Before Dad worked at Raytheon, I was critical of weapons companies. But his salary helped pay for my college education debt-free. As a result, I was used to debating the ethical dilemma in being involved, in some way shape or form, with corporations that manufacture missiles, bombs, warplanes and other things.
Does representational politics matter in class photos when there’s a mounting body count of tens of thousands in occupied Palestinian lands, enabled by U.S. taxpayers in complicity with our government and its political and financial investors? Perhaps we’re missing the students’ point entirely, and there is no use in soul-searching within an institution that has proven soulless at best and complicit at worst.
In an April 19 letter to the Yale Corporation, signatories pledged to withhold donations until Yale divests from military weapons manufacturers and expressed solidarity with student protesters.
Across the US, pro-Palestine students have faced repression, suspension, and arrest. We asked more than a dozen students to share how their schools have restricted the right to protest.
A Yale graduate student and campus organizer talks to Mondoweiss about the school’s encampment protest and the school’s connection to Israel’s genocide