\n<\/p>\n
Pro-Palestine student<\/span> activists across the country have struggled to get their universities to respond to pressure for divestment from Israel and its military\u2013industrial complex.<\/p>\n So when a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology withdrew from a grant from the Israeli military after hearing feedback from students protesting the ongoing genocide in Gaza, it was especially welcome news.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is one of the only cases where we know that student activism and public pressure led directly to an Israeli tie being cut, let alone a collaboration with its genocidal military,\u201d said Mila Halgren, a postdoctoral associate at MIT. (The university did not respond to a request for comment.)<\/p>\n \u201cStudent action is not meaningless.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n MIT has come under internal<\/a> and public scrutiny<\/a> for conducting research on warfare technology sponsored by Israel. In July, the United Nations condemned<\/a> the school for conducting \u201cweapons and surveillance research funded by the Israeli ministry of defense \u2014 the only foreign military financing research at the institute.\u201d<\/p>\n That research included projects on drone swarm control<\/a> \u2014 technology which the Israeli military has used<\/a> during its siege on Gaza \u2014 pursuit algorithms, and underwater surveillance.<\/p>\n Markus Buehler, a professor in the civil engineering department, withdrew the grant earlier this summer shortly after a student pro-Palestine group publicized it on <\/a>Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThis concession shows that student campaigns do have an influence,\u201d Halgren said. \u201cIt also shows that these ties cannot survive transparency and public awareness. Student action is not meaningless; despite increased repression, it is more important than ever to resist genocide.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n MIT has said its <\/a>proposals are not confidential<\/a> and that it does not allow funders to make them secret. As students have drawn public attention to the school\u2019s history of developing war technology for Israel, however, the school has made that information opaque, Halgren said.<\/p>\n Students used the school\u2019s internal grant database to identify new contracts with the Israeli Ministry of Defense earlier this year and published a report on more than $3.7 million the Israeli military spent on warfare and surveillance research. (The U.N. mentioned several of those projects in its <\/a>report<\/a> this summer criticizing MIT for conducting Israeli military research during the ongoing genocide.)<\/p>\n After the student report was published, the school added new restrictions on access to the data, The Intercept previously <\/a>reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n In July, students found a loophole and identified more contracts sponsored by the Israeli military, including Buehler\u2019s. The school responded by adding further restrictions to the database and a warning that unauthorized access could result in disciplinary action. Last month, school police issued a criminal trespass order to a lecturer and former student, citing unauthorized data access in July and August.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are now no sources for MIT community members to see who funds our school\u2019s research.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n The school also stopped publicizing its research sponsors earlier this year. MIT took down its \u201cBrown Book,\u201d<\/a> which documented its sponsored research, and said it would not publish them going forward. At the time, an MIT spokesperson said the school removed the reports to bring its financial reporting practices in line with federal requirements and \u201ctypical\u201d disclosures, MIT\u2019s student newspaper The Tech reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cDue to making these Israeli military ties public, MIT has removed access to both of its grant databases,\u201d Halgren said. \u201cThere are now no sources for MIT community members to see who funds our school\u2019s research.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n
Obscuring the Money Trail<\/h2>\n
\n