Pro-Palestinian student groups led a Stanford commencement walkout on June 14 targeting Sundar Pichai and Google’s $1.2 billion Project Nimbus contract with Israel.
Leaflets distributed on the quad listed prior employee petitions urging Google to exit cloud workloads linked to government security agencies abroad.
Security officials reported no arrests as roughly two hundred graduates exited, chanting slogans audible on the livestream of Pichai’s remaining audience.
Google issued a brief statement highlighting community grants without addressing Project Nimbus specifics criticized by protesters and some employee resource groups.
Historians compared the disruption to Vietnam-era campus ceremonies, noting similar tensions over university ties to defense-related technology vendors.
Project Nimbus protesters cited human rights reports as justification for targeting cloud contracts that enable government data analytics and storage workloads.
Google workers allied with student groups distributed leaflets listing prior shareholder resolutions that questioned military-adjacent technology sales.
University security reported no injuries, describing the walkout as one of the largest commencement disruptions since Vietnam-era demonstrations on the same field.
Human rights organizations outside campus distributed statements supporting the walkout while urging nonviolent conduct.
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Sources:
https://www.etvbharat.com/en/international/several-stanford-students-stage-walk-out-as-google-ceo-sundar-pichai-begins-speech-enn26061500873