On Saturday, March 23, Mudders Against Murder — an organization of Harvey Mudd College students advocating for the school to break off relations with “weapon manufacturers and defense contractors”— released a petition titled Mudders Against Murder: No Labor for Genocide that demanded Mudd sever all current and future ties with defense and weapon-related companies, which the organization claims “profit from genocide.”
A member of Mudders Against Murder, who requested anonymity for safety reasons, explained that the intent of the group is to get Mudd to discontinue any affiliation with such companies.
“We want [Mudd] to cut its institutional ties to defense companies and companies that are involved in the military-industrial complex,” the member said. “We want them to get rid of the culture of apathy and complacency that they have for the companies that they’re promoting.”
The group is a relatively new organization and was formed in early March after February’s Muddbucks campaign, a student-led movement that called for Mudd to end its relationship with the Starbucks corporation. Mudders Against Murder has since released this petition and conducted a teach-in to recruit members.
“We’re a pretty grassroots group at the moment,” the member said. “We formed because there was this consensus among a lot of students that they weren’t okay with the presence of defense companies at Mudd and they wanted some actionable steps that could be taken towards it.”
The group aims to target Mudd’s clinic program — a program that provides juniors and seniors with real-world work experience in solving technical problems for companies in engineering, physics and other STEM-related fields to prepare them for the workforce.
The petition alleges that since 2018, the clinic program has formed 61 contracts with weapon and defense-affiliated companies like the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, MIT Lincoln Laboratory and Amazon Labs, describing the issues created in connecting students to such companies.
“[Mudd] forges a path for students to provide unpaid labor for defense companies and encourages students to go into the field of defense post-college, all the while maintaining a culture of apathy and complacency for the impact of their actions,” the petition states.
The petition also claims that by maintaining relationships with these companies through clinics and career fairs Mudd administration, students and faculty are complicit “in the death and destruction of people around the world.”
“[Mudd] is made complicit in injustices committed by the United States because of their role in either building weapons for these companies or in helping them generate profits, further enabling weapons production,” the petition states.
Mudd’s mission statement takes a different stance on involvement with these companies.
“Harvey Mudd College seeks to educate engineers, scientists, and mathematicians well versed in all of these areas and in the humanities, social sciences and the arts so that they may assume leadership in their fields with a clear understanding of the impact of their work on society,” it reads.
The petition urges students to reflect on the college’s mission and recognize that their labor may inadvertently lead to “the murder of countless civilians and a direct participation in genocide.”
Harvey Mudd’s Director of Public Relations Judy Augsburger emphasized the mission of the college and the autonomy students and faculty have when deciding how to utilize their abilities.
“We encourage students and faculty to think deeply about their work, explore the options available to them, and to make their own individual choices about how to best use their talents and skills to contribute to society,” Augsburger wrote in an email to TSL.
The student from Mudders Against Murder appeared to disagree with these sentiments and emphasized the crucial role administration plays in influencing people’s decisions when deciding to work with a company. The member explained that through this campaign, they want students and alumni to be able to voice their grievances against Mudd and take action.
“We want students to refuse to offer free labor to war profiteers in the form of clinics and internships and through other ways they are being pushed into the defense industry,” the member said. “We don’t want alumni to give money to the school, or offer to be a liaison at clinic or career fairs until these demands are met.”
The member also added that until their demands are met, they will be continuing to escalate action on campus.
“Until they outrightly stop sponsoring these clinic groups, or until they outrightly stop bringing these companies to campus, we will continue to make our demands heard,” the member said. “Ultimately, [Mudd] has the choice to cut these ties, but they are still involved with reaching out to these companies, maintaining relationships with them and bringing them onto our campus.”
Augsburger’s statement implied that while the administration will not be taking any steps right now to end its relationship with these companies, it is looking forward to further discussion on this topic.
“We value an educational environment that encourages dialogue and that cherishes different perspectives and lived experiences,” Augsburger wrote. “We look forward to hearing our students’ suggestions about ways we can further improve their educational experiences, and we welcome further community discussion on these important issues.”
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