Middlebury against the Weaponization of Language Study

This summer, Middlebury’s Center for Careers and Internships (CCI) has hosted more recruitment events in national security and intelligence than in any other sector. Thus far, the college has hosted four virtual career information sessions led by representatives from the CIA, NSA, and FBI seeking to recruit language school students. These are government agencies infamous for their disregard for human rights and for having worked to destabilize foreign governments and suppress collective social movements at home and abroad. The Middlebury Language Schools’s (MLS) partnership with these agencies promotes the use of language study for the advancement of American interests abroad––an objective clearly at odds with MLS’s stated mission of intercultural understanding.

For over 100 years, MLS has educated tens of thousands of students in 11 languages. The program publicly calls for “the study of language in its cultural context,” advancing an understanding of language study as enlightening and humanizing. Its mission statement emphasizes intercultural understanding, and its signature fellowship--the Davis Fellows for Peace--challenges students to "bring about a mindset of preparing for peace instead of preparing for war.” For many of us, these laudable aims were what attracted us to the program in the first place. Given Middlebury’s stated values, it is deeply concerning that the college provides a platform to government agencies historically implicated in the weaponization of language study.  

We are a growing contingent of students who believe that disproportionate recruitment by employers involved in instigating violence and discord abroad is incongruous with the mission of the Middlebury Language Schools. As such, we demand:

1) that Middlebury’s Center for Careers and Internships cease to host recruitment sessions by the CIA, FBI, and NSA and other federal intelligence and national security agencies implicated in human rights violations;

2) that by summer of 2022 the CCI replace these recruitment sessions with others led by organizations dedicated to causes including but not limited to: environmental, racial, and migrant justice, humanitarian aid, Indigenous rights, education, grassroots organizing, and social work.