Dis-invest / de-install: Universities

Divest / Deinstall: Microsoft Teams in education

A growing list of resources for addressing tech-complicity in the context of higher education. Gathered during the online workshop Uni as infrastructure workshop: Microsoft teams, organised members of Critical Infrastructures and Image Politics (CCIP), Critical Media Lab (CML) and Centre for the Study of the Networked Image (CSNI) in September 2025.

Actions

• Ask whether a software tool is actually needed
• Make decisions on software in groups rather than individually
• Adopt alternatives for specific events whenever possible.
• Make multiple complaints to IT about problems with provision, and encourage others to do the same.
• Expose contradictions of policies (e.g. EDI, environmental impact and bullying/harassment).
• Join Working groups and try to influence policy decisions.
• Create awareness by formulating and distributing an Open Letter to your University's board (at Academic Board which is the highest level meeting and/or lobby Governors)
• Set up an autoreply to your MS-powered email address https://www.voxweb.nl/en/professor-closes-down-radboud-university-email-address-in-protest-against-microsoft

Open Letters

• Open letter to the Executive Board calling for digital autonomy and independence from Big Tech. Radboud University (EN) https://www.cs.ru.nl/~jhh/open-letter-big-tech.html
• Open letter to the Executive University Board: Calling for a transformation to digital autonomy. Utrecht University (EN) https://www.uu.nl/en/opinion/open-letter-to-the-executive-university-board-calling-for-a-transformation-to-digital-autonomy
• Open brief aan het HKU College van Bestuur. Oproep tot een transformatie van onze digitale autonomie (NL) https://pong.hku.nl/bigtechcfa/
• There is an elephant in the room episode III (EN, FR, ES, NL) https://titipi.org/wiki/index.php/There_is_an_elephant_in_the_room_episode_III
• Open Letter: Stop the Uncritical Adoption of AI Technologies in Academia (EN) https://openletter.earth/open-letter-stop-the-uncritical-adoption-of-ai-technologies-in-academia-b65bba1e
• Open letter to the Executive University Board: Calling for a transformation to digital autonomy (EN) https://algosoc.org/results/calling-for-a-transformation-to-digital-autonomy

Campaigns

• No tech for apartheid (EN) https://www.notechforapartheid.com/
• Palestinian BDS movement statement on Microsoft https://www.bdsmovement.net/microsoft (EN)
• No tech for tyrants (EN) https://notechfortyrants.org/
• Coalitie Eerlijk Digitaal Onderwijs (CEDO) https://eerlijkdigitaalonderwijs.nl/ (NL)
• No Azure for Apartheid https://noazureforapartheid.com/
• Universities and Arms Database & Treaty on Demilitarised Education.

Articles, papers, news stories

About education and IT

• Bas Belleman and Tomas van Dijk, ‘“Universiteiten Moeten Ict En Data Weer in Eigen Hand Nemen”’, Delta, 21 January 2022, https://www.delta.tudelft.nl/article/universiteiten-moeten-ict-en-data-weer-eigen-hand-nemen (NL)
• Jos Wassink, ‘Het hoeft niet per se Zoom te zijn’, Delta, 11 November 2020, https://www.delta.tudelft.nl/article/het-hoeft-niet-se-zoom-te-zijn (NL)
• Seda Gürses: Rectangles-R-Us: What Happened When the University Went Online? Part 1-4, Artez Webinar: Crisis Education Critical Education, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDp0FMQdH3ylEG_RhnsjKfC784OF74dYr (EN)
• Tobias Fiebig, Seda Gürses, Carlos H. Gañán, Erna Kotkamp, Fernando Kuipers, Martina Lindorfer, Menghua Prisse, Taritha Sari, Heads in the Clouds? Measuring Universities’ Migration to Public Clouds: Implications for Privacy & Academic Freedom, In Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium: 117–150., https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2104.09462 (EN)
• Lindsay Weinberg, Power BI and the datafication of Danish higher education, Big Data & Society (2025), https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951725136523 (EN)
• The Economic Risks of Divestment from Israel for University Endowments https://www.adl.org/resources/article/economic-risks-divestment-israel-university-endowments
• Curseurs no 2: Éducation : La pression numérique (FR) https://www.curseurs.be/numeros/numero-2/
• Jos Wassink, Can universities keep control over their data in the cloud and if so, how? https://delta.tudelft.nl/en/article/can-universities-keep-control-over-their-data-in-the-cloud-and-if-so-how
• New York Times article about proposal by Columbia students for divestment from Microsoft, Airbnb, Amazon and Alphabet, among others (EN) https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/09/opinion/divest-campus-protest-israel.html
• Eduface: Do We Really Want AI to Grade Our Papers? (EN) https://baismag.com/2025/06/24/eduface-do-we-really-want-ai-to-grade-our-papers/
• Various actions at Edinburgh University, linked through UCU (Union) (EN) https://www.ucuedinburgh.org.uk/blog/7nhe6nfect3a9djkczclnakgp6m9zc https://www.ucuedinburgh.org.uk/blog/court-letter-divestment
• Boggs, A. & Mitchell, N. (2017). Critical university studies and the crisis consensus. Feminist Studies, 44(2), 432-463
• Prinsloo, P. (2020). Of ‘black boxes; and algorithmic decision-making in (higher) education--A commentary. Big Data & Society, 1, 1-6.
• Fochler, M. (2016). Variants of Epistemic Capitalism: Knowledge Production and the Accumulation of Worth in Commercial Biotechnology and the Academic Life Sciences. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 41(5), 922–948. https://doi.org/10.1177/0162243916652224
• Hackett, E. J. (2014). Academic Capitalism. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 39(5), 635–638. https://doi.org/10.1177/0162243914540219
• Hall, G., Wortham S., Eds. 2000. Special Issue: The University Culture Machine. Culture Machine Vol. 2.
• ADD upcoming Culture Machine special issue (that we are working on)
• Rouse, W.B. (2016). Universities as Complex Enterprises: How Academia Works, Why It Works These Ways, and Where The University Enterprise Is Headed. New York: Wiley.
• Stevens, M., Kraaijeveld, S. R., & Sharon, T. (2024) "Sphere transgressions: reflecting on the risks of Big Tech expansionism", in Information, Communication & Society, 27(15): 2587–2599.
• Wheeler, S. (2025). "The Hidden Curriculum of the LMS". Accessed online at https://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/stephen.wheeler/blog/0029_the_hidden_curriculum_of_the_lms.htm

Privacy, data-extraction

Assessment of Copilot impact on privacy (EN) https://www.surf.nl/files/2024-12/20241218-dpia-microsoft-365-copilot.pdf

• Who owns and controls your data? https://www.politico.eu/article/data-tech-google-taxes-buying-habits-produce-eu-uk-us-microsoft/
• Europe’s Growing Fear: How Trump Might Use U.S. Tech Dominance Against It https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/20/technology/us-tech-europe-microsoft-trump-icc.html

About tech-complicity

• From economy of occupation to economy of genocide (A/HRC/59/23). Question of Palestine https://www.un.org/unispal/document/a-hrc-59-23-from-economy-of-occupation-to-economy-of-genocide-report-special-rapporteur-francesca-albanese-palestine-2025/
• Seda Gürses, From infrastructural power to redistribution: How the EU’s digital agenda cements securitization and computational infrastructures (and how we build otherwise) (2024)

https://algosoc.org/results/from-infrastructural-power-to-redistribution-how-the-eus-digital-agenda-cements-securitization-and-computational-infrastructures-and-how-we-build-otherwise (EN)

Links and references regarding Microsoft's complicity in the genocide

• Microsoft Company Complicity Profile https://www.bdsmovement.net/sites/default/files/2025-03/Microsoft%20Company%20Complicity%20Profile-%20UPDATED%202_26_2025.pdf
• Leaked documents expose deep ties between Israeli army and Microsoft https://www.972mag.com/microsoft-azure-openai-israeli-army-cloud/
• ‘Order from Amazon’: How tech giants are storing mass data for Israel’s war https://www.972mag.com/cloud-israeli-army-gaza-amazon-google-microsoft/
• Microsoft and OpenAI evolve partnership to drive the next phase of AI https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2025/01/21/microsoft-and-openai-evolve-partnership-to-drive-the-next-phase-of-ai/
• ‘A million calls an hour’: Israel relying on Microsoft cloud for expansive surveillance of Palestinians https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/06/microsoft-israeli-military-palestinian-phone-calls-cloud

‘A million calls an hour’: Israel relying on Microsoft cloud for expansive surveillance of Palestinians

• Trump’s sanctions on ICC prosecutor have halted tribunal’s work https://apnews.com/article/icc-trump-sanctions-karim-khan-court-a4b4c02751ab84c09718b1b95cbd5db3

Environmental concerns

• Joseph Knierzinger, Laptops drie jaar gebruiken is niet genoeg! https://profielen.hr.nl/2024/drie-jaar-is-niet-genoeg/ (NL)

Other

• Israeli-Dutch Academic Ties: Expert Committee Report https://academictiesisrael.nl/1-israeli-academic-complicity
• Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17065099