Students from the Campus Antiwar Network and other anti-war groups at UW united in an effort to prevent the company from recruiting on campus, accusing it of making billions of dollars off the Iraq war.
Singing, "that's bull—t, get off it, this war is for profit," the nearly two hundred students congregated on top of Bascom Hill and marched down Charter Street, headed to the Engineering Centers Building, where a engineering career fair was being held.
Once in the fair, students sat near Halliburton's table and spoke to passersby about the company's alleged connection to the Iraq war and urged prospective candidates to refuse to apply for positions at Halliburton.
Strict rules established by the UW Office of the Dean of Students restricted protesters from shouting, yelling or chanting while inside the building, so instead they softly sang "from day to day, soldiers' lives are thrown away," followed by "from high to low, Halliburton's got to go."
During the protest, students were closely supervised by the UW Police Department, which stopped traffic to ensure students' safety.
UW Political Science Professor Donald Downs said students have a right to protest so long as they don't violate the speech rights of others.
"As long as neither side disrupts what the other is doing, then that's free speech," Downs said.
The protest went by peacefully, and there was no need for police intervention, though Sgt. Jason Whitney said the department requested "supplementary staff."
Not all students present agreed with the protest, however.
"There's a time and place for everything, and I think this is neither the time nor the place," UW senior Tara Thieme said. "I don't really feel like this will affect Halliburton at all — these people are only recruiting; they're probably from [human resources]."
Gavin Bell, one of the recruiters representing Halliburton, said he was advised to refuse comment, and instead referred questions to Melissa Norcross, public relations manager for the company.
"We've come to expect this type of spectacle, just as we've come to expect that the allegations will yet again be misinformed and incorrect," Norcross said in an e-mail to The Badger Herald. "We continue to support individuals' right to voice their opinions, even when they have the facts completely wrong."
Halliburton representatives have expressed concern about a common misconception that the company still provides services in Iraq. The company has separated from its former subsidiary, KBR, which provides services to the military in Iraq war zones, according to Norcross.
"Halliburton and its subsidiaries have no employees or work in Iraq or Afghanistan," Norcross said in the e-mail.
Halliburton has nearly 50,000 employees in approximately 70 countries and is planning to hire more than 13,000 new employees in 2007, according to the e-mail.
Protesters, however, said they still hold Halliburton accountable for the company's past connections with the war.
"Just because Halliburton has now split off from the company, they can't run away from all the stuff that they have done," said UW freshman Jean Brody, who led most of the songs during the protest.
Protest leaders said the event was a success and added students should make efforts to talk about issues relating to the Iraq war.
"We should go back to to our classes and dorms and talk about what we did today," UW graduate student Elizabeth Wrigley-Field said.
