How the Feds Are Recruiting Spies at Campuses Across the US

By Roberto J. Gonzalez

June 11, 2014  |  The following is an excerpt from The Imperial University: Academic Repression and Scholarly Dissent [3] edited by Piya Chatterjee and Sunaina Maira. Reprinted with permission of University of Minnesota Press.

In July 2005, a select group of fifteen- to nineteen-year-old high school students participated in a week-long summer program called “Spy Camp” in the Washington, DC, area. The program included a field trip to the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, an “intelligence simulation” exercise, and a visit to the $35 million International Spy Museum. According to the Spy Museum’s website, visiting groups have the option of choosing from three different “scavenger hunts,” in which teams are pitted against one another in activities ranging “from code-breaking to deceptive maneuvers. . . . Each team will be armed with a top secret bag of tricks to help solve challenging questions” that can be found in the museum.

On the surface, the program sounds like fun and games, and after reading about the program one might guess that it was organized by an imagina- tive social studies teacher. But for some, “Spy Camp” was more than just fun and games—it was very serious business. The high school program was car- ried out by Trinity University of Washington, DC—a predominantly African American university with an overwhelmingly female student population—as part of a pilot grant from the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) to create an “Intelligence Community Center of Academic Excellence” (or IC Center).