ICE occupies Minneapolis. Israel expands its genocide in Gaza. The United States ramps up involvement in the Somali Civil War. These events are inextricably linked. Yale plays an integral role within this web of violence, connecting weapons manufacturers, consulting firms, and American imperial interests.
Our story, like many regarding the Global South, starts with U.S. military intervention supported by private arms manufacturers. From the 0.3% of Yale’s investments that have been disclosed to the public, it is known that Yale chooses to invest in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that include weapons manufacturer and inventor of the Hellfire missile, Lockheed Martin. Such missiles are regularly launched from U.S. drones, and have struck Somalia ever since a U.S.-backed invasion toppled the popular Islamic Courts Union (ICU) in late 2006. The strikes have reportedly murdered over one hundred civilians to date; however, this figure has likely been underreported, as it is primarily sourced by the U.S. government. Relevant United Nations officials saw the ICU as the only force capable of ending the Somali Civil War, ongoing since 1991. Thus, the U.S. intervention ended the “Golden Era” of Somali democracy, resulting in the current iteration of the Somali Civil War, fought between the U.S.-propped federal government of Somalia, the militant ICU remnant al-Shabaab, and various autonomous states, like Somaliland and Puntland, claiming sovereignty over northern territory. Yale’s decision to invest in Lockheed Martin implicates the university in U.S. involvement in Somalia and the continuation of the Somali Civil War. This decision is in spite of the fact that ethical ETFs without direct ties to weapons are widely available alternatives. Yale’s refusal to disclose the total proportion of the endowment invested in weapons leads one to believe that such investments are much larger than we know.
The Israeli regime recently exacerbated the splintered Somali landscape by becoming the first nation to recognize Somaliland as independent from Somalia. This came on the heels of the Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) work on a plan envisioning the relocation of half a million people in Gaza to Somalia, Somaliland, and neighboring countries. Furthermore, this plan stems from BCG’s role as the sole nongovernmental organization critical in the establishment of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). GHF’s four aid sites have since become “traps to kill civilians,” with the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) massacring at least 1,000 Palestinians seeking aid. This new paradigm of multinational consulting firms advising active genocide campaigns invariably returns to Yale. BCG is the fifth largest employer of Yale graduates, and Yale’s Office of Career Strategy regularly maintains multiple webpages for BCG’s recruitment efforts.
We now shift our focus to Minneapolis, home to America’s largest Somali community. The city has been under an over two-month-long siege by the federal government’s ICE agents, resulting in thousands of arrests and the murders of Renee Macklin Good and Alex Pretti, two among the seventy ICE related deaths since January 2025. Such violence has expressly targeted the Somali community since December 2025, coinciding with sixteen U.S. strikes in Somalia and Israel’s recognition of Somaliland on December 26, 2025.
ICE officers have trained directly with Israel’s military and police through a “deadly exchange” facilitated largely by the Zionist Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Yale’s very own police chief, Anthony Campbell, participated in a similar ADL-led training in Israel over the summer of 2018, stating that the experience was “by far the most profound and life changing experiences I’ve ever had.” In such seminars, American officers—whether they’re ICE, police, or military—visit Israeli checkpoints, prisons, and settlements, all of which are regularly criticized for repeated human rights violations, including police brutality and torture. Shocking violence has been a hallmark of modern Israeli and U.S. responses to protest, manifesting to various degrees, such as in Yale police tackling protestors to the ground, ICE murdering protestors in Minneapolis, and the IDF’s systematic terrorizing of civilians in Palestine. On top of this, Yale refuses to divest from Palantir, a company in a “strategic partnership” with the IDF and developers of a tracking app for ICE.
U.S. drone strikes in Somalia, Israel’s dreams to conquer and colonize Gaza, and ICE’s brutal crackdown in Minneapolis invariably converge at Yale. Yale’s investments in weapons, ideological partnerships with the police state, and encouragement of careerism irrespective of morals place this institution at the center of global imperialism.
Nonetheless, just as the oppressors’ work is intrinsically linked, so too is the collective fight for liberation. The violence we stomached abroad returns to Turtle Island, with the federal government making an example out of Renee Macklin Good and Alex Pretti to show what happens to people who stand with targeted communities. But it is with numbers and solidarity that we win against fascism. Following extended, popular, and organized resistance—with Somali student groups playing a significant role—ICE has been successfully pushed out of Minneapolis. As Yale constituents, we hold a special responsibility to fight against the Yale Corporation’s (i.e., the trustees) involvement in imperialism and genocide. The Yale trustees, particularly those on the Committee on Investments and Committee on Investor Responsibility, hold significant power to redirect Yale’s forty-four billion dollar endowment away from ICE and war to New Haven and a better world, yet they choose not to. From Turtle Island to Somalia, Palestine to Minneapolis, we stand in solidarity. With organization, the resistance in Minnesota has won. The people are fighting back! Get organized. Join them.
Kenny Phan
