Students Against Genocide calls on MSU to end university ties to genocide and mass surveillance

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from Students Against Genocide.

Bozeman, MT — Students Against Genocide (SAG) is a student-led campaign by Montana State University members and Bozeman residents. We are united in our opposition to the U.S. sponsored Israeli genocide in Palestine and the use of mass surveillance technologies that enable war crimes, repression, and state violence. We are proud Bobcats and Montanans who are committed to ensuring our university’s actions match its stated values.

As Montana’s land-grant university, MSU holds a public trust to serve the people of this state through education and research to advance the public good. MSU’s recent designation as an R1 research institution reflects our influence and research capacity. Influence comes with the responsibility to uphold ethical standards in where funding comes from, who it partners with, and what kinds of technology are developed under its name.

The MSU Innovation Campus is operated by the MSU Alumni Foundation and Charter Realty and is described as “establishing collaborative programs between institutions and the private sector”. Our investigation uncovered MSU-affiliated facilities and corporate tenants connected to the war industry and to military surveillance operations linked to Gaza. MSU conducts research for the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Energy, and other U.S. government agencies across academic departments and MSU-owned facilities, including research connected to the Innovation Campus.

We recognize the value of government partnership regarding research advancements that serve the public good. However, the absence of enforceable ethics policies when such partnerships involve technologies linked to civilian harm is alarming. Universities are not neutral when they build the technical infrastructure that enables state violence. As students, we refuse to accept genocide and mass surveillance as legitimate outcomes of university “innovation”.

The Applied Research Laboratory (ARL) on the Innovation Campus, conducts classified defense research and hosts defense-linked private operations including Metrea’s Spectrum Operations, which specializes in “Signals Intelligence.” SAG is concerned that MSU-affiliated facilities are helping expand military surveillance infrastructure in ways that conflict with our public mission and ethical responsibilities.

Engine Works, is an Innovation Campus building that leases space to private companies including Reveal Technology, a surveillance and intelligence modeling firm. In a public statement posted in 2024, Reveal Technology wrote that it “recently deployed its Farsight intelligence software with elements of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)”. Reveal also develops surveillance tools, such as biometric identification technology, for U.S. law enforcement, including ICE and police departments.

Our Demands

1. Adopt enforceable ethics policies governing military and surveillance research, Innovation Campus leasing, and research funding sources. 2. End war-industry leasing and relationships on the Innovation Campus by removing any tenants connected to genocide or war crimes and severing partnerships that enable such operations. 3. Commit to transparency by publishing annual public lists of research funding sources and Innovation Campus tenants and disclosing defense-related research to the greatest extent legally possible.

A comprehensive explanation of our full demands is listed here.

We urge MSU leadership to publicly respond to these demands and meet with concerned students and community leaders.

Learn more: studentsagainstgenocide.com Follow: @studentsagainstgenocidemsu

#BozemanMT #MT #AntiWarMovement #Palestine #SAG