[The following open letter was published by the below signatories on 14 November 2014.]
We are faculty in support of the UAW 2865’s efforts to stand in solidarity with Palestinian workers and students. On December 4, 2014, the UAW 2865 – the union representing teaching assistants, graders, readers, and tutors across the University of California system – will hold a membership-wide vote on a historic resolution to join the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (“BDS”) movement seeking to pressure Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian lands, end its settler-colonial policies, and comply with international and human rights law. As faculty members both at the University of California and beyond, we support the efforts of the UAW 2865 and support its members in voting YES on the resolution.
This summer during Israel’s devastating attacks on Gaza, the union’s elected leadership (the Joint Council) published an open letter in solidarity with Palestinian labor unions’ call for joining the global BDS movement as an act of solidarity and in protest of Israeli occupation and warfare. The goal of the movement is to restore the rights of Palestinians who are under siege and military occupation in Gaza and the West Bank and of Palestinian citizens of Israel who are racially discriminated against on the basis of over 50 laws, in everything from property ownership to family reunification rights, as well as Palestinian refugees who are barred by Israel from returning to their lands.
The UAW 2865 resolution calls on the University of California and UAW international to divest their investments, including pension from Israeli state institutions and international companies complicit in severe and ongoing human rights violations, and on the US government to end military aid to Israel. The UAW is also asking for its members to make an individual commitment, a pledge, to participate in the academic boycott of Israeli institutions.
As faculty members both at the University of California and beyond, we support the efforts of the UAW 2865 and its members in voting “Yes” on the current resolution, which is long overdue. To date, faculty across the country have taken a position on the right side of history by supporting Palestinian self-determination and supporting BDS as a vehicle to challenge Israel’s violations of human rights. Academic associations including the American Studies Association, the Asian American Studies Association, the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, and the Critical Ethnic Studies Association have already overwhelmingly voted to endorse a boycott of Israeli academic institutions. Over 1,200 U.S. academics have already joined the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel in response to the call from Palestinian scholars, students, and trade unions, including the General Union of Palestinian Teachers, the Federation of Unions of Palestinian Universities’ Professors and Employees, and the General Federation of Trade Unions.
As faculty, it is now our turn to support our student-workers, teaching assistants, and advisees as they take this bold and courageous step to call on their employer—the University of California —and the UAW International to divest from companies profiting from the illegal military occupation of Palestine, as well as committing themselves to the academic boycott.
Israeli universities are complicit with the occupation and the state’s human rights violations in a number of ways. Many are built on occupied Palestinian lands or on illegal settlements (for example, Ariel University and parts of Hebrew University in Jerusalem) while universities such as Technion further develop the technological capacities and military doctrines that make the occupation possible. The occupation and siege of the West Bank and Gaza prevent Palestinian academics and students from accessing outside institutions of higher learning and professional conferences. Israeli policies, including West Bank checkpoints and the blockade of Gaza, impede students from getting to school, and travel abroad to study can be extremely difficult. Meanwhile, Palestinian universities are regularly targeted by the Israeli state with violence and repression. There is a long record of Israeli universities arresting, harassing, and repressing Palestinian student protests and political activities. Similar racism in apartheid South Africa led to students and professors in the U.S. engaging in boycott and divestment; increasingly, they are doing the same to challenge bigoted Israeli policies and laws that are upheld by unconditional U.S. support.
While many other unions around the world have already supported BDS, we are inspired that a “YES” vote on the UAW 2965 resolution would mean that the UAW 2865 will become the first labor union in the United States to join the BDS movement!
We, the undersigned faculty, support the UAW 2865 members who vote YES on the upcoming BDS resolution.
In solidarity,
The Undersigned
(To sign the statement, please go to http://goo.gl/4Enxn4 or send name and institutional affiliation to palestine.faculty@gmail.com)
1. Sunaina Maira, University of California, Davis
2. David Palumbo-Liu, Stanford University
3. Dylan Rodriguez, Corona, California
4. Curtis Marez, University of California San Diego
5. Noha Radwan, University of California, Davis
6. Aamir Qureshi, San Jose, California
7. Alex Lubin, University of New Mexico
8. Beatrice Pita, University of California, San Diego
9. Margaret Ferguson, University of California Davis
10. Adam Miyashiro, Stockton College, New Jersey
11. Elaine H. Kim, University of California, Berkeley
12. Hatem Bazian, University of California, Berkeley
13. Sarah Haley, University of California Los Angeles
14. Flagg Miller, University of California, Davis
15. Richard Walker, University of California Berkeley
16. Todd Snyder San Francisco, California
17. Aamir R. Mufti, University of California Los Angeles
18. Robin. D. G. Kelley, University of California Los Angeles
19. Suad Joseph, University of California, Davis
20. Bill Mullen, Purdue University
21. Natalia Deeb Sossa, University of California, Davis
22. Manzar Foroohar, California Polytechnic State University
23. Sondra Hale, University of California, Los Angeles
24. Neda Atanasoski, University of California, Santa Cruz
25. Hsuan L. Hsu, University of California, Davis
26. Hassan Fouda, Berkeley, California
27. Nada Pretnar Triste, Italy
28. David Shorter, University of California Los Angeles
29. Judith Butler, University of California, Berkeley
30. Lisa Rofel, University of California, Santa Cruz
31. Shrene Seikaly, University of California, Santa Barbara
32. Ilan Pappé, University of Exeter
33. Michael Burawoy, University of California Berkeley
34. Donald L. Donham, University of California, Davis
35. Gina Bloom, University of California, Davis
37. Michael Ziser, University of California, Davis
38. Cynthia Frankin, University of Hawaii, Manoa
39. Dennis Kortheuer, California State University, Long Beach
40. Susette Min, University of California, Davis
41. Vida Samiian, California State University, Fresno
42. Benjamin Balthaser, Indiana University, South Bend
43. Terry Ginsberg, American University in Cairo, Egypt.
44. Nick Mitchell, University of California, Riverside
45. Elizabeth Freeman, University of California, Davis
46. Dennis R. Childs, University of California, San Diego
47. Vicente Miguel Diaz, University of Illnois, Urbana-Champaign
48. Ross Frank, University of California, San Diego
49. Chris Vials, University of Connecticut
50. Kavita Philip, University of California, Irvine
51. Rabab Abdulhadi, San Francisco State University
52. Adrienne Pine, American University, Washington, D.C
53. Suat Yan Lai, University of Malaya
54. Catherine Wagner, Miami University, Ohio
55. Zillah Eisenstein, Ithaca College
56. Stellan Vinthagen, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
57. Sarah Schulman, City University of New York, College of Staten Island
58. Saadia Toor, City University of New York, College of Staten Island
59. Aneil Rallin, Soka University
60. Ammeil Alcalay, City University of New York, Queens College
61. Neferti X. M. Tadiar, Barnard College
62. Ricardo Dominguez, University of California, San Diego
63. Arif Dirlik, University of Oregon
64. Steven Marsh, University of Illnois at Chicago
65. Sang Hea Kil, San Hosé State University
66. Kate McCullough, Cornell University
67. Amy L. Brandzel, University of New Mexico
68. Anthony Alessandrini, Kingsborough Community College
69. Allen Christensen, John Cabot University
70. Huma Ibrahim, Qatar University
71. Ian Barnard, Chapman University
72. Rosalyn Baxandall, State University of New York, Old Westbury
73. Khaled Abou El Fadl, University of California, Los Angeles
74. Christopher Stone, Hunter College (CUNY)
75. Barry Trachtenberg, University at Albany, State University Of New York
76. Janice Peck, University of Colorado, Boulder
77. Nora Murad, Bentley College
78. Malini Johar Schueller, University of Florida
79. Robyn Rodriguez, University of California, Davis
80. Caren Kaplan, University of California, Davis
81. Howard Winant, University of California, Santa Barbara
82. Walda Katz-Fishman, Howard University
83. Emmanuel Farjoun, Hebrew University
84. Kai-Lit Phua Subang, Monash University
85. Benedict DeDominicis, Catholic University of Korea
86. Les Field, University of New Mexico
87. Kamala Visweswaran, University of Texas at Austin
88. Gaye Chan, University of Hawaii
89. Junaid Rana, University of Illnois
90. Abby Lippman, McGill University
91. Richard Burt, University of Florida
92. Susan Shepler, American University, Washington, D.C
93. Laurence Kirby, City University of New York, Baruch College
94. Anand Pillay, University of Notre Dame
95. W. Patrick McCray, University of California, Santa Barbara
96. Steve Breyman, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
97. Chandan Reddy, University of Washington
98. Steve Roddy, University of San Francisco
99. Roopali Mukherjee, City University of New York, Queens College
100. Garry Potter, Wilfrid Laurier University
101. Adam Sabra, University of California, Santa Barbara
102. Yong Soon Min, University of California, Irvine
103. Nicholas Heer, University of Washington
104. Rosalind Petchesky, City University of New York, Hunter College
105. Andrew Paul Gutierrez, University of California at Berkeley
106. Marta Cariello, Seconda Università degli Studi di Napoli
107. Sang Hea Kil, San José State University
108. Adam Hefty, Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University
109. Paola Bacchetta, University of California, Berkeley
110. George Ciccariello-Maher, Drexel University
111. Silvia Posocco, University of London
112. Sandeep Bakshi, University of Le Havre, France