Members Unite in Next Phase of CFA’s Anti-Racism, Social Justice Efforts

Members met virtually throughout last week as part of CFA’s Spring Assembly to connect, ground in, and organize for the joy and work ahead.

Attending one or more of CFA’s 22 councils, caucuses, committees, and task forces, member activists discussed resolutions, prepared for the next round of contract bargaining, reviewed CFA’s legislative priorities, and brainstormed upcoming CFA task force work related to parental support, alternatives to campus police, and improving contingent faculty job security and stability.

“The 2022 Spring Assembly was one of the most inspiring and uplifting meetings I have attended. CFA always seems to be in the forefront of social justice and change and this Assembly was no different,” said Lisa Kawamura, co-chair of CFA’s Asian Pacific Islander Desi Americans Caucus, CFA San Luis Obispo lecturer representative, and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo communication studies lecturer.

“It was not always easy to hear the struggles of our colleagues about their experiences with policing on campus, Title IX violations, the importance of the CalPERS pension system divesting from the fossil fuel industry, need for caregiver (parental and elder) leave, and other important issues. I am humbled and grateful for each struggle that was voiced this week. The issues that CFA has focused on to fight for are definitely not easy or simple, but they are just.”

CFA members shared personal narratives connecting our anti-racism and social justice principles to faculty, student, and staff lived realities at the CSU and beyond. They told their stories of racism, horror stories born out of the CSU’s deficient and inhumane parental leave policy and new family support, the merciless search for affordable student and faculty housing, and harmful and racist treatment by university police officers.

Members overwhelmingly ratified two resolutions, one to rename and remove white supremacy memorials from buildings, roadways, classrooms, and other locations across the CSU.

“CFA recognizes that California exists as a result of multiple eras of colonization, genocide, and dispossession of California Native peoples, we affirm our commitment to dismantling the logics of settler colonialism and acknowledge all of California as the traditional and unceded homelands of California’s Native nations,” reads the resolution.

Read more about CFA members’ efforts to remove the name of a white supremacist from a CSU San Marcos building.

The resolution on transforming rape culture at the CSU calls on the Board of Trustees, CSU management and administrations at the 23 CSU campuses to dismantle rape culture in all its forms and engage in solutions that are survivor-centered, intersectional, anti-colonial, and informed by transformative justice models. This is achieved through an external, independent investigation into the CSU and financially supporting “ongoing, interactive, and comprehensive rape culture education that targets social norms and behaviors at all levels of the CSU,” according to the resolution.

“Working together has made us powerful and unafraid to do the right thing.  We certainly are a union for all people,” Kawamura said. “The commitment that CFA has made to justice for all is real and powerful. I am proud to be part of CFA as we fight for what it right, no matter how hard or uphill the battle.”