Brian Bogart will spend his final year at the University protesting outside of the administration building, Johnson Hall, refusing to study inside an “institution of enlightenment” that he said sells itself to the war industry.
A former defense industry worker who created his own graduate program in Peace Studies at the University, Bogart estimates the University receives about $6 million in research and development funds from sources connected to the military.
Bogart’s protest at the University is part of “CampUS Strike for Peace Campaign,” a nationwide campaign aimed to shift the government’s focus from military priorities to social programs.
“I just want to find a way to peacefully end dependency on military-based money,” he said.
His protest has already sparked a debate between Bogart and University officials, who have made seemingly contradictory statements about the University’s involvement with military research.
The campaign
After researching topics such as the history of the war industry in America and changing trends in government priorities toward defense strategies, Bogart concluded that now is the time to protest what he calls a government that prioritizes death instead of life – one that he said forces companies and universities to look to defense industry contracts for money.
“There’s no greater hypocrisy than that of making weapons in our schools,” Bogart said Sept. 2.
The “CampUS Strike for Peace Campaign” targets 56 companies in Eugene, more than 300,000 companies nationwide and more than 300 universities that have contracts with or grants from the military, making them less likely to speak out against war. Campaign participants aim to “wean them off military funding.”
“It is abundantly clear that you believe America’s top priority is profit from the business of war, not the general welfare of its people,” Bogart wrote in a letter to University President Dave Frohnmayer, President George W. Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski and the American Association of Universities President Nils Hasselmo.
As a prelude to his protest, Bogart wrote columns that ran in the Eugene Weekly and held five Friday evening lectures on campus during August and September at which he discussed his previous experiences with the defense industry – what he has found to be America’s largest industry – and his recent findings regarding the deep connections of the Department of Defense with both corporations and universities.
How much military money?
Bogart and University administrators disagreed about the amount of military research conducted at the University.
Frohnmayer said in an interview that research the University is conducting, whether funded by the Department of Defense or the National Science Foundation, does not support military means.
“Any technology can be used for good or for ill,” Frohnmayer said, “but we aren’t using it for military or inappropriate purposes in the slightest.”
Yet a 2004 letter from the American Association of Universities, of which Frohnmayer is an Executive Committee member, asks the Department of Defense to fund research at Universities.
The letter, dated May 27, 2004 and signed by Frohnmayer, states: “We, the members of the Executive Committee of the Association of American Universities, write to urge the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and its members to provide adequate funding to the important basic and applied research programs supported by the Department of Defense (DoD).”
It later states that past research investments “have produced the best-equipped, best-protected, and best-prepared fighting force in the world” and points at the advantage of investment in universities, as their research “is concentrated in fields where advances are most likely to contribute to national defense.”
Lastly, the letter urges the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee “to not handicap tomorrow’s warfighters by undercutting research investments today. Please do everything possible to provide sufficient funding for basic and applied research behind the best fighting force in the world.”
Frohnmayer did not respond to the Emerald’s phone or e-mail inquiries about the letter as of press time Sept. 14.
Rich Linton, vice president for research and graduate studies at the University, also disputed Bogart’s claims.
In response to one of Bogart’s columns in the Eugene Weekly, Linton wrote a guest commentary in which he tried to clarify a “point of contention” that Department of Defense money given to the University does not finance confidential military research.
“As a matter of general policy, the University of Oregon (UO) does not allow classified research to be conducted at its facilities by university faculty, staff, or students, irrespective of the funding source,” Linton wrote.
But Bogart provided a list of nine projects on the University campus as of May 9, 2005 showing research for departments ranging from the U.S. Army to the National Security Agency.
While Linton said the Department of Defense funding makes up only $2 million of the University’s federal grant money, some connections with the Pentagon or Department of Defense may not have paper trails.
For example, Voxtel, Inc. partnered with Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute (ONAMI) earlier this summer with a $750,000 contract from the Air Force Small Business Initiative Research program – a contract that is not on the University’s most recent list of projects dated.
ONAMI alone received $5 million late last year, while the Brain, Biology and Machine Initiative, a program initiated by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, received $3 million.
Linton gave several examples of current non-classified research at the University that “seeks to improve society’s knowledge base and welfare” by “conducting such research in an open and ethical atmosphere.”
“We can’t stop science and technology. It’s about how we use this and how we can benefit Oregon,” he said.
He added that nanotechnology, one of the University’s primary focuses, has a wide range of applications that most likely will not appeal to military uses.
“On the positive side, it’s hard not to be enthusiastic about the developments and applications of nanotechnology,” Linton said. “On the negative side, it isn’t clear where this is leading.”
In response to Linton’s commentary, Bogart said Linton ignored “everything I said.”
“Nanotechnology is the Pentagon’s latest obsession … it is widely called the deadliest technology ever created,” Bogart said.
The protest
Bogart will stand with volunteers outside of Frohnmayer’s office handing out information and talking to passers-by until the end of spring term, but the first-day protest will run at the EMU Amphitheater from noon to 4 p.m.
“We won’t dominate discussions and we won’t argue,” Bogart said of the campaign. “There’s no need for confrontation.”
Linton encouraged Bogart to continue spreading his opinions.”As always, we’re an institute that encourages debate,” he said in an interview. “I think it’s important at the same time that we have a reasonable fact-base to work from.”
At his fourth lecture on Sept. 2 in Chiles Hall, Bogart discussed the irony of protesting the institution that signed his bachelor’s degree. He assured an audience of about 40 that he loves his school.
“My conscience will not permit me to study for personal gain while the world suffers,” he said that evening.
All of Bogart’s Friday evening lectures, as well as hundreds of pages of documents, articles and statistics from government Web pages, will
be available by Sept. 26 at intelligentfuture.org, he said.
“Executives and administrators at campuses are doing their duty to find funds, which is at the Pentagon, but there are lots of other options out there,” Bogart said. “The whole point is to have some backbone to find those other options.”

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