Editor’s Note: All opinion section content reflects the views of the individual author only and does not represent a stance taken by The Collegian or its editorial board. Letters to the Editor reflect the view of a member of the campus community and are submitted to the publication for approval. 

Over the past two years, my news and social media feeds have been flooded with Israel’s massacres of Palestinians in Gaza. I’ve seen videos of journalists and healthcare workers bombed to dust, pictures of dismembered children and testimonies from families starved and deprived of medical care by the Israeli occupation.

Every day, I mourn for the over 75,000 Palestinians whose lives were cut short by settler colonial violence armed and supported by the United States. It pains me to see people around the world bear witness to Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians and do absolutely nothing about it. 

It further disappoints me to see that young adults in the U.S. are being hired to make the bombs that rain down on young adults in Palestine. On Feb. 26, Colorado State University is hosting an engineering career fair, inviting three companies known to profit from the ongoing genocide of Palestinians: Caterpillar Inc., Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Woodward Inc. By inviting these companies to recruit students, CSU is choosing profit over humanity and violating its principles of inclusion, integrity and social justice. 

Caterpillar is a U.S.-based construction equipment manufacturer. For decades, Israel has purchased D9 bulldozers and other vehicles from Caterpillar. In 2025, Caterpillar secured a multi-million dollar contract with Israel. The Israeli Occupying Forces has used Caterpillar vehicles to demolish Palestinian homes, hospitals, mosques and other infrastructure during and before the genocide. The IOF has also used Caterpillar bulldozers to bury Palestinians alive. American activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by the IOF using a bulldozer in 2003. By platforming Caterpillar, CSU accepts the mass displacement and murder of Palestinians and pro-Palestine activists.

Hewlett Packard is a U.S.-based information technology company. In 2015, HP split into two companies: HP Inc. for consumer hardware and HP Enterprise for business and government services. HP also has an Israeli subsidiary. All three companies support Israeli settler colonialism. HP Inc. was contracted to serve as the exclusive provider of personal computers to the Israeli military. HP Enterprise was contracted to provide and maintain servers that house biometric data on Palestinians, and they have an ongoing contract with Israeli police and prisons.

By inviting HP to campus, CSU supports mass incarceration, apartheid and ethnic cleansing, as defined by the United Nations, Amnesty International, B’Tselem and countless other human rights organizations.

Woodward Inc. is an aerospace manufacturer based in Fort Collins and is part of the supply chain of munitions used by Israel, including fin actuation control systems for Boeing’s JDAM kits and GBU-39 bombs. Israel used the GBU-39 bombs in its May 26, 2024, airstrike on a refugee camp in Rafah, murdering more than 45 people.

In this attack, Palestinians were burned alive. Bomb fragments have been found in Gaza with serial numbers traced to production by Woodward. Local organizations, including NoCo4Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine have all protested Woodward’s participation in genocide since 2023. CSU has ignored these grievances from its constituents by maintaining its relationship with Woodward.

How can a school that supposedly celebrates social justice encourage students to work for companies participating in the white supremacist genocide of Palestinians? How can an institution that advocates for sustainability platform companies that raze Indigenous land and destroy the environment? How can a university that purportedly values democracy help eliminate the basic human rights of over 2 million people in Gaza? CSU cares more about its patronage of multinational corporations than the social injustice it perpetuates by being an ally of U.S. imperialism.

I want our news to be filled with life, and I want our social media to celebrate collective liberation. I picture a future where all of us are freed from imperialism, colonialism, white supremacy, patriarchy and classism. CSU is siding with genocidal capitalists who stand in the way of this world, and students like myself won’t allow this to happen.

Students of conscience at CSU demand that it eliminates its relationships with genocidal companies like Caterpillar, HP and Woodward. Sign our petition here. Only then can CSU earnestly uphold inclusion, integrity and social justice.

Kemal Perdana, Colorado State University Ph.D. student