A Year of Human Loss and Disruption

It’s been a year since the horrifying tragedy of the Oct. 7th attack by Hamas against the Israeli people. Followed by the ongoing tragedy of human suffering and genocide against Palestinians that has followed in its wake.

As a union committed to anti-racism and social justice, we condemn the murder of innocents. We also condemn antisemitism and islamophobia and the many forms of dehumanizing hate we are witnessing (and that some of us are experiencing) as a result of this conflict.

In the aftermath of Oct. 7, 2023, we made a brief statement.

“We seek a world where we have the right to self-determination, dignity, and justice.  Life is precious and we honor that. All of these things have been grossly violated in recent months. We support our community members who are re-traumatized and who unjustly are experiencing hate and threats. We will continue to work for rights, respect, and social justice.”

The same is true today.

The crisis in Israel and Palestine is also impacting free speech and academic freedom for CSU students and faculty.

Last year, student activists on several CSU campuses set up encampments, marched across their campuses, and held rallies to demand that campus administrators divest funds from genocide and the militarization of the planet. CSU administrators quickly retaliated against student and faculty protestors for their activism. The result led to a chilling denial of free speech and academic freedom.

Cal Poly Humboldt President Tom Jackson called in several local and statewide law enforcement agencies to support the University Police in shutting down the activism and ultimately closing the campus. A combined force of 150 police officers in riot gear assaulted and arrested dozens of students and dismantled their encampments.

Two students at Cal Poly Humboldt were disciplined for protesting high administrator salaries and benefits and student tuition hikes. At Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, police took aggressive action against several pro-Palestine protestors.

As the academic term started, faculty, staff, and students were met with a new draconian “Time, Place and Manner” (TPM) policy. Reports are emerging from all across the state about how badly this misguided policy has been enforced.

A Sonoma State student was racially profiled and charged with violations of the TPM policy even though he wasn’t on campus at the time of the incident. We saw this imposition of the new policy as a violation of campus free speech principals, and we have stated our position on free speech:

“As CFA we support faculty and students’ rights to protest free from brutal aggression by police, free from academic retaliation and repression by campus officials, and without being penned into artificially constructed ‘free speech areas.’ Our belief is that the entire university is a free speech area, and we support the right of our colleagues to determine their scholarship, teaching, and service without restriction and without sanction.” 

In response to the new TPM policy, CFA campus leaders have held meetings all over the state to strategize and organize. We have filed an unfair practice charge with the California Public Education Relations Board (PERB). We have also held unionwide town hall forums. Our forum on Thursday, October 10^th, 6-7:30pm will focus on organizing our response to the ongoing repression from the Chancellor’s Office.

There is still time to register for the forum here.