New Orleans, LA — On February 23, around 35 protesters came together to protest a CIA recruitment event at Tulane. The rally, organized by Together United Louisiana Students for a Democratic Society (TUL SDS) took place on Freret Street, an intersection at the heart of Tulane’s campus.

Some students went into the event to disrupt it. During the CIA agent’s speech, students displayed signs with messages such as “The CIA tortures civilians” and chanted for more than five minutes before being removed by Tulane police. Once outside, they joined the rally, where demonstrators continued chanting, “ICE, KKK, CIA, they’re all the same!”

After being removed from the event, Navya Prakash of TUL SDS addressed the crowd outside saying, “We are the students, we’re the ones who pay to be here. This is our campus, not the CIA’s.”

“For those students who are marginalized—including myself as a Black trans woman—a CIA presence on campus creates a chilling effect for those who speak out, for those who believe in progressive causes, for those who believe in liberation,” said Rosalina Victorian-Framboise, a Loyola student and member of SDS.

Passing drivers honked in support, some raising their fists in solidarity as they drove by.

“The CIA has been welcomed with open arms by the Tulane administration to recruit a new generation of white collar war criminals,” said Charlie Schully of Freedom Road Socialist Organization. “Ever since its founding the CIA has really only had one goal in mind: to make the world safer for monopoly capitalists. Not for you or me.”

While Tulane welcomed the CIA, it erected barricades ahead of the student rally. Tulane University Police monitored the action.

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