Imagine this.
You are a young professional who is at a graduation ceremony.
You are anxious. Nearly 150, 000 tech workers have been displaced by AI just this year. Over 974 people per day are at risk of being laid off in Palestine.
Led by the Stanford chapter of the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), over 200 students marched out of their graduation ceremony with Sundar Pichai as the keynote speaker, to protest Google's complicity in AI job cuts and the genocide in Palestine.
In 2021, Google and Amazon signed a $1.2 billion contract with Israel, allowing the Israeli military access to sophisticated cloud computing and AI software.
Known as Project Nimbus, the deal had garnered notoriety as Israel continues its genocide against Palestine.
In 2024, employees of Google staged protests at the tech giant's office in New York, California and Seattle.
No Tech for Apartheid, an organisation of Google employees, said in a statement: "It is impossible to feel excited and energised to work when you know your company is providing the Israeli government products that are helping it commit atrocities in Palestine."
In 2021, a report was published by a US-based news outlet, The Intercept, that Google's advanced AI capabilities could harvest data for facial recognition and object tracking as part of Project Nimbus.
From tech workers
In October 2021, over 90 Google employees and 300 Amazon employees published a petition condemning Project Nimbus.
No Tech for Apartheid demanded that their employers pull out from the deal. This signalled the public launch of their coalition.
They continued their organising throughout the years and intensified their campaign in October 2023 when Project Nimbus became a much more visible issue with the outbreak of Israel's continued genocide on Palestine.
In March of 2024, a Google software engineer interrupted a company event, declaring, "I refuse to build technology that empowers genocide."
The employee was fired.
This sparked former Google employees to launch prolonged sit-in protests in California and New York, demanding that Google cancel Project Nimbus.
Google terminated 28 staff for standing against genocide that April.
By May 2024, Google's annual developer conference - Google I/O - was disrupted by protesters blocking the entrance of the conference, chanting "Shame on Google!" and "Google Cloud rains blood!"
To campuses
In June 2024, more than 1,100 STEM students signed a petition refusing to work for Google or Amazon until the companies withdrew from Project Nimbus.
Students have never been apathetic to the genocide. In the spring of 2024, dozens of encampments were launched in Universities. Nicknamed the "student intifada," students began on April 18 to occupy university grounds, demanding their divestment from Israel.
Over 3, 100 protesters were arrested in the US. On October 25, 2023, several students were suspended after being accused of association with terrorism.
Several states have ordered the disbanding of chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace, which led these protests.
Despite these attacks, students escalated protests, resulting in the closure of Columbia University and Cal Poly Humboldt for the remainder of the semester in 2024.
On April 28, Portland State University paused its financial ties with Boeing over its ties to Israel.
In August, San Francisco State University divested from four weapons manufacturers.
In September, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology followed.
The Stanford front
The protest at Stanford masterfully combined solidarity against genocide with their academic and intellectual pursuits.
After all, how can you study with a clear mind when your university is clearly working with genocidal interests? It is not like Israel's bombs can suddenly pause and not hit Palestinian universities.
The coalition of Stanford SJP, Tech for Liberation and No Tech for Apartheid struck at Stanford University not just in opposition to AI's job cuts but also in opposition to AI's role in genocide, to AI's role in Trump's crusade against immigrants.
History is repeating... but in a good way.
Students have historically been one of the forerunners of protest movements.
Many revolutions have been led and started by students.
Ferdinand Marcos Sr., the dictator who plundered and terrorised the citizens of the Philippines, was ousted by a combined coalition of students, workers, farmers and liberal and left-leaning politicians.
And its historical precursor was the Student Cultural Association in the University of the Philippines that launched a 5000-strong protest against the witch-hunting done by the Commission of Anti-Filipino Activities.
It is not expected that students themselves can change the world, can stop the genocide in Palestine, or can stop the deportation of immigrants.
But this is not what the students want.
The student protesters want to raise awareness and build solidarity with other sectors and classes to hold those in power accountable for their genocidal interests.
And to that end, as protests break out led by other sectors and classes, perhaps something, indeed, is happening.
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