Around a dozen students gathered outside the Tandon School of Engineering on Monday to demand that NYU cut ties with the U.S. Navy, Lockheed Martin and other military defense companies with ties to Israel and involvement in the war in Gaza.

The protest, organized by NYU’s chapter of Students for a Democratic Society, took place outside of Tandon’s Center for Urban Science and Progress and ended in a march across the Brooklyn Commons. As demonstrators chanted “Engineering should save lives, not be used for genocide” and “Tandon students we call on you, don’t go work for genocide too,” groups of first-year students walked by. 

NYU spokesperson John Beckman said the university supports the right to “peacefully express dissent,” but expressed concern about recent protest activity on campus. “The calls to deprive fellow students of their choice of when and where to work and to prevent researchers from choosing whom to work with are deeply troubling,” Beckman said in a statement to WSN. “As it has for many years, NYU rejects calls for academic boycotts, because they are at odds with the receipts of the free exchange of ideas and academic freedom.”

Molly Cheevers — a former Tandon student who documented their hunger strike against the school’s investments in military defense companies last semester — said the school’s culture pressured students to seek internships and jobs with weapons manufacturing companies through career fairs and counseling, and that cohorts of students were often invited to networking meetings and trips as forms of incentive. They said the intensity of the recruitment provoked them to withdraw their final year at the school. Cheevers is now facing felony charges after the strike, which involved chaining themselves to a bench for 15 days.  

“If you don’t have that bloodthirsty desire to go work at one of these companies, you’re kind of seen as a loser,” Cheevers said in an interview with WSN. “You’ll notice your professors take way less interest when it comes to talking to or calling on you, and it’s just so clear that it runs through the whole culture of this campus.” 

Although the university lists Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Jacobs Engineering and Northrop Grumman among its top employers, it has not released information regarding its ties to any military defense corporations.

During a series of speeches, one counter-protester approached the group wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat and spat water in students’ faces. A group of Campus Safety officers watching the demonstration remained in their positions, and one officer told WSN that they could not intervene because the group was protesting a public space. The counter-protester proceeded to aggressively shove through the group, and was immediately followed into a local Starbucks by one Campus Safety officer and four New York City Police Department officers. 

Shortly after the demonstration began, six representatives from Neturei Karta joined the group’s chants and held signs that read “Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism” and “State of Israel does not represent Jewry.” The demonstration came after NYU updated its Non-Discrimination and Harassment policies to include that “code words, such as ‘Zionist’” could be deemed discriminatory.  

“We support the students, and we make a statement that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism in any way,” Rabbi Dovid Feldman, a spokesperson for the group said in an interview with WSN. “We are aware that this antisemitism accusation is being used to silence the voice of individuals, of groups — especially on college campuses — and this is not right.”

Last semester, dozens of students and faculty were arrested while calling for NYU to divest from Israeli-backed companies, remove police from campus and pardon students facing disciplinary action for their involvement in pro-Palestinian protests. In May, the university said it would not consider divestment.  

Contact Dharma Niles at [email protected].