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By John Pruett

Science and technology research at the University of Texas serves a dual use. Projects can have both military and civilian applications and, during war, the two can become almost indistinguishable. The University often touts this relationship as "synergy" between military and educational interests, seeing it is a way to achieve the best in education while providing real-world skills and to help defend the nation.

The jury's still out over whether "synergy" is the appropriate way to describe military projects, but two things are certain: the UT System receives a massive amount of defense spending and the US has the largest, most technologically advanced military in the world. However, for some reason or another, the University shies away from publicizing its indebtedness to the US military-industrial complex. Brochures provided for prospective students rarely contain any reference to these treasures, and freshman orientations certainly don't. Students and parents would be hard-pressed to find any "military projects" section on University websites. Why hide this great source of wealth, education, and pride?

So let's go down the list. The Department of Defense (DOD) allocates more research dollars to Texas universities than any other federal agency except the National Institute of Health. As of 2002, UT-Austin alone received almost $50 million of more than $90 million allocated by the DOD to UT institutions. These military projects can be divided into roughly three major research fields - computer sciences, engineering, and biodefense. Since September 11, 2001, military funding for university research has increased dramatically across the nation, especially in the areas of counterterrorism and biodefense.

The UT System's trek down the road to university militarization began with World War II. On a national level, the war required an expansion of scientific research to develop new weapons technologies. Since universities were the largest research institutions at the time, the War Department (now the Department of Defense) naturally turned to them for help with the war effort. However, something unprecedented occurred after the war was over. Instead of reverting back to a civilian, peacetime economy, the US continued to ramp up military spending.

For the University of Texas, the impact was immediate. In 1945, Dr. C. P. "Say-My-Name-With-A-Straight-Face" Boner founded the Defense Research Laboratory to conduct research for the Navy. The DRL combined in 1964 with the War Research Laboratory, created by the Air Force. Four years later, the laboratory had moved to the Balcones Research Center (now called the J. J. Pickle Research Campus) located in north Austin and was renamed the Applied Research Laboratory. Its project areas include developing delivery systems for Agent Orange during the Vietnam War and sonar technologies for submarines. The ARL remains overwhelmingly owned and operated by the Navy.

The 1980s ushered in a new era of military expansion under the direction of then-President Ronald Reagan and his Strategic Defense Initiative. This new era of warfare increasingly relied on computer technologies. In response, UT formed the Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC) in 1983 under the direction of Admiral Bobby Inman (UT faculty member, former director of Naval Intelligence and the National Security Agency, and former deputy director of the CIA). MCC was designed as a consortium of defense contractors and dedicated to the development of artificial intelligence for space-based weapons systems. The consortium, however, has since closed down after wasting huge sums of public money.

However, one university/corporate research consortium funded by the DoD wasn't enough for UT's military appetite. Consequently, UT funded the creation of Sematech in 1988 at the Montopolis research center in Austin. Now a completely privatized, international consortium, Sematech received roughly $100 million a year in DoD funding during its heyday as a government-sponsored institution.

Since the founding of MCC and Sematech, UT has added several new computer science programs to its military arsenal. The Institute for Advanced Technology arrived in 1990 as an autonomous research center beholden to the Army. Today it has expanded to include chemical and biological counterterrorism and research of electromagnetics for the Army and Navy. The Institute also played an integral role in developing University XXI (a joint project between UT and A&M), which works with Fort Hood to digitally integrate Army combat forces.

The University's partnership with the military also extends to national laboratories outside of Austin. Just last year, UT Medical Branch in Galveston opened a new national biodefense laboratory to study the most infectious diseases in the world as part of the Department of Homeland Security's larger counter-terrorism program.

The UT System also agreed to a research collaboration with Sandia National Laboratory that same year. Sandia develops and produces delivery systems for the nation's nuclear weapons. Currently, the UT System has partnered with Lockheed Martin Corporation (the largest defense contractor in the nation and manager of Sandia) to bid for management of Los Alamos National Laboratory. If UT wins the competition, then it will be complicit in the research, testing, and production of nuclear warheads.

So why doesn't the University openly proclaim and advertise its ties with the military? Your guess is as good as ours, but perhaps it's a question of audience. For UT students, administrators portray the University as an institution geared towards education and the betterment of society. They certainly don't discuss UT's military influence at orientation. Remember that the University has two faces. The first is the image that it shows the world, one of open research and the advancement of humanity. The second is the research it does out of a desire to attract the almighty military dollar. It's our duty as students to ensure that the forces of civilization ultimately triumph.