Faculty from seven colleges in the University of California system filed a state labor lawsuit against their administrators, alleging the system has violated state labor laws regarding classroom conversation and protests surrounding the Israel-Palestine conflict.
On Thursday, the Council of University of California Faculty Associations (CUCFA) filed a 581-page charge highlighting anecdotes of threats and disciplinary proceedings made by the UC administration against various faculty members teaching about Israel-Palestine history and engaging with student protests and encampments.
“Throughout nearly the entire period of the Gaza war, the University has engaged in
a relentless campaign to chill faculty’s exercise of their academic freedom and to deter them from teaching about the war in a way that does not align with the University’s own position,” according to the CUCFA charge.
Representatives from UC Los Angeles, Berkeley, Irvine, Santa Cruz, San Diego, Davis and San Francisco rallied at the UCLA campus Thursday to announce the charge. The Public Employee Relations Board will review the charge and either dismiss the case or move forward with settlement negotiations.
“UC’s actions to suppress speech about Palestine on our campuses, which represents an illegal content-based restriction of faculty rights, sets an alarming precedent,” said CUCFA President Constance Penley in a press release. “Our unfair labor practice filing demands they change course and follow the law, and make whole the faculty who have been harmed.”
CUCFA details university faculty being threatened with disciplinary action for voicing pro-Palestinian rhetoric or including information on the conflict in their course curriculums.
“Those positions result from pressure from politicians, donors, alumni, outside organizations and the regents, who have failed mightily in their mandate to protect the University from undue political interference,” Penley said.
In one instance cited, a UC Irvine professor amended their syllabus to include two documentaries on “the Palestinian struggle,” and was subsequently sent a letter of warning from the University’s administration. The letter noted a violation of the faculty code of conduct, which limits the use of the classroom for “purposes of political advocacy.”
CUCFA also alleges inconsistent administration policy on free speech protections for pro-Palestinian protestors on the UCLA campus, including a public statement from UCLA Chancellor Gene Block condemning activism that makes the community “feel bullied, threatened, and afraid.”
The faculty group compares this to the UCLA Police Department’s lack of action to protect protestors when anti-Palestinian counter-protesters attacked the UCLA Encampment between April 25 and April 30. Counter-protestors assaulted protestors with metal pipes and set off fireworks in encampments, which resulted in one protester being carried away in an ambulance.
The media liaison for UCLA’s Palestine Solidarity Collective, Kenza K., who requested only the initial of her last name be included for security reasons, said the organization has worked closely with faculty as they “are fighting for the same cause that the genocide is only expanding,” K. said. “[The lawsuit] really shows the extent to which the strength of the movement and the strength of the repression as well on the other side has been propagating and escalating.”
USC has been publicly criticized for having double standard policies regarding faculty and the Israel-Palestine conflict. Last spring, the University faced controversy for not disciplining John Strauss, a professor of economics who was filmed confronting pro-Palestinian protestors with comments wishing death to Hamas members. By contrast, students involved in pro-Palestinian protests were disciplined with official warnings on their records and mandated to write “remorseful” essays.