Montana: MSU Students Against Genocide protests university’s ties to war, genocide, mass surveillance
Bozeman, MT – On Friday, January 23, students and community members gathered to protest Montana State University’s ties to military research and surveillance technologies connected to Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people, and demanding the university cut ties with genocide-linked institutions and corporations.
The protest, organized by Students Against Genocide (SAG), took place outside the administrative building, Montana Hall, where attendees held signs condemning U.S.-funded Israeli military operations and called on university leadership to adopt enforceable ethics policies governing research and corporate partnerships.
SAG, a student-led campaign composed of MSU students and Bozeman residents, says the university’s research relationships and leasing practices directly contradict its public mission. As Montana’s land-grant university and an R1 research institution, MSU holds a responsibility to ensure its influence is not used to enable war crimes, mass surveillance, or state violence.
“We are here because what is happening in Gaza is not distant, abstract, or disconnected from our lives,” said Homa Masood, a member of Students Against Genocide, in a speech at the protest. “It is enabled by systems, institutions, and technologies that exist right here – including at universities that claim to stand for knowledge, ethics and human dignity.”
Speakers highlighted the MSU Innovation Campus, which is operated by the MSU Alumni Foundation and Charter Realty and hosts a range of research facilities and private corporate tenants. Among them is the Applied Research Laboratory, a classified research facility conducting defense-related research, as well as private companies specializing in military intelligence and surveillance technology.
According to SAG, MSU conducts research for agencies including the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and Department of Energy across multiple departments and university-owned facilities. The group’s investigation also identified companies leasing space on the Innovation Campus that develop surveillance and intelligence software used both overseas and domestically.
One such company is Metrea, whose Spectrum Operations division specializes in signals intelligence and military surveillance. SAG says Metrea’s work contributes to the expansion of surveillance infrastructure used in modern warfare, including technologies human rights organizations have linked to Israeli military operations over Gaza.
Another Innovation Campus tenant identified by SAG is Reveal Technology, a surveillance and intelligence modeling firm. In a public statement posted in 2024, Reveal Technology confirmed that its Farsight intelligence software was being used by the Israel Defense Forces. The company also develops surveillance tools, including biometric identification technology, that closely resemble those used by U.S. law enforcement agencies such as ICE.
The protest concluded with SAG outlining three demands: the adoption of enforceable ethics policies governing military and surveillance research; an end to genocide-linked investment and tenancy on the Innovation Campus, and full transparency regarding research funding sources and corporate partnerships.
“To live in a country guilty of collaboration within and direct support of genocide gives us all a duty to resist,” said Julian Staggs, another SAG speaker and president of MSU’s Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). “Doubly so for students, who have a historical duty to be at the forefront of the struggle against wars. And when U.S.-funded Israeli genocide has destroyed every single school and university in Gaza, places of education ought to speak out.”
SAG is calling on MSU leadership and the MSU Alumni Foundation to publicly respond to these demands and meet with students and community members. Organizers emphasized that they will continue organizing until the university’s actions align with its stated ethical values.