{ "article": { "title" : "Hanan Sharifa", "author" : "Hanan Sharifa", "category" : "interviews", "url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/global-resistance-art-hanan-sharifa", "date" : "2025-02-04 15:33:00 -0500", "img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/Hanan_Sharifa_063.jpg", "excerpt" : "", "content" : "Each garment I create under my brand, Hanan Sharifa, embodies my belief that clothing should evoke a sense of daydreaming. I personally oversee every aspect of production—from designing fabrics digitally and screen printing to dyeing and sewing—occasionally working with a small team in NewYork.This hands-on approach reflects my deliberate choice to reject the mechanical processes of fast fashion. Each piece is crafted with meticulous care and love, telling stories that celebrate beauty, joy, the diaspora and the complexities of being human.Ceramics, photography, performance, and video are integral to my work, shaping the world in which my clothing exists. My designs bridge the tangible and the spiritual, serving as conduits to liminality. Incorporating ceramics has enriched my process, providing a meditative, tactile practice that complements my fashion collections. These mediums converge to create pieces that empower wearers to feel shamelessly confident and beautiful.Central to my artistic ethos is my Moroccan American identity, often expressed through Arabic script, particularly my name, ‘Hanan,’ meaning ‘tender’ or ‘compassionate.’ By incorporating these words into my designs, I aim to foster empathy and challenge misconceptions about Arabic language and culture.Rooted in spirituality and romance, my art transcends fashion to offer a sanctuary from the demands of modern life. My work invites moments of inner peace, empowerment, and joy, encouraging wearers and viewers alike to embrace their beauty and strength.Through my work, I hope to inspire love and alignment, empowering wearers to navigate the complexities of this world with grace and resilience.EIP: How does working with ceramics challenge or enhance your creative process compared to other mediums?HANAN: Ceramics has helped me focus on the present moment, and step away from thinking about my business. I love its tactile quality and how it complements my collections. At the beginning of 2024, I felt a strong pull toward working with clay—almost like a download—and I’ve been answering that call since. I don’t see clay as a challenge but as another tool for expressing the language of my work and helps me get out of circular thinking. Working with clay is definitely a slower process than making garments, since it requires time to build, fire, glaze, and fire again. It also brings a layer of playfulness to my art that is a nice reminder when I go back to designing. At times I can get lost in the process of designing collections, and focus too much on what is marketable and what will sell, instead of what I like and the fun and energy that goes into the creation of it.EIP: Are there recurring themes or stories in your work that reflect your personal experiences or cultural heritage?HANAN: A recurring theme in my work has been writing my name in Arabic on my clothes either as a pattern or my logo. I started doing this because for a long time it was the only thing I could write in Arabic and it added to my story of my experience of the diaspora. It’s been an interesting journey writing it on garments, people either love it or fear it. I think the fear comes from not knowing what it says (even though I’m always explaining what it says), or people fear the language altogether. Hard to say which one it is, but I’m disappointed that Americans and the Western world fear the Arabic language so much, and—it goes without saying—fear the people who speak it too. I’m hoping I make it more approachable, more common to see.EIP: How do you see your art evolving in the future, and what role do ceramics play in that vision?HANAN: Last summer I had a salon style dinner party to celebrate my summer collection and soft launch the ceramics that accompanied the collection - I had all the guests wearing the collection, my friend Shauna of Joon Eats cooked us dinner at my friend Sunny’s beautiful loft in Bedstuy. And we had harpist Samantha and singer/composer-improviser Miriam Elhajli play music after dinner. I’m hoping to present more collections in this very intentional way, and have some more elaborate production, and funding to pay everyone involved. I think creating spaces like this for Arab women to come together and experience the clothing in this way - to gather in a space with the ceramics, to eat, and listen to music is a nurturing experience. Everyone said they felt healed afterwards!EIP: With such a hands-on approach to production, what aspects of crafting garments do you find most fulfilling or challenging?HANAN: I really feel blessed and honored to make the garments for those who buy from me. I think people can really feel the energy and love that I put into making them. I have moments where I stop and realize that I’m living my dream life and people pay me to make them my visions, and I feel very lucky for that. It’s easy to fall into a lack mindset, or have a desire to want more, which is fine, but being grateful along the way, looking around and seeing you have everything you need is important.But I will say, at times I really get over re-producing everything. It’s a lot of work juggling all the hats of the business. I occasionally have interns, and work with small batch productions but the work sometimes makes me feel like a robot. I’m hoping to move production to Morocco this year and get some Moroccans paid. I think having production go there will still feel fulfilling for me and carry the same message and add to the story and the world I’m creating.EIP: Your work exists at the intersection of the romantic and the spiritual. How do you balance these two elements when creating your pieces?HANAN: I think loving, giving or receiving, in a romantic, or platonic way, is a spiritual experience itself. So I think the two are already in conversation with each other and it’s not something I actively think of how to communicate, but just comes out because I am those things. I don’t overthink what I want to make, and I make what I want to wear, and I don’t overthink that either. I love love, I’m a deep feeler, I love having fun. I love laughing and making other people laugh. I love going out and looking my best. I love helping other people feel that way when they wear my clothes. And these are all a part of my life purpose - uplifting people through how they look and how they feel on the inside.I hope through my clothes and my ceramics I can offer a moment of inner peace for whoever experiences it. Living in this capitalist hellscape, women have been conditioned to not feel so deeply, not relax or flow like we’re naturally supposed to. Instead we’re told to grind, and overwork, and be a girlboss, (which is fine if that’s what you want to do) but it leaves us tired and exhausted. When in reality living like that is used as a tool to oppress and discriminate against us, specifically black and poc femmes. Because they know how powerful we are when our energy is aligned, we have the ability to shut current systems down. This is what I mean by wanting women to feel empowered and they’re best self when they wear the clothes or use the ceramics. I hope you feel that power that’s within us. •" } , "relatedposts": [ { "title" : "Indonesia at a Crossroads: Revolt, Reckoning, and Reform", "author" : "EIP Editors", "category" : "essays", "url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/indonesia-at-a-crossroads-revolt-reckoning-and-reform", "date" : "2025-09-05 13:06:00 -0400", "img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/indonesia-chairfire.jpg", "excerpt" : "1. Death Ignites National Outrage The political unrest sweeping Indonesia was triggered by the fatal police incident that claimed the life of a young motorbike driver, Affan Kurniawan, during a protest. Videos of the incident went viral, catalyzing outrage and prompting widespread demonstrations.(The Economist, AP News)", "content" : "1. Death Ignites National Outrage The political unrest sweeping Indonesia was triggered by the fatal police incident that claimed the life of a young motorbike driver, Affan Kurniawan, during a protest. Videos of the incident went viral, catalyzing outrage and prompting widespread demonstrations.(The Economist, AP News)2. Oligarchic Frustration Meets State Discontent The protests were more than a reaction to a single tragedy—they reflect deeper resentment toward rising economic inequality, government corruption, and perceived elite impunity. Outrage also flared when lawmakers revealed they received a monthly housing allowance ten times higher than the Jakarta minimum wage.(AP News, Jacobin)3. Heavy-Handed Response Fuels Escalation Security forces responded with force, resulting in at least 10 deaths nationwide and over a thousand arrests. Buildings—parliament and police stations included—were torched in moments of rage and despair.(Indonesia at Melbourne, AP News, Foreign Policy, The Times of India)4. Government Concedes, but Doubts Remain In a bid to defuse tensions, President Prabowo Subianto fired the officer involved in Kurniawan’s death, rescinded legislators’ allowances, suspended overseas trips, and pledged investigations. Yet, many see this as insufficient given systemic grievances.(The Australian, The Diplomat, AP News)5. A Reversion to Militarization? Beyond economic and social pressure, Indonesia is grappling with democratic backsliding. Moves by the government to allow active-duty generals to assume civilian ministerial roles have sparked fears of a return to authoritarian control. Proposals to expand military involvement into civil affairs are meeting growing resistance.(International IDEA, Wikipedia)6. Youth are Engaged—But Vulnerable Students and civil society activists are at the forefront of the resistance, demanding transparency and accountability—especially around military reform. But with civic education weak and political representation often dynastic, sustaining long-term change remains a challenge.(East Asia Forum, Freedom House)7. Economic Fragility Adds Fuel to the Fire Indonesia’s economic growth has slowed dramatically—falling below 5%—amid budget cuts to health and infrastructure. Rising public debt, currency instability, and capital flight are making policymakers increasingly desperate to assert control.(broadsheet.asia, biia.com, AInvest, GIS Reports)What’s at Stake?Indonesia now stands at a critical fault line: between authoritarian retrenchment and democratic renewal. The popular protests shine a light on inequality, governance failures, and militarization. The president’s concessions—though visible—may be too little, too late without structural reform.That said, youth-led resistance, digital solidarity, and civil society activism offer a fragile but meaningful glimmer of hope. Their next steps will determine whether Indonesia moves toward meaningful reforms—or slides deeper into repression." } , { "title" : "Clear Backpacks, Columbine, and the Colors of School Safety", "author" : "Derecka Purnell", "category" : "essays", "url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/clear-backpacks-columbine-colors-of-school-safety", "date" : "2025-09-02 23:38:00 -0400", "img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/2025_9_Gun_Violence_Derecka_Purnell_1.jpg", "excerpt" : "In elementary school, our classroom’s wooden door displayed a laminated sheet that listed emergency drills, coordinated by shades of urgency. Green, yellow, orange, red. Fire drills were fun. We stole giggles and glances at friends and crushes as everyone lined up outside on the playground. Tornado drills - when we were sure they were just drills - took us into hallways to tuck our heads between our knees for a thrilling disruption to an otherwise routine school day. Teachers taught us to scoot under our tiny desks during earthquake drills. A couple of kids would get in trouble for twisting their heads around and shaking on their backs, clearly possessed by the demons of imaginary tremors. We’d defend our acting, “But why we gotta practice sitting still for an earthquake!?”", "content" : "In elementary school, our classroom’s wooden door displayed a laminated sheet that listed emergency drills, coordinated by shades of urgency. Green, yellow, orange, red. Fire drills were fun. We stole giggles and glances at friends and crushes as everyone lined up outside on the playground. Tornado drills - when we were sure they were just drills - took us into hallways to tuck our heads between our knees for a thrilling disruption to an otherwise routine school day. Teachers taught us to scoot under our tiny desks during earthquake drills. A couple of kids would get in trouble for twisting their heads around and shaking on their backs, clearly possessed by the demons of imaginary tremors. We’d defend our acting, “But why we gotta practice sitting still for an earthquake!?”Then, we started preparing for people to kill us.Tornadoes don’t twist door knobs, target classrooms, punish giggles or reload weapons. Shootings are unnatural disasters. The one at Columbine happened right after my 9th birthday. Learning that kids kill kids colored my school days more. Intruder drills are dark. We’d turn off the lights, sit in silence, and hide in the coat room. At last, an administrator tapped on each door to signal that we were clear.In the thirty years since those sixteen kids had their lives stolen in Colorado, I have been a student, youth worker and organizer, freedom school instructor, middle school teacher, board member of a youth nonprofit, the best aunt to my niblings, an improving godmother, and now parent of an eleven and nine year old– nearly an expert in first days of school. We send kids into the world. We expect them to come home with their crayons and their complaints. Sometimes, they do not. According to data by the Washington Post, more than 394,000 students have experienced gun violence at school since Columbine, impacting more than 400 schools across the country. Over 200 people have been killed and twice as many people have been injured.On the last day before my first holiday break from teaching, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was breaking news. Word passed between teacher to teacher like a virus, each one of us sinking with symptoms of heartbreak into the spinning black office chairs around the work lounge. A few months later, pessimism spread, too. A white man in the United States of America could murder his mother, and then a class of nearly all white kindergarteners, and nothing would really happen. Twenty miniature caskets and politicians failed to carry any piece of federal legislation down the aisle to be signed into law for ten years. President Biden ultimately signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act in 2022, which did not address how the Sandy Hook shooter ultimately secured the weapon used in the killing spree, which was legally obtained by his mother. More mass school shootings followed.About ten states have bans on assault rifles, important bans birthed in the activism and tears following deadly rampages. Yet the usual political sluggishness and nothingness resulting from school shootings was one of the most important lessons that would secretly haunt me throughout the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement: most white lives did not matter in the U.S. In fact, most people who are white can never matter as long as death-dealing forms of oppression exist, including patriarchy, ableism, homophobia, imperialism, capitalism, and white supremacy. Those children were sacrificed at capitalism’s bloody altar, little casualties for the sake of gunmaking CEOs.As with all pain and suffering, capitalists turn school shootings into a market. Kids get killed, companies get cash. According to a major study, people bought three million more guns than normal in the five months following the Sandy Hook shooting. The same study found an additional correlated spike in unintentional gun-related deaths for sixty people, including twenty children in that period. No drills or alarms or color coded systems can prepare anyone for these accidents.Gun sales belong to an entire marketplace that depends on preventable deaths. Instead of eliminating the problems - including weapons manufacturers - capitalists sell “solutions.”Florida is spending half a million dollars to pilot drone technology in three school districts. Pilots will operate the drones inside the schools from a remote command center, and for a thousand bucks a month, be able to “respond within five seconds and take out the shooter in less than a minute.” What if there are multiple shooters, like Columbine? Maybe multiple drones! What if the shooting takes place on the playground? Maybe playground drones! What if the shooting takes place on the school bus? Maybe school bus drones! Of course, the solutions have to be piloted, subscribed to, implemented, insured, updated, repaired, replaced, repackaged, and resold. We are in a kaleidoscope of the school to prison pipeline, military industrial complex, and carceral state.Two years ago, my kids’ school district emailed parents another new “solution:” clear backpacks. In three bullet points, they listed that clear backpacks will help school officials scan bookbags, reduce weapons and contraband, and increase transparency among students. As cons, they acknowledged that some people might view it as an invasion of privacy and that the bookbags might be hard to find in stores. My then nine-year old child had questions.* Why are they turning our school into a prison? Isn’t that much plastic bad for the environment? What do they think might happen?*Columbine and Sandy Hook were not secrets I withheld. His questions made me feel otherwise. When he found out how Tamir Rice was killed later in the school year, he was livid that in all that I had told him about the police, I did not tell him that they also can kill kids. In 2014, the year he was born, it was news to me, too. I learned about Aiyanna Stanley-Jones after Michael Brown was killed, even though cops killed her four years earlier. Breaking old news to children hurts. In a moment, they experience the specific cruelty of the incident, the general cruelty of the world, and immediate vulnerability to a new danger. His childhood is now colored by these events, and the clear bookpack solution was as fake as the plastic material of the bag.His questions led us on a research journey. Some school districts in other parts of the country introduced clear bookbags and then rescinded them. Why? Clear backpacks contain polyvinyl chloride, or PVC. The kind of PVC in bookbags contains a chemical that can cause cancer, asthma, fertility issues, early puberty for girls, liver damage, and mental developmental issues. In 2022, the Charlotte School District in North Carolina halted its bookbag policy and rollout due to California Proposition 65 Warning attached to the clear backpacks, notifying consumers of cancer causing agents due to the PVC.One year later, vinyl chloride, the underlying chemical in PVC, came into public scrutiny in the aftermath of a major train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. Residents of the small, mostly white town witnessed a catastrophic spill and burn that released over 1.1 million pounds of vinyl chloride into the soil, air, and water, alongside other toxic chemicals. The Environmental Protection Agency reported that public health agencies informed residents that vinyl chloride is a known human carcinogen that “continuous lifetime exposure to low levels of vinyl chloride can increase an individual’s risk of developing liver cancer, as well as other cancers.” The EPA has ongoing reporting on the environmental impact of the toxins, explaining to residents that screenings have returned readings below the amount necessary for government protection. Residents have organized and reported otherwise, including “recurring rashes, lesions, and bloody noses endured by themselves, their loved ones, and their children.”Not only would PVC bookbags cause plastic pollution for the planet, it was bad for humans, too.The pervasiveness of guns and the political permission for school shootings to persist will attempt to undermine other aspects of our social, physical, and mental health. Clear backpacks - which experts warn that no evidence supports improving safety- may make parents and educators feel better. But it is not worth exposing kids to cancer causing agents, slowly, intentionally, on their backs, everyday, and equally important, conditioning us all to perform or accept additional surveillance as convenient protective measures.My kid and I were successful at convincing some parents and the school leadership to reverse the clear backpack policy. But the next year, a new principal introduced optional mesh bookbags as an alternative, gentler surveillance, and so our fight continues. The color of school safety is not clear, and a clear backpack is not as immediately lethal as a gun. What remains dangerous is the kind of market driven approach that offers new drills and commodities towards a different kind of preventable tragedy. Let’s not be the kind of society who accepts it." } , { "title" : "To Do the Greatest Harm: Cornell University’s Complicity in International Violence & Destruction", "author" : "Eliza Salamon & MB", "category" : "essays", "url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/cornell-complicity", "date" : "2025-08-20 12:01:00 -0400", "img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/greg-daines-A37V-7GyDDg-unsplash.jpg", "excerpt" : " This independent research shown in this report, show that the US and Israeli military, the largest military and weapons corporations, and technology companies have invested over $180 million in Cornell researchers and departments, mostly from 2023-2024.", "content" : " This independent research shown in this report, show that the US and Israeli military, the largest military and weapons corporations, and technology companies have invested over $180 million in Cornell researchers and departments, mostly from 2023-2024.Discussion of the military-industrial complex often leaves out its third arm: academia. For many decades, the American defense industry, weapons manufacturers, and universities have collaborated in a profitable pattern that turn students and academics into cogs of the American war machine. 1 2 The Department of Defense (D.o.D.) is the branch of government that distributes taxpayer funds, generally through direct and indirect contracts, to research universities.This report unmasks Cornell University’s participation in this system and its complicity in global violence, destruction, and human rights violations while it enjoys a $10.7b endowment. In particular, our analysis, largely based on Office of Sponsored Research files from 2001-2024, finds that Cornell has been complicit in the U.S.-backed Saudi genocide of Yemen and the U.S.-backed Israeli genocide of Gaza. This complicity has been established through two forms of collaboration: Direct collaboration, through tens of millions of dollars in funding, with weapons manufacturers and fossil fuel companies. These include companies from which the student undergraduate and graduate bodies have adopted divestment resolutions (BAE Systems, Boeing, Elbit Systems, General Dynamics, L3Harris Technologies, Leonardo, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, RTX, Technion Institute, and ThyssenKrupp). 3 4 Direct collaboration with Saudi ARAMCO and the Israeli Ministry of Defense (I.M.o.D.), including millions of dollars in funding. In addition, Cornell’s partnership with the Israeli university Technion (Israel Institute of Technology) through the New York City Cornell Tech Campus is uniquely egregious and a direct form of collaboration. 5 Much of the data supporting this has been aggregated into an excel file attached here 6 with the original files. 7 Hundreds of these sponsored research projects are listed in the linked table in addition to D.o.D. work that is included in our larger report. 8 The projects vary in subject from vaccines to cyber to hardware to policy. The table should be treated as a largely representative but incomplete list of Cornell’s involvement with the most prominent weapons manufacturing-related entities.Israeli Funding and Cornell’s Role in Apartheid and GenocideIn 2007, Harold Craighead, Professor in Applied and Engineering Physics, secured $300k from the I.M.o.D. The funded project focused on the development and fabrication of nanodevices. Though we were unable to obtain papers specifically citing this funding other than the official reporting, we present here the most plausible outcome of the proposed research. In 2006, Craighead received a visit from former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres.9 In a discussion with Peres, Craighead mentioned his collaboration with Tel Aviv University (T.A.U). Indeed, in the same year Craighead published a paper in collaboration with employees of T.A.U. focusing on the same topic of nanodevices.10 Military applications of the research include nano-meter scale robotics and biotechnologies along with optics/imaging. In a similar vein, the unaffiliated partnership between Lockheed Martin and Rice University documents other broad military applications of nano-tech.11In 2020, Robert F. Shepherd, an Associate Professor in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, solicited $100k from the I.M.o.D. for elastic metamaterials research. Like Craighead, this funding is not reported in any of Shepherd’s publications, though one can extrapolate on the basis of the research topic as to which papers of his were I.M.o.D. funded. In particular, a paper from 2020 focuses precisely on the use of fluid flow to modulate material shape.12 This field is largely concerned with the manufacturing of materials which can change properties like texture or rigidity as a modulated response. Such applications are useful for the development of robotic components which can manipulate or navigate the environment. In addition, Shepherd’s collaborator at Israeli university Technion, Amir Gat, lists a 2019-2020 $100k funding grant from Maffat (a joint administrative body of the I.M.o.D and the I.D.F.) under the same topic.13 Conference proceedings also fit under the same topic and Shepherd went to Technion to present his work at a conference in 2020.14 15Frank Wise, Professor of Engineering in Applied and Engineering Physics, also solicited $100k from the I.M.o.D. to research high-power lasers. Such terawatt fiber lasers have a variety of applications but are of particular military interest for destroying aircraft or infrastructure without the use of conventional kinetic weapons like missiles. Lockheed Martin, a weapons manufacturer, reports its own interests in high-power lasers and such weapons are already being applied aboard military ships.16 17 18 This funding resulted in a paper on lasers that can be modulated to use various modes of emission.19 Pavel Sidorenko, a post-doc within Wise’s group, is now holding a position at the Technion continuing research on the high-power fiber lasers “which are becoming increasingly important in a variety of fields ranging from military applications to healthcare”.20Qing Zhao, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, also solicited $420k from the I.M.o.D. between 2021 and 2024. Zhao used this funding to research artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms and cites the I.M.o.D. funding in two papers dealing with computer vision and decision-making algorithms.21 22 Focusing on the former, Zhao’s work on computer vision enables cameras to more effectively identify objects, persons and notice patterns.23 Indeed, such computer vision algorithms have been implemented by the Israeli military to identify Palestinians from Gaza at checkpoints targeting forcibly displaced refugees.24Zhao’s work also has applications in the development of efficient autonomous drone swarms, by producing algorithms that lead to effective decision-making.25 Suppose a swarm of drones is navigating an area, each with its own sensors or cameras learning about its environment, then the data has to be processed leading to a decision. Zhao’s work creates an algorithm that processes this information in a centralized way and then makes a decision. This research can be applied to make decisions such as whether or not to kill an individual or bomb a building. Per a Booz Allen Hamilton report, Israel has been to date the first to use machine learning, including drone swarms successfully in military campaigns:“Israel’s victory over Hamas in 2021 was the first war to be won via the asymmetric advantage provided by AI, and the conflict in Gaza that started in 2023 continues to be characterized by AI as well as information warfare in the cognitive domain… Israel became the first country to use true drone swarms, deploying them in its 2021 conflict with Gaza, and is arguably the global leader in this technology because of their implementation of Elbit Systems’ Legion-X, a modular, heterogeneous, multi-domain C2 swarm system”.26 See also.27The use of these machine learning algorithms in Gaza has been documented in +972 magazine with the implementation of algorithms known as The Gospel, Lavender, and Where’s Daddy?28On the policy side, Sarah Kreps, Professor in Government, conducts public policy and supply chain studies for the D.o.D. and the Israeli government. In 2024, she published a study on the best surveillance practices for governments to engage in.29 The study was in part funded by the Israel National Cyber Directorate.Given Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians, Cornell’s collaboration with Technion University in Israel is another blatant example of its active complicity. With the establishment of the Cornell Tech campus on Roosevelt Island in NYC in 2012, Cornell has doubled down on its commitment to its Israeli collaborations, despite the efforts of its activist student body and the protest of NYC communities.30 31 At the announcement of the partnership, the Israeli consul expressed the “strategic importance” of the project to change the state’s association with conflict and violence, and instead associate it with innovation.32 Cornell consistently touts its collaboration with Technion in published articles: “The impact of the Technion on Israel’s economy, society and defense is unmatched”.33Further, the word “defense” is often used by weapons manufacturers and governments as a euphemism for offensive capabilities. The Technion has also been instrumental in advancing technological capabilities of the Israeli Ministry of Defense.34 35 36 It also had several programs and scholarships sponsored by weapons manufacturers Rafael and Elbit Systems.37 In addition, Technion has been directly complicit through providing support to the Israeli military.38 As the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (B.D.S.) movement has documented: “Technion has developed a course on marketing the Israeli weapons industry to the international market for export. Technion also has numerous joint academic programs with the Israeli military and developed the remote­ control capabilities for the Caterpillar D­9 armored bulldozer used by the Israeli military to demolish Palestinian homes—considered collective punishment under international law.”39 40 41 42 Cornell Tech’s council includes Michael Bloomberg who once stated: “I’ll never condition aid to Israel.”43 This may reflect, in part, why Cornell’s leadership has refused to even consider divestment.Saudi Funding and Cornell’s Role in Climate Change and Human Rights AbusesCornell’s complicity with genocidal governments extends further through its substantial relationships with the Saudi government and its institutions. University programs and individual faculty benefit from Saudi funds despite the many violations of human rights carried out by Mohammed Bin Salman, the Saudi totalitarian Crown Prince and Prime Minister. These include but are not limited to the following: the U.S.-backed genocide in Yemen, the assassination and dismemberment of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the country’s limitless production of fossil fuels, and its persistent crackdowns on its own activists, including feminists. The Yemeni genocide claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians from 2015 to 2022.44 [^45] American-made weapons were used and made the U.S. complicit.45 46 47 48 At no point did Cornell, as an institution, take action to break ties with the Saudi dictatorship. Cornell’s former president Frank H. T. Rhodes served as a trustee at the King Abdullah University of Science Technology along with former M.I.T. president Charles M. Vest.49Over the past few years, faculty have also been subsidized through research funding from Saudi ARAMCO, the majority state-owned petroleum and natural gas company responsible for almost 4.5% of all global CO2 and methane emissions between 1965 and 2017.50 The company has a long history of obstructing action against climate change through aggressive lobbying and funding of Western research, especially at American universities.51 The work financed by Saudi ARAMCO at Cornell is focused on oil refinement and energy generation broadly, a problematic venture, especially considering academia’s knowledge of the human role in perpetuating climate change.Amongst the employees who received funds from ARAMCO are Lawrence Cathles, Lynden Archer and Emmanuel Giannelis, professors in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and Materials Science, respectively, who received $1.3m from 2009 to 2011 through the KAUST-Cornell Center for Energy and Sustainability. Despite its name, this center, a collaboration between Cornell and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (K.A.U.S.T.) in Saudi Arabia from 2008-2015, was committed to research on oil and gas production.52 53 Further K.A.U.S.T. funding followed: Giannelis also received $531k between 2012 and 2014. Archer, current Dean of the School of Engineering, received $84k in 2017. In 2023, $250k went to Professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Yong Joo and $400k to a professor in Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Geoffrey Coates. Yong Joo also solicited $200k in funding along with Associate Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering Greeshma Gadikota’s $300k in 2024.Collaboration With Weapons ManufacturersIn addition to collaborating with violent regimes, Cornell has received millions of dollars in research funding that have come directly from weapons manufacturers. Publicly available documents dating from 2001 show this funding includes the “primes”54: Lockheed Martin [~$3m], Raytheon [~$6.5m], Boeing [~$1.4m], Northrop Grumman [~$2.3m] and General Dynamics [~$240k]. B.A.E. Systems [~$2.3m], L3Harris [~$1.4m], Shell [$500k], Exxon [~$1.2m], Intel Corporation [~$16.4m], I.B.M. [~$7.2m], M.I.T. Lincoln Laboratory [~$250k], Teledyne [~$700k] and others have also given considerable research funding to the Cornell employees.The group of studies are far too extensive to discuss in one document but demonstrate the ultimate functioning of so-called “academic” research. The funding has been for machine learning and artificial intelligence development, software and computer language platforms, silicon chip and battery development, miniature satellites, robotics, data visualization, 3-D rendering and much more. All of these are components that are often declared as being “dual use” but are used by militaries and states well beyond any stated consumer use. As one example, Raytheon has published articles on its web page touting its collaboration with Cornell on gallium-nitride materials and refinement radio-frequency technologies.55These collaborations extend to student life. Cornell has overtly partnered with Lockheed Martin to create a Masters of Engineering program in Systems Engineering.56 On the front page of the program is stated: “Lockheed Martin Employees - Welcome!”. Standards are lowered for Lockheed Martin employees by waiving GRE scores and requiring only one recommendation letter. Similarly, Cornell has an identical partnership with Boeing for a Masters program along with a 5% tuition discount and waiving of application fee.57The university also holds a key laboratory for the Northeast Regional Defense Technology Hub (N.O.R.D.T.E.C.H.) along with a plethora of other universities and weapons manufacturers.58 Though its aims include a wide array of technologies, they are highly focused on the development of computer chips. The basis of the organization is to create a collaborative space between weapons manufacturers, the D.o.D., and academia.The Cornell Tech campus in N.Y.C. also does its own collaborations, including with DefenseArk.59 Through its startup award it has helped sustain autonomous robotics companies like Aatonomy which are looking to do business with the D.o.D.60OutlookIn the midst of foreign catastrophes including the Yemeni genocide, the ongoing Palestinian genocide and the assassination of hundreds of reporters in Gaza, Cornell has never ceased nor paused its collaboration with regimes or the weapons manufacturers supplying them. Not only does this demonstrate its institutional and individual collaboration with actors that consistently violate international law, but also reveals that its professed human values are ultimately hollow calls. In our non-comprehensive analysis of Cornell research funding from 2001-2024, we found that researchers and institutes received hundreds of millions of dollars from the D.o.D, weapons manufacturers, and international governments committing vast human rights violations. Further investigation would also reveal indirect transfers of technology and weaponry from Cornell to U.A.E.’s fueling of the Sudanese genocide by means of weapons manufacturing sales.61Cornell feigns its research to be merely theoretical, non-applied, or done for the sake of “knowledge production.” David Gray Widder, post-doctoral researcher at Cornell Tech has recently written about the impossibility of making a distinction between basic and applied research when such research is funded by entities whose explicit purpose is to enact harm: “this mutual enlistment is crucial to the perpetuation of the military-industrial-commercial-academic complex, and to the technopolitical imaginaries of security through military domination that keep public funds flowing to projects in more efficient killing and destruction”.62Political scientist Neve Gordon and medical anthropologist Guy Shalev published a recent article titled “The Shame of Israeli Medicine”, which concludes that Israeli academics are not doing their part in preventing the genocide and therefore require external pressure and sanctioned from outside Israel. Despite these findings, Cornell Tech’s president Michael Kotlikoff recently stated proudly in a speech that “at Cornell Tech, we have the most intensive and meaningful collaboration with an Israeli university of any institution in this country”.63As Cornell reportedly prepares to reach a $100 million settlement with the Trump administration over allegations of anti-semitism, it draws ever closer to the belly of the beast.64 The Trump administration’s blatant weaponization of anti-semitism is one of its many tactics designed to manufacture consent for its crackdown on higher education and prompt capitulation. With this settlement, Cornell’s alliances with repressive regimes are only continuing to expand. An institution that continues to tie itself to the destruction of international communities can only degrade and devolve into a symbol of oppression.This report finds that Cornell’s purported goals in sustaining human-centred values are not only lacking, but are egregiously contrary to them. On an institutional and individual level, Cornell is intimately complicit in the act of genocide. And though Cornell has its own unique forms of complicity, the academic-military-industrial complex permeates the entire American system of higher education. If these institutions, as they have demonstrated thus far, do not have the moral capacity to make ethical and just decisions, it is the responsibility of students, faculty, staff, and the broader international academic community to put pressure, sanctions, and boycotts on them. 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