Department News

Department News

UC Berkeley Faculty and Staff Statement in Support of Palestine

May 20, 2021

The Ethnic Studies Department’s Community Relations Committee drafted the following statement for faculty and staff at UC Berkeley to express their support for Palestine. The statement was released on Thursday, May 20, 2021. If you want to be included as a signatory, please click here to add your name. There you will find the most updated list of signatures.
 
In expressing support for Palestine, let there be no misunderstanding: all life is precious. We mourn the loss of all life, Palestinian and Israeli, subjected to the violence of war. One people’s freedom cannot come at the expense of another’s. Let us work towards a world where all can flourish in safety and peace.

 

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 YalePrinceton, 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