UC Berkeley Faculty and Staff Statement in Support of Palestine
May 20, 2021
UC Berkeley Faculty and Staff Statement in Support of Palestine
May 20, 2021
With outrage and grief in our hearts, we call upon the United States to demand that Israel immediately cease its attacks on the people of Palestine in their ancestral homelands. We call on the U.S. government to enforce the 4th Geneva Convention and bring about the immediate end to the blockade of Gaza, facilitate freedom of movement, and commit to rebuilding the infrastructure of Palestine. We call for an end to the ongoing ethnic cleansing in Sheikh Jarrah and East Jerusalem.
We, the undersigned faculty and staff at UC Berkeley, understand the Palestinian struggle as a global movement for liberation from settler colonialism and racial apartheid. We know the violence, devastation, and fear of colonial dispossession, the terrors of police and carceral power, the dehumanizing force of racial supremacy, the global reach of the U.S. military empire, and the failures of the U.S. media to effectively frame and contextualize events. The Israeli military’s latest onslaught on Palestinian lives and infrastructure is part of a longstanding process meant to curtail the flourishing of Palestinian futures. That violence must end.
The struggle for a free Palestine is integral to advancing an anti-racist and decolonial pedagogy and praxis. In California, we know the pressures of censorship on college campuses and in high school curricula to erase, obscure, and mischaracterize the scholarship and teaching on Palestine. We will resist those pressures and call for educational justice. We are encouraged by the deepening Palestinian-Jewish decolonial solidarity as well as the national outcry against the continued violence in Gaza. Standing with Scholars for Palestinian Freedom, we affirm the foundational principles of academic integrity and the rights and dignity of the Palestinian people. We join the growing number of faculty across the United States–from Yale, Princeton, and the Universities of Illinois Chicago and Urbana-Champaign, to UC Santa Cruz and Gender Studies Departments around the country–to express our solidarity with Palestine and to recommit to deepening Palestinian knowledge in our teaching, research and scholarship.
In solidarity,
Keith P. Feldman, Ethnic Studies
Lok Siu, Ethnic Studies
Laura E. Pérez, Ethnic Studies
Sara Mameni, Ethnic Studies
Juana María Rodríguez, Ethnic Studies
Hatem Bazian, Ethnic Studies
Raúl Coronado, Ethnic Studies
Pablo Gonzàlez, Ethnic Studies
Samera Esmeir, Rhetoric
Poulomi Saha, English
Harvey Dong, Ethnic Studies
Anne-Lise Francois, Comparative Literature and English
Eric Stanley, Gender and Women’s Studies
Michael Burawoy, Sociology
Patricia Baquedano-López, Graduate School of Education
Daniel Boyarin, Middle East Languages and Cultures
Leigh Raiford, African American Studies
Wendy Brown, Political Science
Jake Kosek, Geography
Judith Butler, Comparative Literature
Julia Bryan-Wilson, History of Art
Mel Y. Chen, Gender and Women’s Studies
Natalia Brizuela, Film & Media and Spanish & Portuguese
Paul Fine, Integrative Biology
Minoo Moallem, Gender and Women’s Studies
Victoria Robinson, Ethnic Studies
Tina Sacks, School of Social Welfare
Marcial Gonzalez, English
Ula Taylor, African American Studies
Cihan Tugal, Sociology
Nikki Jones, African American Studies
Mara Loveman, Sociology
Anneka Lenssen, History of Art
Adam Benkato, Middle East Languages and Cultures
Christian Paiz, Ethnic Studies
Alex Saum, Spanish and Portuguese
Michael Watts, Geography
Colleen Lye, English
Sharad Chari, Geography
You-tien Hsing, Geography
Christine Wildsoet, Optometry
Nasser Meerkhan, Spanish & Portuguese, MELC
Jill Miller, Art Practice
Stephanie Syjuco, Art Practice
Nathalie Khankan, Middle East Languages and Cultures
Allan deSouza, Art Practice
Ana Belen Redondo Campillos, Spanish & Portuguese
Hertha D. Sweet Wong, English
Rutie Adler, NES / MELC
John Hayes, Middle East Languages and Cultures
Elsa Elmahdy, Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures
Anne Walsh, Art Practice
Haitham Mohamed, Middle East Languages and Cultures
Paola Bacchetta, Gender and Women’s Studies
Joanna Reed, Sociology
Khalid Kadir, Interdisciplinary Social Science Programs
Dewey St. Germaine, Ethnic Studies
Eunice Kwon, APASD
Doaa Dorgham, Asian Pacific American Student Development Office
Kim Freeman, College Writing Programs
David Eifler, The Library
Rachel Morello-Frosch, School of Public Health
Antmen Mendoza, Multicultural Community Center
Lillian Castillo-Speed, Ethnic Studies
Grace Lavery, English
Greg Levine, History of Art
Tiffany Anahí Santana, Native & Indigenous Council
Tristan Pettersen, Haas School of Business
Danner Doud-Martin, Haas School of Business, International Development Program
Rocky Moran, Haas School of Business
Julia Rosof, Haas School of Business
Linda Algazzali, FCREUE
Deborah Lustig, Institute for the Study of Societal Issues
Adrienne Mamin, Haas School of Business
Armaan Singh, Haas School of Business
Leti Volpp, Law
Michael Mark Cohen, American Studies & African American Studies
Anibel Ferus-Comelo, GSPP
Lara Wolfe, Berkeley Center for New Media
Julia Kirihara Snippen, Haas School of Business, DAR
Rita Lucarelli, Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures
Laura Jimenez-Olvera, Ethnic Studies
Latonya Minor, Ethnic Studies
Seren Pendleton-Knoll, Haas School of Business, Center for Responsible Business
Beth Piatote, Comparative Literature and Native American Studies
Claudia von Vacano, Social Science D-Lab and Digital Humanities at Berkeley
Abigail De Kosnik, Berkeley Center for New Media and Theater, Dance, and Performance St.
Jesus Barraza, Ethnic Studies
R. Harumi Quinones, Psychology
Lisa Hirai Tsuchitani, Ethnic Studies
Katie Hoeberling, Center for Effective Global Action
Angela Marino, Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies
Kristina Hallez, Center for Effective Global Action
Fernando Hoces de la Guardia, Center for Effective Global Action
Sydney Ji, Psychology
Sarah Stillman, Center for Effective Global Action
Brooke Green, Haas School of Business, CMG
Miya Sommers, Asian Pacific American Student Development (APASD)
Corey Murray, Center for Effective Global Action
Kelsey Robinson, Haas School of Business
Chelsea Downs, Center for Effective Global Action
Emily Pelissier, Haas School of Business, Center for Responsible Business
Jonathan Simon, Legal Studies
Jacob Gaboury, Film & Media
Patricia Cruz, Public Health
Elaine Kim, Ethnic Studies
Aarti Sethi, Anthropology
Hazel Zambrano, Haas School of Business, DAR