The University of Hawaii (UH) has been criticized for the composed rekindling of its $285 million Navy research deal.
The university’s Board of Regents unanimously passed a motion on Friday giving administrators the go-ahead to finalize the renewal of the school’s contract with the US military, worth up to $285 million over ten years. This is notwithstanding critics urging the university to end its partnership with the Navy, which began in the early 2000s.
UH’s US Navy University-Affiliated Research Center (UARC), known as Supporters of the Applied Research Laboratory, claims it provides lucrative employment opportunities for conducting research with significant civilian applications. However, backlashers say the institution shouldn’t be involved in a partnership that includes classified military work.
Critics are particularly worried about the laboratory’s sponsor, the US Navy, following the consistent fuel spills at the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility in Hawaii in 2021. The first fuel spill, which occurred in late November 2021, contaminated the Red Hill drinking water system, affecting over 93,000 US Navy water system users.
UH’s vice president, Vassilis Syrmos, told the Associated Press (AP) that the current criticism echoes those that began when the institution started collaborating with the Navy nearly two decades ago.
He said: “The catastrophic event at Red Hill brought all those feelings up again.” “Tsugarcoat way to sugar coat this thing.”
However, the UH student senate passed a resolution calling for the institution to end its collaboration with the military.
Momi Bachiller, a fourth-year student pursuing molecular cell biology and Hawaiian language who is also a student senator, stated it’s heartbreaking to students that officials are pushing forward with the contract renewal despite its opposition.
Bachiller told the media, “We are stakeholders, but they don’t respect us.”
The Applied Research Laboratory, established in 2008, focuses on ocean science, astronomy, renewable energy, and optics. The lab is one of five UARCs nationwide that understudies critical Navy and national defence technology. The other four UARCs are at the University of Texas at Austin, Pennsylvania State University, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Washington.
The laboratory provides most of UH’s funds. According to Syroms, the university received roughly $65 million of about $625 million in so-called extramural research funding from the Department of Defense (DOD).
Syrmos told the Associated Press that Native Hawaiian students and residents are leading the protest against the DOD.
Syrmos stated: “It’s a movement.” “It’s a Native Hawaiian renaissance against the DOD presence. It’s real, and I don’t think it’s going away.”
Punia Pale, the student government treasurer, was one of the few student senators who testified against the research contract at the Board of Regents meeting on Friday.
During his testimony, Pale stated, “These lands should be returned to the Hawaiian people, and they should not be used for research that serves the US military interests – especially when such interests have historically oppressed Indigenous people around the world, currently now Palestine,” in an apparent reference to US support of Israel in the war in Gaza.
However, in a presentation to the Board of Regents earlier this month, Syrmos quoted David McClain, former UH president, who knew about the controversy surrounding the UARC but stated that researchers should be able to pursue their interests.
McClain stated, “Because of the inherent diversity and need for freedom of inquiry, which in my view does and should characterize the academy, I plan to be biased in favor of measures to back the individual scholar no matter how prevalent or, even more importantly, how unpopular his or her research interests.”
