The Tartan

At 4:30 p.m. on Nov. 7, around 120 people attended a protest in front of Hamerschlag Hall, where Lockheed Martin was hosting a networking and recruitment event for computer science and electrical engineering students. Valued at $111.93 billion, the aerospace, arms, and defense company signed a research partnership with Carnegie Mellon in 2019 and has sponsored university research since 1986. According to organizers Bonnie Fan and Darya Kharabi, the protest had three main aims: to end military recruitment on campus, make university funding transparent, and defund contracts that support the military-industrial complex. They called for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and for the U.S. to boycott Israel.

Against Carceral Tech (ACT), ANSWER Coalition, and Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Pittsburgh organized the protest, alongside help from Students for Justice in Palestine, Pittsburgh Palestine Solidarity Committee and the Party for Socialism and Liberation. They led chants of “ceasefire now,” “Lockheed Martin you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide,” and “CMU ain’t so sunny, Farnam loves to take blood money.”

Carnegie Mellon Ph.D. student and ACT organizer Bonnie Fan said the weapons Lockheed Martin creates and supplies have facilitated “a mass genocide happening in Palestine, where over 10,000 folks have been killed.”

Among the messages on protesters’ signs were: “Lockheed arms, Israel kills,” “Lockheed Martin enables war machines,” “We don’t support warmongers on campus,” “From Palestine to the Philippines, stop the U.S. war machine,” and “Ceasefire now, Filipinos 4 Palestine.”

Organizers handed out chant sheets, as well as a set of flyers. One called for “no more support for Israel’s war against the people of Gaza.” It made five demands: an immediate ceasefire, restoration of humanitarian aid and supplies, protection for all medical facilities, safety for people traveling for medical treatment, and open borders for people who want to evacuate Gaza. The other urged students to “stand against imperialism and genocide” and listed various countries where Lockheed Martin sold weapons. This included $3 billion worth of F-35 fighter jets to Israel. It described students who signed with the company as “the killers of tomorrow.”

Carnegie Mellon police officers stood at each corner of the protest. There were three stationed by the Wean La Prima, two by Porter Hall, and another two on the hill of The Mall. Organizers said the police presence made them feel less safe. One speaker pointed out the officers surrounding the event and a protester in the crowd shouted for them to “get a real job.”

Carnegie Mellon alum and organizer Darya Kharabi told students that their work does not exist in a vacuum. “If your company’s job is to build weapons, then your job is to make weapons,” Kharabi said into a megaphone. “Carnegie Mellon’s main business is in enabling oppression, war, and war crimes. … It’s time to kick military contractors off our campus.”

Kharabi also discussed the obscurity of research funding at the university. They said the university will refer questions about research funding to specific departments, which in turn refer questions to specific projects and commissions, making it difficult to gauge where money is from and what it is used for.

A first-year computer science student who asked to remain anonymous said she came to the rally to listen. “I rarely check the news because I’m busy doing p-sets,” she told The Tartan. She said that a protest isn’t the best source of information, but that it felt like a helpful introduction. “I wanted to hear both sides,” she explained, describing the speeches as “sometimes exaggerated” and “eye-opening.” She was particularly struck by the story one speaker shared of her work at Amazon, making drones for package delivery that she said could instead be used for air strikes. “It makes sense when you think about it for two seconds,” the first-year said, adding that she wasn’t sure how to navigate the influence of military and carcaral technology in her field.

La Prima employee and Party for Socialism and Liberation member June Wearden said that of all the protests she has attended, Palestinian protests have been the most diverse, including in age, gender, and nationality. “People around the world have realized the Palestinian struggle is connected to their struggle,” they told The Tartan. Wearden advocated for a secular one-state solution.

School of Drama senior Izidorius Tortuta advocated for companies to boycott Israel and said the country should not exist. They also told The Tartan that unlike other protest movements, including Black Lives Matter and Stop Asian Hate, conversations about Palestinian self-determination have been quiet in their department.

Paul Dordal, a chaplain who served in the U.S. army during the Iraq War, called for an immediate ceasefire and described Israel as an “evil, imperialist regime” responsible for genocide. “Death is semantics,” Dordal said in his speech. “They want to wipe the Palestinians off the face of the planet.”

A masters architecture student and ACT affiliate who asked to remain anonymous stood near the side entrance of Hamburg Hall to intercept students going to the Lockheed Martin event. She passed literature to passersby, and if she realized she missed someone, she would jog to catch them before they were too far.

The student said the protesters aimed to “use our privilege as Americans to stand in solidarity with Palestinians and victims of American-funded genocides.” Of the protest, she said, “We do it to make change, but we also do it so they can’t change us. We’re not going to let companies like Lockheed Martin strip away our empathy.”

The student advocated for a one-state solution. “Israel has got to go. Free Palestine,” she said, adding that Israelis could “go back to Brooklyn where they came from.” She told The Tartan she was disappointed in the university’s response to the war, particularly the email she received from the College of Fine Arts. “I was really upset by what proportion of the email was dedicated towards condemning Hamas and what proportion was dedicated to valuing human life,” she said. “I think condemnation of Hamas is condemnation of the Palestinian resistance.”

One protester, Pittsburgh artist Lou Rosner, had recently returned from East Jerusalem after a four-year stay. She had worked on an international public art project, I Witness Silwan, which painted the eyes and faces of Palestinians on buildings that had received eviction and demolition notices.

A Jewish Pitt alum wearing a green bandana said he grew up supporting Israel but no longer does. He said antisemitism is often used to justify a Jewish state but that he feels safe in the U.S. and believes the land belongs to Palestinians. Now a civics teacher in the area, he said that his activism is informed by a Jewish teaching tattooed on his chest: “You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.” He said the protest felt like an important start.

After the demonstration wound down with the sun at 6:00 p.m., some of the organizers spoke with The Tartan about their mission and to reflect on the protest. Human-computer interaction Ph.D. candidate Bonnie Fan, who is on a leave of absence, said it felt important to have a space for solidarity. They said university statements have not supported Palestinian students.

As of Nov. 7, university president Farnam Jahanian had sent two emails to the Carnegie Mellon community. He sent the first on Oct. 9, with the subject line “Supporting Those Affected by the Crisis in the Middle East.” Jahanian expressed grief for the civilian casualties in Israel and Gaza, condemned violence and terrorism, and encouraged students to seek support if they needed it. On Oct. 12 he sent a follow-up email to “directly condemn Hamas for their acts of terrorism against Israelis.” He sent a third — with the subject line “Holding Our Community to a Higher Standard” — on Nov. 10. In it, he condemned rhetoric that calls for “the eradication of any group of people” (including “from the river to the sea,” which was chanted at a Nov. 9 rally on campus) and slurs people have thrown at Arab and Muslim students (including “terrorists,” “degenerates,” and “animals”). “While I rarely comment on language used in the pursuit of free expression, I need to call out the deep pain and fear that these words and phrases can cause,” Jahanian wrote, asking Carnegie Mellon community members to approach each other with care.