To Director Kalindi Garvin and Dean Ann McKenna, The College of Engineering and Engineering Career Services at the University of Iowa:

In fulfillment of the College of Engineering’s academic and professional commitments, international human rights law, and the moral obligation of all people of conscience, we call on the College of Engineering to immediately and publicly disinvite American Ordnance LLC, including its parent and constitutive companies, Day & Zimmerman and Mason & Hanger, from all future Career Fairs, student workshops, and other University recruitment events.

We, members of Iowa City Action for Palestine, Iowa Citians of conscience, and concerned University of Iowa students, faculty, and alumni, demand the College of Engineering address evidence that Israeli forces used an M830A1 shell produced at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant, currently operated by American Ordnance, in the January 2024 killing of two Gazan paramedics, an international war crime. Investigation into this war crime entered into Congressional Record on June 28, 2024. Despite this documentation, American Ordnance remained in attendance at the Spring 2025 Engineering Career Fair.

We call upon the College to immediately disinvite American Ordnance from the Spring 2026 Engineering Career Fair, and from all future Engineering Career Fairs. The College of Engineering must uphold its commitments to human rights, engineering ethics, and fundamental morality. Companies profiting from war crimes have no place on this campus.

American Ordnance, a subsidiary of Day & Zimmermann, operates out of the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant (IAAAP) in Middletown, Iowa. American Ordnance manufactures ammunition, including the M830A1 anti-tank shell, mortars, and explosive warheads. American Ordnance, LLC, was formed in 1998 as a joint venture between Mason & Hanger Corporation and General Dynamics Ordnance Systems, for the purpose of operating the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant. Mason & Hanger, the previous operator of the plant and owner of half-interest in American Ordnance, was acquired by Day & Zimmerman Incorporated in 1999. In 2006, General Dynamics sold its fifty percent interest in American Ordnance to Day & Zimmerman. American Ordnance-produced M830A1 shells and other ammunition continue to supply Israeli forces with munitions used to violate international law and commit genocide in Gaza.

On January 29th, 2024, 5-year-old Hind Rajab and her family were attempting to comply with an Israeli evacuation order in the Gaza City neighborhood of Tel al-Hawa. Five of her family members were killed when Israeli tanks opened fire on their Kia Picanto; Hind and her teenage cousin Layan survived the initial attack. Layan called the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) crying for help, but was killed thirty seconds into the call, leaving Hind alone. Hind would remain on the phone with PRCS for around three hours after Layan was killed. The PRCS sent two paramedics, Yousef al-Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoun, to her location in a clearly marked ambulance on an IDF-approved route. As the paramedics neared Hind’s location, the PRCS lost contact with the ambulance, hearing an explosion just before their connection was severed.

Days later, the Rajab family’s Kia was found with all seven occupants, including 5-year old Hind, massacred inside. Israeli forces had shot the vehicle with 335 rounds, despite clear evidence that the tank operators would have been able to see the family – including the children – inside. The ambulance, only a few feet away, was destroyed by an anti-tank M830A1 shell, killing both medics. Investigation of the remains of the ambulance revealed fragments of the artillery shell, with its serial number tracing back to the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant located in Middletown, Iowa, and operated by American Ordnance.

The killing of Hind, her family, Yousef, and Ahmed is not an isolated incident of the Israeli genocide in Gaza. It is a reality which will persist should institutions like the College of Engineering continue to maintain relationships with companies like American Ordnance. In its Mission and Values, the College of Engineering claims to graduate “ethical, globally aware citizens” whose careers “make the world safer and our use of resources more efficient.” According to the first Fundamental Canon of the National Society of Professional Engineers Code of Ethics, engineers should “Hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public,” For the globally aware engineer, this public is not only Iowa or the United States- it is also the public of global humanity. On all counts, collaboration with American Ordnance is an intentional violation of these values.