At a recent CU Boulder career fair titled “From Earth to Space: Bio, Science and Exploration Career & Internship Fair” on Oct. 16, members of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) stood in front of the table for weapons manufacturing company, Lockheed Martin, and chanted various things, stopping students from talking to the war profiteers attempting to hire them until the Lockheed Martin employees left the career fair entirely.
Before this career fair disruption, one anonymous former member of SJP had received leaked confidential information that Joshua A. Powell, a member of Lockheed Martin regional security, was involved. According to an an anonymous SJP member who we interviewed, “it was quite enlightening seeing as SJP and two of its former members were falsely charged as violating the [Campus Use of University Facilities] policy,” further noting that “it was very surprising when one individual, during the monitored review of evidence used to level false allegations, spotted the full name and email address of Joshua A. Powell. Once it was shared with us by the former member who found it, we were shocked. We couldn’t believe that CU Boulder would violate the trust of one of its closest corporate ties.” Another anonymous SJP member also stated that “if Devin Cramer and other CU Boulder admin hadn’t seen the need to violate these students’ First Amendment rights, Josh [Powell] would not be a known target of student activists across Colorado.”
The members of SJP locked arms and formed a circle in front of the Lockheed Martin table, calling out various chants like “Disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest,” “Lockheed Martin don’t you lie, you make money while kids die,” and “CU Boulder, blood on your hands, Chancellor Schwartz, blood on your hands, Lockheed Martin, blood on your hands.” In a post on Instagram, SJP stated, “We refuse to let our campus serve as a pipeline into war and genocide. Lockheed profits from occupation and mass death, including the bombs and fighter jets Israel uses to murder Palestinians in Gaza,” along with various photos and a video of the disruption.
Because of SJP’s disruption, Lockheed Martin employees, unable to communicate with students effectively, walked out of the career fair in anger, while the table would later be taken down with Lockheed Martin’s items removed. One student, angry at the war profiteers leaving, told El Diario he had been “…waiting for 40 minutes in the line.”
Various members of the CU Police Department (CUPD); Brighten Police Department; and CU Assistant Vice Chancellors Erin Harrell, Joe Andenmatten, and Montez Butts (pictured below) proceeded to surround the student protestors, with one member of CUPD holding his body camera up to each protester’s face, as well as our El Diario staff at the career fair documenting the protest in an attempt to identify them. They then asked the protestors to leave the premises, and they proceeded to comply and left through a door that the admin led them out.
In their Instagram post, SJP outlined their three demands, calling for CU to “stop inviting Lockheed Martin to campus recruiting events,” such as the one they disrupted this and last year. Their second demand is for CU to “Create transparent criteria that bans war profiteers from recruiting on campus.” Their third demand is that they “Publicly commit to a safer, ethical hiring policy that centers student and community wellbeing,” as Arab, Palestinian, and Muslim students on campus have voiced their discomfort with CU helping companies to hire students who help in the genocide of their people. SJP is also encouraging students, faculty, and community members to send an email to CU and Lockheed Martin through their template provided on their website, bouldersjp.neocities.org.
While Lockheed Martin profits off of the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza through the Zionist occupation of Palestine, CU Boulder also profits through its relationship with the weapons manufacturing company. This relationship also isn’t new; CU Boulder and Lockheed Martin have had long standing connections to each other since 1994, when Lockheed Martin, then known as Martin Marietta Corp. prior to merging with Lockheed Corp., created the university’s second endowed professorship and also supplied a grant to their “Engineering Management Program.” This is the same time Lockheed Martin was providing NATO with F-16 fighter aircraft and C-130 transport aircraft for use in the Bosnian War, as well as EC-130 aircraft to transmit psyop broadcasts to Haitians during the U.S.’s Operation Uphold Democracy.
“Our struggle is continuous. We will not stand by while war profiteers recruit our classmates. We will keep showing up until Lockheed is off our campus for good.”
Boulder SJP
CU’s Noble Defenders
El Diario de la Gente 
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