Soros-Backed Dissenters Courts Pro-Palestine Students for “Anti-Militarist” Activism
Offering stipends of up to $6,000, Dissenters is building a paid campus-organizing pipeline marketed directly to Palestine-solidarity activists
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The Chicago-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit Dissenters is recruiting full-time, U.S.-based college students for a paid, remote “Anti-Militarist Campus Organizing Fellowship” scheduled for September 14 through December 11, 2026. The fellowship was identified by the X account Restore Canada, which drew attention to the public listing. Applications close August 7, 2026.
The 12-week program pays students to spend about 15 hours a week on anti-militarist organizing and fellowship activities while establishing Dissenters chapters and campaigns on their campuses. An individual fellow receives $3,000 over three months; two students applying together from the same campus receive $2,500 each.
The same application also allows students to seek an academic-year Sara Bilezikian Peace Fellowship. That option pays $6,000 over the 2026–27 school year, or $3,000 per semester, and focuses specifically on counter-recruitment campaigns on campus and in the surrounding community.
This recruitment comes amid a series of pro-Palestinian efforts to disrupt defense and technology companies, including vandalism at an Elbit office, No Tech for Apartheid’s occupation of Google offices, and a Boeing-focused campus occupation that left property damaged and led to arrests.
The application specifically calls for organizing to prevent weapons manufacturers, including General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing, and companies it labels “militarized tech companies,” including Palantir, OpenAI, and Google, from recruiting at campus job fairs. By marketing the fellowships to students from Palestine-solidarity and #NoTechForApartheid circles, Dissenters is creating a funded structure for sustained campaigns against those industries.
Recruiting Palestine-Solidarity Activists
The listing explicitly connects the academic-year counter-recruitment option to several existing activist constituencies. It says the Sara Bilezikian fellowship may “particularly interest” students involved in Palestine solidarity, activism Dissenters describes as anti-genocide, opposition to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, campaigns concerning surveillance or data centers, #NoTechForApartheid, and broader anti-militarist work.
The listing gives concrete examples of counter-recruitment campaigns: trying to prevent weapons manufacturers or military-linked technology companies from recruiting at career fairs; asking graduates to pledge not to work for those companies or the military; and seeking an end to campus or community contracts with military-industrial firms.
Funding and Fiscal Structure
Dissenters and its paid campus programming have received support from major progressive funders, with public filings showing Dissenters-specific grants routed through the Center for Third World Organizing, or CTWO. A 2022 tax return from the Foundation to Promote Open Society records a $100,000 grant to CTWO specifically to support Dissenters’ national fellowship program. The Foundation to Promote Open Society is part of the Open Society philanthropic network founded by George Soros.
Other public records document additional support. Solidaire Network’s return for the fiscal year ending June 2024 lists $75,000 to CTWO for general support of Dissenters, according to its filing. The Arca Foundation’s 2023 return lists a $50,000 project grant to CTWO for Dissenters.
Dissenters has its own tax-exempt entity and EIN. Its 2022 return shows $325,500 in revenue and $661,968 in expenses, while its 2023 and 2024 filings report no revenue, expenses, assets, or liabilities.
Multiple foundation filings show Dissenters-specific grants flowing through CTWO, either describing Dissenters as a CTWO project or listing CTWO as the grant recipient. Read alongside Dissenters’ separate tax-exempt registration, the records indicate a two-part structure: Dissenters exists as its own nonprofit entity, while CTWO has administered grants designated for Dissenters’ programs. Federal filings show CTWO’s total revenue rose from $364,378 in 2016 to $12,498,518 in 2023.
NYU Event Featuring Samidoun Representative and Anti-Israel Network Presence
In November 2022, NYU Law hosted “Free Them All: Abolition Across Borders,” a program connecting Palestinian prisoner activism with U.S. prison-abolition organizing. The university’s event record identified one speaker as “Hussein from the NY/NJ chapter of Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network” and stated that Dissenters co-founder Byul Yoon would facilitate the discussion.
On October 15, 2024, the U.S. Treasury designated Samidoun under its counterterrorism authority, describing it as a “sham charity” and international fundraiser for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The PFLP has been a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization since 1997. Treasury said Samidoun was established by the PFLP, served as a front for the group in countries where it is designated, and provided financial support to it.
A June 2025 report by Günther Jikeli and Daniel Miehling for Indiana University’s Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism ranked Dissenters fifth among the 20 most frequent collaborators in its preliminary analysis of Instagram co-authorship within anti-Israel campus-group networks, recording 336 collaborations. The report describes Dissenters as a non-campus group from the “radical political left.” In its discussion of National SJP’s network, it lists Dissenters among radical-left and anti-war groups whose collaboration with SJP “helps amplify SJP’s messaging within broader protest networks.”