian condemnation particularly hypocritical. The failure to examine its active role in the genocide of Palestinians and the expansion of imperialist interest in spite of multiple calls to do so demonstrates that setting mores of acceptable conduct and deciding which views are political is a one way street.

We stand in solidarity with the teaching assistant, who made a brave, just, and extremely important decision to highlight the struggle of the Palestinian people’s search for knowledge and scientific discovery amidst genocide. Moreover, the active censoring of their expertise in choosing a curriculum for the class undermines their academic freedom, and deprives students from accessing a perspective they do not commonly encounter. The themes of our magazines and the voices we amplify are intended to subvert the status quo, and the rigor of our editorial process ensures that our work cannot be dismissed on grounds of credibility or standards. Our work belongs in the classroom, if instructors choose to include it there.

We commit ourselves to the tenet that science, like all other fields in society, is never apolitical. We refuse to accept the normalization of ethnic cleansing and apartheid in western academic institutions. We stand by our belief that knowledge production and education should be for the people, the workers, and the oppressed.

Science for the People will always uphold all those who recognize the inherent political nature of science. Columbia University’s unrelenting efforts to stifle resistance reminds us that science for the people can only be achieved through collective struggle.

“Science, in all its senses, is a social process that both causes and is caused by social organization. To do science is to be a social actor engaged, whether one likes it or not, in political activity.”

—Richard Levins & Richard Lewontin, The Dialectical Biologist (1985)
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Science for the People, No Tech for Apartheid, and the Tech Workers’ Coalition endorse the Boycott Amazon! campaign

EN / FR

As Amazon prepares to shutter its operations in Québec, laying off over 4,500 Amazon workers and partnered delivery workers, Science for the People, No Tech for Apartheid, and the Tech Workers’ Coalition stand in solidarity with affected workers and endorse the “Ici, on boycott Amazon” campaign at boycottamazon.ca.

The recently unionized DXT-4 warehouse in Laval, Québec was set to become the first Amazon warehouse in the world to win a collective agreement, which would have improved the working conditions of hundreds of employees and given workers greater democratic power over operating decisions. On January 21st, faced with spreading labour militancy and unique provisions in Québec’s labour code, Amazon chose to shutter all seven of its Québec warehouses in a stunning move meant to punish unionized workers and send a clear message of intimidation to Amazon employees worldwide. This decision must be understood as a brutal and calculated offensive against the growing tide of militant labour organizing, and an injury to workers everywhere.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement (BDS) identifies Amazon as a critical pressure target. In addition to perfecting automated surveillance and demerit point-based hiring and firing systems at its warehouses, Amazon provides cloud services used by the Israeli military to facilitate the automated targeting and mass killing of Palestinian civilians.[1] Now, the very same union-busting and surveillance technologies perfected at Amazon’s warehouses are being deployed by US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to deport migrant workers and families, despite growing internal resistance from Amazon’s own employees.[2]

Amazon must be made to pay dearly for its systematic union-busting and its complicity in genocide and deportation. To that end, we call for:

1. A consumer boycott: We call on our members and our readership to follow the demands of the BoycottAmazon.ca campaign which presently include a Canada-wide consumer boycott: stop purchasing from Amazon, close your Amazon accounts, and end Prime Video subscriptions immediately.

2. An institutional boycott: We call on workers to ensure that their research groups, institutions, and places of employment stop purchasing goods and services from Amazon. We call on workers across Canada to seek an organizational endorsement of the Boycott Amazon campaign within your respective unions, institutions, and places of work, which should include a resolution to discontinue all institutional services provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS).

3. Class solidarity: We call on the privileged stratum of technology workers to develop solidarity with all strata of the working class by following BoycottAmazon.ca’s campaign demands, by joining local picket efforts, and by organizing work refusals, tech disruptions, work slowdowns, education on surveillance technologies, and counter-recruitment actions that target Amazon’s operations.

4. Political education: We call on all workers and organizers to learn from, replicate, develop, and materially support the successful labour organizing strategies of Amazon warehouse and logistics workers on the ground. Amazon has pioneered union-busting strategies and surveillance technology that will shape the battle terrain for organized labour and migrant workers for years to come, which is precisely why successful organizing campaigns at facilities such as Laval’s DXT-4 and Staten Island’s JFK-8 must be studied, popularized, and replicated around the world. 

Until every last Amazon worker is unionized! Until Palestine is free!

Support the campaign at BoycottAmazon.ca!

—

[1] Together with Google, Amazon enjoys a $1.2 billion (USD) contract with the Israeli government and military known as Project Nimbus, to provide cloud storage and computing used to manage the vast amounts data collected through surveillance of Palestinians. Amazon has long supported illegal Israeli settlements through both e-commerce and its collaboration with Israeli financial institutions.
[2] In the US, Amazon provides cloud services to ICE, which it uses to track and deport migrants, and even owns a stake in the airline that ICE uses for deportation flights. It also sells its facial recognition service “Rekognition” to police departments, over the objections of its own employees.
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Science for the People, No Tech for Apartheid, et Tech Workers’ Coalition appuient la campagne « Ici, on boycotte Amazon »

EN / FR

Alors qu’Amazon se prépare à fermer ses opérations au Québec, licenciant jusqu’à 4 500 travailleur∙euses d’Amazon et des partenaires de livraison, Science for the People, No Tech for Apartheid, et Tech Workers Coalition témoignent leur solidarité avec les travailleur∙euses touché∙es et appuient la campagne « Ici, on boycotte Amazon » à boycottamazon.ca.

L’entrepôt DXT-4 à Laval, Québec, récemment syndiqué, devait devenir le premier entrepôt Amazon au monde à obtenir une convention collective, ce qui aurait amélioré les conditions de travail de centaines de travailleur∙euses, et donné aux travailleur∙euses un plus grand pouvoir démocratique sur les décisions de travail. Le 21 janvier, face à la propagation du militantisme syndical et aux dispositions uniques du Code du travail du Québec, Amazon a choisi de fermer ses sept entrepôts au Québec dans un geste choquant visant à punir les travailleur∙euses syndiqué∙es et à envoyer un message d’intimidation aux employé∙es d’Amazon dans le monde entier. Cette décision doit être comprise comme une offensive brutale et calculée contre la vague croissante de syndicalisation, et comme une injure aux travailleur∙euses partout dans le monde.

En même temps, le mouvement de Boycotte, désinvestissement et sanctions (BDS), dirigé par les travailleur∙euses Palestinien∙nes, identifie Amazon comme une cible stratégique de leur campagne de pression. En plus de perfectionner la surveillance automatisée et les systèmes d’embauche et de licenciement fondés sur un système de points de rendement dans ses entrepôts, Amazon fournit des services infonuagiques utilisés par l’armée israélienne pour faciliter le ciblage automatisé et le massacre de civil·e·s palestinien·ne·s.[1] Aujourd’hui, les mêmes technologies antisyndicales et de surveillance perfectionnées dans les entrepôts d’Amazon sont déployées par l’Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) pour expulser les travailleur∙es et familles migrant∙es, malgré la résistance interne des employé∙es d’Amazon.[2]

Amazon doit payer cher pour son antisyndicalisme systématique, et pour sa complicité dans le génocide et les déportations. À cette fin, nous soutenons :

1. Un boycott individuel : Nous appelons nos membres et nos lecteur∙trices à suivre les consignes de la campagne BoycottAmazon.ca qui comprennent actuellement un boycott des consommateurs partout au Canada : arrêtez d’acheter chez Amazon, fermez vos comptes Amazon et mettez fin à vos abonnements à Prime Video immédiatement.

2. Un boycott institutionnel : Nous appelons tous∙tes les travailleur∙euses à s’assurer que leurs groupes de recherche, leurs institutions et leurs lieux de travail cessent d’acheter des biens et des services d’Amazon. Nous appelons tous∙tes les travailleur∙euses au Canada à obtenir l’appui de leur institution ou organisation pour la campagne « Ici, on boycotte Amazon » au sein de vos syndicats, vos institutions et vos lieux de travail respectifs, ce qui devrait inclure une résolution visant à annuler tous les services institutionnels fournis par Amazon Web Services (AWS).

3. De la solidarité de classe : Nous appelons la strate privilégiée des travailleur∙euses en technologie à développer leur solidarité avec toutes les couches de la classe ouvrière en suivant les consignes de la campagne BoycottAmazon.ca, en se joignant aux efforts de piquetage, et en organisant des refus et des ralentissements de travail, de l’éducation populaire, et des actions de contre-recrutement qui ciblent les opérations d’Amazon.

4. De l’éducation politique : Nous invitons tous∙tes les travailleur∙euses et organisateur∙euses à étudier, à émuler, à développer et à soutenir de façon matérielle les stratégies de syndicalisation que les travailleur∙euses d’entrepôts et de logistique d’Amazon ont réussi à mettre en œuvre sur le terrain. Amazon a développé des stratégies antisyndicales et des technologies de surveillance qui vont déterminer le terrain de combat pour les syndicats dans diverses industries au cours des années à venir. C’est précisément pour ça que les campagnes de syndicalisation réussies dans des installations telles que le DXT-4 à Laval et le JFK-8 au Staten Island doivent être étudiées, diffusées et reproduites dans le monde entier.

Jusqu’à ce que tou∙te∙s les travailleur∙euses d’Amazon soient syndiqué∙es! Jusqu’à ce que la Palestine soit libre!

Soutenons la campagne à BoycottAmazon.ca!

—

[1] Avec Google, Amazon bénéficie d’un contrat de 1,2 milliard de dollars (USD) avec le gouvernement et l’armée israélien connu sous le nom de « Project Nimbus », pour fournir des services infonuagiques de stockage et de traitement de données utilisés pour gérer les énormes quantités de données récoltées dans le cadre de la surveillance des Palestiniens. Amazon soutient depuis longtemps les colonies israéliennes illégales par le biais du commerce électronique et de sa collaboration avec les institutions financières israéliennes.
[2] Aux États-Unis, Amazon fournit des services infonuagiques à l’ICE, qu’il utilise pour traquer et expulser les migrant∙es, et détient même une participation dans la compagnie aérienne qu’utilise ICE pour les vols d’expulsion. Amazon vend également son service de reconnaissance faciale « Rekognition » aux services de police, malgré les objections de ses propres employés.
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SftP-NYC: For Immediate Release

Endorsed by:
Columbia University Apartheid Divest
Student Workers of Columbia
SftP-NYC

 

On January 21, over 100+ students from Columbia University walked out their first day of class in defiance of the brutal repression of pro-Palestine students. Over 40 students are facing disciplinary hearings for resisting their university’s direct financing and support for the genocidal, zionist entity responsible for the massacre of over 320,000 Palestinians.[1]

Alongside faculty and community members, the students marched uptown to St. Mary’s Episcopal Church for a teach-in entitled, “Science Under Occupation: Resistance in the Imperial Core and Beyond.” The teach-in would center the work and experiences of Palestinian scientists and highlight academia’s direct contributions to the occupation and genocide (i.e., research funding, academic collaborations) and discuss ways to collectively resist from within the imperial core. Shattering the illusion of “elite” universities, this would have been a liberatory space for knowledge production, by the people and for the people.

Our gathering alone was enough to prompt heavy repression by the NYPD who barricaded the entire block surrounding the church under the guise of “security concerns.” Church leadership and community members who tried to liaise were told that the gatherers “broke the law” for marching on the street, and police refused to allow anyone inside the barricades without giving any legally-valid reason. Despite the Rector of St. Mary’s attempting to confer with the commanding officer, the NYPD did not leave their posts at the barricades surrounding the church for over 2 hours. The NYPD’s unreasonable and unnecessary display of force denied access to everyone. This included unhoused people, some of whom were seeking refuge in the church from freezing 15 °F temperatures and others already sheltering on the premises who feared leaving due to heavy police presence outside the church.

This blatant display of police aggression and violence is clearly a form of collective punishment directed towards all members of the Harlem community. Misrepresenting the “law” to justify the besiegement of a people’s sanctuary is a violation of our first amendment right to assembly and expression, as well as our community members’ NYC-protected right to shelter. The powerful, intertwined forces of repression and occupation will use any excuse to suppress our movement. Yet they forget that, from New York to Palestine and beyond, repression always breeds resistance. The NYPD’s cowardly act of intimidation only strengthens our resolve to keep fighting for Palestinian liberation and police state abolition. Under intensifying fascism, it is imperative that we break down false barriers siloing our movements. Our collective strength strikes fear in the oppressor, and only collectively, rooted in solidarity and nourished by community, will we survive and build the liberated world in which we all deserve to live.

We will not stop, we will not rest. Brick by brick, we will tear down this empire and its imperialist project from the belly of the beast. The Popular University for Palestine WILL LIVE.

Towards liberation. Free Palestine!

———

[1] This number was calculated based on the most recent Lancet estimate, scaled to the previously published ratio. See: Rasha Khatib, Martin McKee, and Salim Yusuf, “Counting the dead in Gaza: Difficult but Essential”, The Lancet 404, no. 10449 (July 2024): 237–238, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(24)01169-3; Zeina Jamaluddine et al., “Traumatic Injury Mortality in the Gaza Strip from Oct 7, 2023, to June 30, 2024: A Capture–Recapture Analysis,” The Lancet (In Press, January 2025), https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(24)02678-3.

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Science for the People “Canada”: statement of solidarity with international students and migrant workers on the December 18th Day Without Migrants

English / Français

Since the formation of our collective in 2022, Science for the People “Canada” has been built by scientific knowledge workers from many different regions of the world. We are deeply affected by the new wave of attacks on migrant workers and international students, including a total freeze on two major permanent residency streams in Québec. We support the call by the Immigrant Workers Centre-Centre des travailleurs et travailleuses immigrants (IWC-CTI) for international students and workers to get organized and fight back.

In addition to endorsing the key demands of the IWC-CTI on the December 18th day of action, we recognize the following:

1. International students from the Global South are increasingly “migrant workers” first and “students” second, with university tuition merely serving as the extortionary price of admission for selling one’s labour in the Global North. In many cases, these labour and migration dynamics are the consequence of a global system of imperialism which, in Canada, serves first and foremost the capitalist class.

2. International students, who comprise 34.6% of temporary immigrants to Canada, serve to prop up Canada’s underfunded education sector. As a result of massive reductions to the proportion of public funding for post-secondary institutions (47% of university operating costs in 2018 compared to 80% in 1990), universities are increasingly dependent on corporate donors and exorbitant tuition fees shouldered by international students, many of whom are seeking a pathway to permanent residency. While tuition for domestic students has remained nearly constant, international student fees have increased by 97.7% from 2006/7 to 2023/24, after adjustment for inflation. International students provide more funding for Ontario post-secondary education than the government does.

3. International students are a growing source of invisible and informal on-campus labour, particularly in labour-intensive STEM fields. International students comprise 50% of doctoral students in the faculty of sciences at UQAM, and 46% of faculty of science graduate students at McGill.

4. A system of stipend-based labour compensation falsely classifies many STEM post-graduate workers as “students” or “trainees” rather than “workers” – despite the fact that, in practice, these “trainees” serve as full-time employees and are responsible for the vast majority of scientific labour within Canadian universities and research institutions.

5. In addition to preventing scientist-workers from unionizing or even understanding themselves as “workers,” the deliberate sleight of hand that classifies students and post-graduates as “trainees” makes the migration status of international students dependent on their continued “good standing” with a particular institution. This helps to guarantee the steady supply of cheap and precarious student-workers with little to no legal recourse against exploitative and unsafe working conditions.

6. International students are also a significant and growing source of precarized labour off of campus. For international STEM doctorates lucky enough to receive a research stipend at all, Québec’s FRQNT stipends are currently a meagre $25,000/year, with many annual stipends set even lower. A growing proportion of international students working full-time in the laboratory or in the field are therefore forced to take second jobs in order to make rent, with 56.7% of international graduate students and 36.3% of international bachelors students reporting a T4 income in 2018*.

7. As of November 15, 2024, international students in Canada are officially permitted to work a maximum of 24 hours a week off-campus on a student visa. However, these limits are often inadequate to the cost of living, incentivizing under-the-table employment, unofficial overtime, and informal job contracts.

8. In addition to exploitative working conditions, international students are vulnerable to sexual harassment and abuse. For example, 41.6% of international students from Francophone universities in Québec have experienced at least one incident of sexual violence on campus. The academic sector is characterized by high rates of sexual harassment, which are particularly egregious within STEM.

9. International students are often hesitant to seek support against harassment, attend protests, or join a union or political organization because they fear that conflict with university administrators or law enforcement could impact their immigration status. Exploitative working conditions are exacerbated by language barriers and manufactured uncertainty surrounding one’s political rights and legal protections as an immigrant.**

10. While STEM degree-holders continue to enjoy significant privileges compared to other workers, post-graduate education is rapidly expanding while the post-graduate job market is shrinking, reflecting significant changes to the nature and purpose of the graduate degree over the last 30 years. While a postgraduate STEM degree was once a signifier of class privilege, or a mechanism of so-called “upward mobility” as a ticket to a professional-managerial job, a growing proportion of post-graduate students in Canada are now better understood as precarized, temporary workers, who are expected to perform an ever-growing number of years of informal labour as “trainees” in order to gain access to the formal job market at all. Graduating with an average debt of $41,100 CAD, this new “academic precariat” faces increasingly slim odds of obtaining a job related to their years of specialized “training,” and/or of remaining in the country in the case of international post-graduates.

As scientists and friends of science, these facts compel us to stand in solidarity with all international students and workers, temporary foreign workers, and refugees on December 18th to demand status for all, and working and living conditions that are stable, secure, and dignified. As we suffer the consequences of a nation-wide housing crisis, stipends and salaries that are deeply inadequate to meet the rising costs of living, and a general deterioration of social and economic conditions, we reject the federal and provincial governments’ attempts to scapegoat migrant workers and international students for these problems. We know very well that these economic hardships do not result from immigration, but rather from the systematic underfunding, deliberate neglect, and privatization of public services – carried out by the same political class now attempting to blame immigrants for their own failures. Further, as anticapitalists and anti-imperialists, we recognize that the solution to these injustices, on both the local and global scale, requires organizing for systemic political change by building collective power where we are — in our laboratories, in our workplaces, in our unions, and on the picket line.

Further reading:

Senate Report on International Student Conditions
The State of Postsecondary Education in Canada 2024

Footnotes:

* A T4 income is any remuneration paid by an employer to an employee during a calendar year, which excludes scholarships and bursaries. The percentage of international postsecondary students receiving T4 slips has been increasing from 17.6% in 2000 to 46.6% in 2018.

** For more information see the following reports:
The Shadowy Business of International Education
Women International Students: The Invisible Workforce Project Report

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Science for the People « Canada »: solidarité avec les étudiant·es internationaux·ales et les travailleur·euses migrant·es pour la Journée sans Migrant·es du 18 décembre

English / Français

Depuis la création de notre collectif en 2022, Science for the People « Canada » a été construit par des travailleur·euses scientifiques venant de différentes régions du monde. Nous sommes profondément touché·es par la nouvelle vague d’attaques contre les travailleur·es immigré·es et les étudiant·es internationaux·ales, incluant un gel total de deux programmes menant à la résidence permanente au Québec. Nous répondons à l’appel lancé par le CTI aux groupes communautaires à nous organiser et à riposter contre ces attaques.

Nous soutenons les revendications du CTI et reconnaissons les faits suivants :

1. De plus en plus, les étudiant·es internationaux·ales du Sud global sont principalement des « travailleur·euses migrant·es » et secondairement des « étudiant·es », les frais d’inscription exorbitants servant de coûts d’admission au pays, donnant aux migrant·es le privilège de vendre leur main-d’œuvre dans le Nord global. Ces dynamiques de migration sont souvent le résultat d’un système global impérialiste dont, au sein du Canada, la classe capitaliste est le bénéficiaire principal.

2. Les étudiant·es internationaux·ales, qui représentent 34,6 % des immigrant·es temporaires au Canada, servent à soutenir le secteur de l’éducation sous-financé du pays. En raison de réductions massives dans la proportion de financement public des institutions postsecondaires (47 % des coûts de fonctionnement des universités en 2018 contre 80 % en 1990), les universités dépendent de plus en plus des dons provenant des entreprises et des frais de scolarité exorbitants payés par les étudiant·es internationaux·ales, dont beaucoup cherchent à obtenir une résidence permanente. Alors que les frais de scolarité pour les étudiant·es domestiques sont restés à peu près constants, les frais pour les étudiant·es internationaux·ales ont augmenté de 97,7 % entre 2006/07 et 2023/24, une fois ajustés pour l’inflation.  En Ontario, les étudiant·es internationaux·ales financent davantage l’éducation postsecondaire que ne le fait le gouvernement.

3. Les étudiant·es internationaux·ales constituent une source croissante de travail invisible et informel sur leur campus, particulièrement dans les domaines à forte intensité de main-d’œuvre, dont les STIM (sciences, technologie, ingénierie et mathématiques). Les étudiant·es internationaux·ales représentent 50 % des doctorant·es en sciences à l’UQAM et 46 % des étudiant·es des cycles supérieurs en sciences à McGill.

4. Un système de rémunération basé sur des bourses fait en sorte que de nombreux·ses travailleur·euses des domaines STIM sont faussement classé·es comme des « étudiant·es » ou des « stagiaires » plutôt que comme des « travailleur·euses » — alors qu’en pratique, ces « stagiaires » remplissent les fonctions d’employé·es à temps plein et assurent la majorité du travail scientifique dans les universités et centres de recherche.

5. En plus d’empêcher les travailleur·euses scientifiques de se syndiquer ou même de se reconnaître comme des « travailleur·euses », le tour de passe-passe délibéré qui classe les étudiant·es des cycles supérieurs comme des « stagiaires » engendre une dépendance de leur statut migratoire sur leur statut d’étudiant·es « en règle » au sein de leurs établissements. Cela garantit un approvisionnement régulier de main-d’œuvre bon marché constituée de travailleurs·euses précaires peu enclins à contester des abusives conditions de travail.

6. Les étudiant·es internationaux·ales sont également une source importante et croissante de travail précaire hors campus. Pour les doctorant·es internationaux·ales en STIM qui ont la chance de recevoir une bourse de recherche, les bourses du FRQNT au Québec s’élèvent actuellement à un maigre 25 000 $/an, avec de nombreuses bourses annuelles fixées encore plus bas. Une proportion croissante d’étudiant·es internationaux·ales travaillant à temps plein en laboratoire ou sur le terrain sont donc obligé·es de prendre un deuxième emploi pour payer leur loyer : 56,7 % des étudiant·es internationaux·ales des cycles supérieurs et 36,3 % des étudiant·es internationaux·ales en premier cycle ont déclaré un revenu T4 en 2018*.

7. Depuis le 15 novembre 2024, les détenteur·ices de visas étudiants au Canada sont officiellement autorisés à travailler un maximum de 24 heures par semaine hors campus. Cependant, ces seuils sont souvent insuffisants face au coût de la vie, ce qui leur mène à travailler au noir, à faire des heures supplémentaires non officielles, et à accepter des contrats informels.

8. En plus de ces conditions abusives de travail, les étudiant·es internationaux·ales sont vulnérables au harcèlement et aux abus sexuels. Par exemple, 41,6 % des étudiant·es internationaux·ales des universités francophones du Québec ont subi au moins un incident de violence sexuelle sur leur campus. Le secteur académique est marqué par son haut niveau de harcèlement sexuel, surtout dans les domaines STIM.

9. Les étudiant·es internationaux·ales hésitent souvent à demander de l’aide, à participer à des manifestations ou à rejoindre un syndicat ou une organisation politique, craignant que des conflits avec l’administration universitaire ou la police n’affectent leur statut migratoire. Ces conditions de travail sont aggravées par les barrières linguistiques et par le fait que les patrons cultivent l’incertitude par rapport aux droits et aux protections légales en vigueur.**

10. Bien que les détenteur·ices de diplômes STIM bénéficient encore de privilèges importants par rapport à d’autres travailleur·euses, le nombre d’étudiant·es en cycles supérieures augmente rapidement tandis que l’offre d’emploi se raréfie, un signe que des changements majeurs par rapport à la nature et au but des cycles supérieurs sont survenus au cours des 30 dernières années. Alors qu’un diplôme supérieur en STIM représentait autrefois un signe de privilège de classe ou un mécanisme de « ascension sociale » vers un poste professionnel, beaucoup d’étudiant·es en cycles supérieures au Canada sont maintenant classé·es comme des travailleur·euses précaires et temporaires, qui doivent s’attendre à ce qu’iels aient à travailler de plus en plus longtemps de manière informelle comme « stagiaires » afin d’accéder au marché de l’emploi formel. Avec une dette moyenne de 41 100 $ CAD, les membres du nouveau « précariat académique » font face à des chances de plus en plus minces d’obtenir un emploi en lien avec leurs années de « formation spécialisée » ou de rester dans le pays.

Le 18 décembre, en tant que scientifiques et allié·es de la science, nous nous tenons solidaires de tou·s·tes les étudiant·es internationaux·ales, des travailleur·euses étranger·ères temporaires et des réfugié·es, et exigeons un statut pour tou·s·tes ainsi que des conditions de travail et de vie stables, sécurisées et dignes. Alors que nous subissons une crise du logement, des bourses et des salaires profondément insuffisants face à l’augmentation du coût de la vie et une détérioration générale des conditions sociales et économiques, nous rejetons les tentatives des gouvernements fédéral et provinciaux de faire des travailleur·euses migrant·es et des étudiant·es internationaux·ales des boucs émissaires pour ces problèmes. Nous savons très bien que ces difficultés économiques ne résultent pas de l’immigration, mais plutôt du sous-financement systématique, de la négligence délibérée et de la privatisation des services publics — orchestrés par la même classe politique qui tente aujourd’hui de blâmer les migrant·es pour ses propres échecs. De plus, en tant qu’anticapitalistes et anti-impérialistes, nous reconnaissons que nous ne pourrions contrer ces injustices qu’en luttant pour un changement du système politique et en construisant une puissance collective là où nous sommes — dans nos laboratoires, nos lieux de travail, nos syndicats et sur les piquets de grève.

Pour en lire plus :

Rapport du Sénat sur les conditions des étudiant·e·s internationaux·ales (Senate Report on International Student Conditions)

L’état de l’éducation postsecondaire au Canada 2024 (The State of Postsecondary Education in Canada 2024)

Références :

* Un revenu T4 correspond à toute rémunération versée par un employeur à un employé au cours d’une année civile, à l’exclusion des bourses et des subventions. Le pourcentage d’étudiant·e·s internationaux·ales de niveau postsecondaire recevant des feuillets T4 est passé de 17,6 % en 2000 à 46,6 % en 2018.

**Pour plus d’informations :
Les dessous obscurs de l’éducation internationale (The Shadowy Business of International Education)

Les étudiantes internationales : le rapport sur une main-d’œuvre invisible.(Women International Students: The Invisible Workforce Project Report)

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Statement on the Results of the 2024 Presidential Election

The New Haven chapter of Science for the People invites all scientists, tech and academic workers in Connecticut and beyond to join us in the struggle against capitalism, the reactionary politics that undergird it, and the false promise of liberalism as a political alternative. The only real alternative is to establish vibrant anti-capitalist mass organizations.

Trump returning to the White House signals a serious decline in the ability of liberalism to justify itself as a progressive political alternative to reactionary conservatism. For decades, liberalism and conservatism have operated as two faces of the same coin: hand-in-hand they propel capitalism forward by inertia, if nothing else.

As such, we see that liberalism fails again and again to secure even the most basic protections for abortion access, immigrants, and the LGBTQ+ community, a weakness that will now be exploited by Trump and his neo-fascist cronies.

What does this mean for scientists, for whom liberalism is often the political partner to the perceived progress of science?

First we should ask: what has liberalism offered to science as a human endeavor?

Our view is that liberalism has duped scientists again and again. While budgets for vital basic research recede and scientific activity is further cordoned off into private firms with no accountability to the public, liberals have turned a blind eye to the impending climate catastrophe and placed science in deeper subservience to the military industrial complex. This makes scientists the stooges  of capitalism, imperialism, and ecological exploitation against their will, the consequences of which have become devastatingly apparent as the genocide in Gaza proceeds uninhibited with the full support of the Democratic Party.

Moreover, as science continues to become a more diverse profession, the oppression of people with marginalized identities will not only hurt our friends and colleagues, but undermine scientific work by making the discipline even more precarious for many people.

How can scientists resist this depravity and build a better alternative?

We compel scientists to realize their role as agents in class struggle, rather than elite, individual, and politically disaffected actors.

Science is a social endeavor, driven by the combined efforts of vast numbers of people working diligently across the globe. The products of science form the basis of the modern world: technological advancements most often start in publicly-funded laboratories. But most scientists have no control over how the products of their research are used. Our disciplines are driven by university administrators, venture capitalists, and the boards of tech companies. Scientists are thereby made more and more into proletarians: cogs trained in the academic machine to which we must submit in return for a paltry wage, insufficient benefits, and no social safety net.

We do not have to accept this fate.

We should accept that the conditions of science are deteriorating under the stewardship of liberalism, and with them the conditions of life on Earth. We believe this ought to compel scientists to recognize that their fate is intertwined with that of all proletarianized working people, in the so-called US and around the world. If this is true, it’s about time we start acting like it!

Scientists need to organize within the working class, and we offer Science for the People as a home for all scientific workers to begin to organize in opposition to capitalism, the false hope of liberalism, and the depravity of conservatism and neo-fascism.

This means that scientific workers need to rebuild the infrastructure of working class institutions in their workplaces, their apartment buildings, and in their communities. Whether we are fighting for better wages, reduced rents, or against imperialism, we should be cohereing these struggles into a unified political movement against capitalism and for socialism.

Join us … You have nothing to lose but your chains!
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The Absurdity of Transitional Funding

As student-workers across the University of California (UC) system begin to shape the contract demands for the 2025 renewal, BDS is once again the subject of intense organizing and struggle within UAW 4811. Amidst the discussion, the idea of Transitional Funding (TF) has been floated as a substitute or a supplement for Divestment. Below we explain why TF is nonsense.

1. TF as a bargaining item has its conceptual origins in the protective measures against workplace harassment, particularly for Teaching Assistants under abusive supervisors, which exist in some academic workers’ contracts.

2. In the current context, TF seeks temporary support for students who morally object to military funding, following the promotion of “pledge to reject department complicity” letters.

3. Far from being an “antiwar labor strategy” as have been widely advertised, such letters had little organizing traction—a fact admitted by the drafters themselves as early as February 2024—and remained static, symbolic gestures over the course of nine months since their publications.

4. TF follows the same tactical (il)logic that relies on individual choice instead of organized collective action. That is, “divestment” can be achieved if individuals choose to reject military/zionist funding, and that individual risk may be minimized by TF.

5. Reality checks: 

    • TF is deeply flawed in practice. What kind of funding would legally fall under the category of “morally objectionable”? Who gets to define morality? Many zionist/military connections with the UC will escape this category without anyone being able to challenge.
    • By reframing institutional complicity to individual complicity, TF is incongruous with collective action. How do organizers ensure that a singular individual seeking TF does not experience a change of heart, or reassessment of what is/isn’t moral, during the protracted grievance process?
    • In many STEM fields (e.g., CS, Aerospace, etc), there is simply nothing to transition to. Are they then excluded from TF?
    • TF may open the door for agitation from reactionary individuals. One can find reproductive research, or transgender health research “morally objectionable” based on one’s religion. What is the tactical counterweight against this?

6. Demand shapes the movement, both internally and externally. A tactically flawed demand generates no momentum—as shown by the failed pledge activism and the poorly managed June strike, leaves weaknesses for the opponent to exploit, and worse, distracts from other core demands.

7. TF cannot replace divestment, and is not even a next-best alternative, or “divestment-lite.” Divestment is supported by an international movement with decades of practice and aims to challenge the structure directly. TF is muddled, underdeveloped, and comes from a small, isolated corner of STEM academia. The two are not comparable.

8. The minimum in supporting the Palestine struggle is Disclose, Divest, and Amnesty. Anything less is a compromise that diminishes one’s own credibility within the broader movement.

Do not let TF dilute, defer, decenter BDS in our upcoming fight for Palestine solidarity.