The CIA was “unable to attend” an internship fair on Wednesday after a petition condemning the agency’s anticipated presence garnered over 80 signatures. About seven people also picketed outside the Kimmel Center for University Life while the event was taking place on the building’s fourth floor. 

At the picket, organized by NYU’s chapter of Students for a Democratic Society, students were joined by two former faculty members and chanted “CIA off our campus, no platform for state violence” and “Brick by brick, wall by wall, the CIA will fall.” More than a dozen campus security guards stood in front of the Kimmel Center’s front entrance during the rally. 

Two members of Writers Against the War on Gaza — a group of pro-Palestinian writers and scholars unaffiliated with NYU — stood next to the picket and handed passers-by copies of “The New York War Crimes,” the organization’s parody of The New York Times in protest of the publication’s coverage of Israel’s siege in Gaza.

The CIA’s reserved table at the internship fair displayed a QR code for students to send their Handshake profiles to the agency. Organizers cleared the table within the first hour of the event, which was set to last until 3 p.m.

“Each semester dozens of employers register for and attend our Career Fairs,” an NYU spokesperson said in a statement to WSN. “However, it is not uncommon that a small number of companies, whether government agencies, nonprofits, or private firms, end up not attending on the day of the fair.”

In a Wednesday press release, NYU SDS said that the university hosting the CIA at the event violated its Code of Ethical Conduct, citing the agency’s violent and political interference in numerous foreign countries. 

“[The CIA] has no right to be present on our campus when our labor should be dedicated to saving and improving the lives of our people, not be used towards genocide and war crimes,” Tandon junior Ebtesham Ahmed, an NYU SDS organizer, told WSN. “Just the announcement of the picket — even if there weren’t too many people out there — the energy, the possibility of a disruption at the career fair, was enough to scare them off.” 

Contact Alex Woodworth and Kaleo Zhu at [email protected].