Y’all, Bear with me as I think out loud & process recent state of academia.
This will be a rambling newsletter.
For several days, weeks, months, college campuses are staging protests in solidarity with Gaza. Although Columbia has been in the news, many campuses have joined students for justice in Palestine actions from encampments to walk outs to die-ins.
Many are saying that this coordinated student activism is of the scale of the anti Vietnam war and Civil Rights era. I’m noting that we are seeing an incomparable new scale of student mobilization. The poignancy of this reality on campuses is a marvel to behold!!
While much of the footage we are seeing is deeply moving, the media & political rhetoric seems to be misconstruing so much about this organized actions. Students are being vilified.
I have so many questions & heart aches especially for learners & workers at campuses across the globe, university administrations are actively policing & disciplining & suspending students instead of standing with them. Barnard & Vanderbilt are among those evicting and expelling student activists. Other campuses are reporting doxing, harassment & hate speech directed at protestors.
“our job as academic workers in this moment is to stand unequivocally and unapologetically with our students.” —aashihipar on X
This truth should be obvious, but one of the long list of reasons I left academia to be a book aunty cultural worker is that standing with Palestine & marginalized students unequivocally on these campuses gets you fired not hired/ tenured. If you know how exactly I lost my job, you’ll understand what I’m saying.
I’d rather stand unemployable outside the university with precarity than silently complicit within. I’m vulnerable to cooptation anywhere. As are we all.
Now, there’s an unfolding discussion “can the tenured speak”? Noting that the majority of tenured faculty have not initiated any mass actions in support of students or more importantly, solidarity for Palestinian liberation. They are mostly performing normalcy. A few statements are circulating but they center issues of free speech, but lack the clarity & necessary centering of Palestine.
Even at greater risk uncovered by tenure, many of us keep beseeching & encouraging faculty to walk out/ storm the president’s office/ support students tangibly/ put their tenured bodies in the way of students being arrested/ “disciplined” — can the subaltern tenured actually speak & stand unequivocally for Palestine & students?
At Columbia, the admin’s most recent policing & violence against students unfolded & excavated this week. Many otherwise complicit folks are expressing more concern about free speech & policing than about students or their cause: Gaza, Palestine. Others are condescending to or patronizing this well orchestrated movement with “proud of the students” placations. Truth is that most administrators, professors and workers in academia have been performing normalcy & silence for months.
Are we being attentive to how the youth are witnessing genocides as well as the lapses of all so called adults - institutions & elected bodies - to stop genocide. Is it unjust that we have created conditions in which young folks must correct & instruct the world by example? I hope we are learning with them. It is disingenuous to valorize youth protest while remaining unmoved to action ourselves. How are we are putting ourselves & livelihoods out there in public protest, too?
Instead of co-opting their labors, or selectively caring, what might we do? Here’s an excerpt from their clarification to all students at other universities:
Are we seeing the global connections?
Maybe, we now see clearly that every university is a plantation & effectively a cop city too & now more of us will see the links between school policing & academia & settler colonialism more clearly.
If you see any academics performing silent complicity & active genocide apology out here, reread Edward Said & disturb their peace —
Here’s another action: y’all got college degrees? Get those donation requests/ alumni weekend invites? Have y’all tried throwing a wrecking ball/ tweet/ email their way letting them know you divest from them unless they divest from genocide & start treating student activists with care?
Even as we support the student activism, may we keep our eyes & actions firmly on Gaza & Palestine where new atrocities unfold daily in the ongoing genocide.
In solidarity & co-learning with the student movements for Palestine,
Desi book aunty