Dear Friend,

We are University of Texas at Austin students deeply concerned with our university’s role in the destruction of the world around us. We believe that our university should promote student flourishing, not propagate war and violence in our homes, streets, schools, borders, and around the world.

We are proud to launch the UT Austin Divest from All Unethical Companies campaign and invite you to endorse our campaign and sign onto our coalition.

UT Austin’s investments (through the Texas wide investment board, “UTIMCO,” spanning across the entire UT and A&M systems) fund the massive global war machine and fossil fuel complex that operates through a perpetual alliance between the arms/fossil fuel industry and policy makers.

The Divest from Militarism campaign is calling on the UT investment board to immediately divest from the largest American weapons producers and investors as well as fossil fuel companies: Lockheed Martin, Exxon, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, and United Technologies Corp.

We have everything we need to be safe.
Trillions of dollars are available for healthcare, education, housing, a Green New Deal. People all over the world are ready to work together to make sure everyone can thrive in safety and dignity.

But instead, political and corporate elites create endless wars for personal power and profit.
Their wars look like dropping bombs on countries like Iraq, but also looks like police killings in Black communities and detention centers on the Mexico border. Their wars look like arms deals to Saudi Arabia, drone strikes on Somalia, and sprawling military bases occupying indigenous communities worldwide. Their wars look like military coups that force migration from Honduras, and nuclear testing that devastates the natural environment in Puerto Rico. Their wars haunt our families and bring violence into our homes and neighborhoods. Their wars are destroying our climate and life on earth.

They depend on us to make a profit, so they use fear to keep us divided.
They tell us that war is necessary to keep us safe. They tell us that Black communities are criminal and dangerous, therefore police need military-grade weaponry to combat them; Protesters are disturbing the peace so they must be beaten and jailed; Terrorists threaten freedom and democracy, therefore the surveilence and harrasment of Muslim communities is justified; Immigrants are drug dealers and thieves, therefore border security protects jobs and keeps peace. The very communities dying under militarism are the same ones we are told we should be afraid of. This leaves us living in fear of one another, and of the most marginalized among us.
But the tides are turning. We choose to be the generation that Dissents.

We are the most globally interconnected generation in history, and we value life everywhere. We will not be divided. We know that real safety comes from caring for each other and our environment. We are the many. We are young, we are energized, and we are visionaries. We are Muslim, immigrant, Black, indigenous, undocumented, ex-military, trans and queer. We are a generation of hope, of healers and creatives.
We are reclaiming the resources that belong to us.

We are taking back our resources from elites, and their violent wars, prisons, police, weapons, and walls. We demand that our institutions and elected officials join us on the right side of history, and defund militarism and endless wars.


These companies UTIMCO is invested in are responsible for devastating human rights abuses at home and abroad, including:

The murder of over 40+ Yemeni children on a school bus by US/Saudi forces
Contributing to the existential threat of Climate Change
The killing of civilians including youth, press, and medics in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Gaza
The prison industry’s mass incarceration of black, brown, and poor communities
ICE and CBP’s surveillance, detainment, and deportation of immigrants and asylum-seekers including a record high of 14,000+ children and
Regular mass shootings across America using military-grade AR-15 rifles

Further, we ask that UTIMCO adopt an ethical, sustainable, fossil fuel and weapons-free investment policy to ensure that our collective resources are invested in life-affirming solutions.

Will you endorse the Divest from Militarism Campaign at UT Austin and sign onto our coalition?