Sign on to join our call on UC’s President Drake to stop the attack on free speech and peaceful protest at the University of California.
To: UC President Drake
From: [Your Name]
The attack on free speech on UC campuses must end. Beginning on April 30, peaceful pro-Palestine protesters were brutally attacked by a mob of agitators who acted with impunity on UCLA’s campus. On May 1, the University then violently arrested and jailed hundreds of peaceful protesters in the Palestine solidarity encampment, retaliating against the very victims of the previous night’s attack. Following UCLA, more crackdowns on peaceful protest occurred at UC San Diego, UC Irvine, and UC Santa Cruz. Students and workers have been maced, beaten, and sustained serious injury — such as loss of function in their hands — due to this violent repression.
In addition to enlisting over 25 police agencies to repress free speech, the University has enacted a new draconian disciplinary policy which the ACLU has condemned. Your new policy has led students and workers who stood at rallies chanting “peaceful protest” to be suspended and barred from their homes and jobs. These charges have meant serious disruptions to their careers and are an affront to due process and free speech.
Your unprecedented treatment of these protests represents overt discrimination against speech that challenges the University’s financial ties with the war on Gaza. When the administration represses speech it does not find favorable and condones violence against it, the crisis of civil liberties on campus could not be clearer.
Amid this sweeping repression of civil liberties, you have committed extremely serious unfair labor practices against academic workers and their union, UAW 4811. These include failing to maintain a safe workplace, by causing or allowing violence against academic workers by police and armed agitators; discriminating and retaliating against workers for protected speech; making unilateral changes to policies governing workers’ free speech and assembly rights; and using these changed policies to arrest and discipline UAW 4811 members.
We call on you to immediately restore civil liberties at the University of California and resolve your serious unfair labor practices against UAW 4811.
Free speech is under attack at the University of California, where the administration has committed serious Unfair Labor Practices that threaten the fundamental rights of workers. The administration’s dramatic change in approach to peaceful protest has sparked outrage across the academic community.
Over the past few months, thousands of people have peacefully assembled on college campuses across the country to ask a simple question: Why are our universities invested in war? These students and workers, many of them UAW members, have been met with violence, discrimination, and extreme disciplinary action.
Our message to the University is clear: we will not tolerate UC’s repression of workers’ rights to free speech and peaceful assembly. The administration must stop their attacks and drop their charges against peaceful protesters.
Add your name and sign the petition to urge President Drake to stop committing serious unfair labor practices and protect free speech at the University of California.
For the last month, the administration has caused students and workers to be maced, beaten, arrested, and barred from work for peaceful assembly calling for divestment from the war on Gaza. Just as past movements have righteously demanded divestment from South African apartheid and fossil fuel companies profiting from climate change, as is their right, protesters are now calling for divestment from companies profiting off the suffering in Palestine. The University has responded to these peaceful protests with unprecedented brutality.
Sign on to join our call on UC’s President Drake to stop the attack on free speech and peaceful protest at the University of California.
