SEATTLE —University of Washington President Ana Mari Cauce minced no words in February when student protesters demanded that the university cut ties with Boeing.

"Boeing's support for the UW in time, talent and funding cannot be replaced by other endowment sources, nor would we choose to sever our relationship if they could be," she wrote in an email to individuals and groups protesting violence against Palestinians.

That was months before dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters pitched tents on the UW Quad last week, as they called on the university to end its century-old relationship with the aerospace and defense manufacturer, among other actions.

Protesters nationwide have also called for universities to distance themselves from Boeing and other companies supporting the Israel Defense Forces, but UW students face a particular challenge: Their school may have the most to lose.

Boeing has donated to the UW since 1917, when William E. Boeing gifted the school a wind tunnel to establish an aeronautics curriculum. It was just a year after he founded the company, and over the past century the two Seattle institutions have formed a symbiotic relationship.

Thousands of UW graduates, especially from engineering programs, have found work at Boeing. The company has funded student scholarships and endowed multiple professorships named after UW grads who became Boeing leaders.

The Boeing name is splashed across the campus: The Boeing Advanced Research Center, The Boeing Auditorium, the William E. Boeing Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics. In 2022 the company gave $10 million toward a new interdisciplinary engineering building.

But for protesters like undergraduate student Sofia Torres, 19, these close ties ultimately serve Boeing the most. Students are concerned that UW research could help develop Boeing technology that "indiscriminately targets Palestinians," she said.

"We don't want our education to be co-opted and sold out to corporations like Boeing who use our labor to research and develop — and manufacture — weapons of war," she said in a phone interview from the encampment, where chants from loudspeakers blared in the background.

Besides cutting ties with Boeing, UW protesters have called for the administration to "materially divest from Israel," including ending study-abroad programs there, and to "end the repression of pro-Palestinian students and faculty."

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