By Arden Ryan
On Friday, Feb. 2, dozens of protesters gathered outside Carnegie Mellon’s Warner Hall for a “No Tech For Apartheid” rally. Organizers opposed what they said was university support for Israel’s military operation in Gaza. They maintained that the university was connected with weapons and defense technology Israel is using.
In a statement provided to The Tartan, organizer and alum Darya Kharabi explained the demonstration’s goals. Kharabi said that as the Palestinian death count exceeds 27,000 and the university normalizes militarism, organizers were concerned that the university would use student work to develop weapons that kill civilians.
The rally was assembled by two student organizations, CMU Students for Palestine and Against Carceral Tech. According to Kharabi’s statement, the former is a “coalition of students calling for liberation, justice, and self- determination for the people of Palestine.” They said the latter, a Pittsburgh-based coalition of college and community members, aims to “disrupt the ties between local universities and state violence through education, discourse, advocacy, and action.”
At the rally, an undergraduate speaker told the crowd, “Why work for war in a world of abundance, in a world where we could be putting an end to the violent cult of capitalism and working toward liberation together?” They were referring to the claim that Carnegie Mellon students are recruited by industrial corporations to build technologies of war on contract for the Department of Defense.
“Why do we put our minds and our money to work for genocide?” the speaker asked, describing Carnegie Mellon students as “the universal soldiers in our labs,” doing work for “people in government who have gaslit us into believing in their moral superiority and so keep us marching.”
The protest ran for around two hours. Participants held signs that read “labor against genocide” and “why do our taxes pay for Israeli healthcare and Palestinian genocide.” Some attendees passed out fliers with a “No Labor for the War Machine” and “No Research for War” pledge, calling on students to avoid “positions at companies that profit off of war,” to “not attend any career-related events” involving those companies, and to refuse to provide “labor to companies with ties to war crimes, human rights violations, and Israeli occupation.” The pledge also urges students to “refuse research projects that advance U.S. military interests.”
The pamphlet also included a list of protestors’ rights and layed out the “phases of interaction” with police officers, informing rally participants of what to do should they be approached, detained, or arrested.
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