The Call for a UC Boycott

A CALL OF CONSCIENCE NOT TO SPEAK AT ANY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA CAMPUSES UNTIL THE ADMINISTRATION REINSTATES ALL GRADUATE STUDENTS FIRED FOR STRIKE ACTIVITIES.

The case for a boycott is laid out in five points here.

We, the undersigned, will not give guest lectures or provide public speeches, either remotely or in person, at the University of California. We invite all signatories to reflect on other forms of protest and boycott they might employ.

This boycott should be honored until all graduate students fired for participating in the wildcat strike are reinstated and the administration vows that there will be no subsequent retaliation either against individual students or against their respective departments. However, since we strive to support individual academic laborers and to build possibilities for critical thought, exceptions will be made for lectures or visits related to departmental hiring practices.

Here we lay out these exceptions as well as the concrete actions this boycott may entail given the lack of a physical picket due to COVID-19.

The grading strike began when graduate workers removed their grades from Canvas, thereby withholding grades from the administration (but not from students). Part of the disciplinary process has focused on the obligation of faculty and TAs to use online tools such as Canvas and Zoom in ways mandated by the university. At one point, a “tattle-bot” was integrated onto Canvas so that undergraduate students could report “disruptions” in the curriculum that resulted from the strike directly to the administration. As we enter into an unprecedented time of online teaching, these issues are at the very heart of academic freedom and the struggles that we all face going forward.

On 28 February 2020, a number of graduate students who partook in this wildcat strike were terminated from their spring appointments; the total number of graduate workers fired is around 80. This includes international students and could lead to their deportation, thereby going against the campus’ declared commitment to protecting international students. In addition to losing their appointments and their income, all the fired students will lose their health insurance. In the midst of a global health pandemic, it is unconscionable that these students will be stripped of their health care and/or forced to relocate. 

We therefore call upon our colleagues to join this very targeted academic boycott. We hope that this strategy can serve to rapidly shift the terrain, since the status quo currently favors the administration against student workers striking for their most basic of rights.


CURRENT SIGNATORIES (to sign on to this call, please click fill out this form or email adhoc4cola [at] gmail.com):

See this published Google Doc for the most up-to-date list.

Asma Abbas, Director of Advanced Studies and Associate Professor in Politics and Philosophy, Bard College at Simon’s Rock

Sadia Abbas, Associate Professor of English and Women’s and Gender Studies, Rutgers University

Hosam Aboul-Ela, Associate Professor of English, University of Houston

Nadje Al-Ali, Robert Family Professor of International Studies and Professor of Anthropology and Middle East Studies, Brown University

Anthony Alessandrini, Professor of English & Middle Eastern Studies, Kingsborough Community College-CUNY and the CUNY Graduate Center

Patricia Alessandrini, Assistant Professor, Department of Music and Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), Stanford University

Lori Allen, Reader in Anthropology, SOAS, University of London

Eyal Amiran, Professor of Comparative Literature, University of California-Irvine

Sinan Antoon, Associate Professor, New York University

Talal Asad, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies, CUNY Graduate Center

Cristina Bacchilega, Professor of English & Graduate Director, University of Hawai’i

Toby Beauchamp, Associate Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Joel Beinin, Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History, Emeritus, Stanford University

Daniel Benson, Assistant Professor of International Cultural Studies and Foreign Languages, St. Francis College

Anna Bernard, Senior Lecturer in English and Comparative Literature, King’s College London

Tithi Bhattacharya, Professor of History, Purdue University

Timothy Brennan, Samuel Russell Chair in the Humanities, Department of Cultural Studies & Comparative Literature and English, University of Minnesota

Neil Brenner, Professor of Urban Theory, Harvard Graduate School of Design

Stephen Brier, Professor of Urban Education, CUNY Graduate Center

Kylie Broderick, Graduate Student, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Melissa A. Brzycki, Assistant Professor of History, Monmouth University

Susan Buck-Morss, Distinguished Professor of Political Science, CUNY Graduate Center

J. Mijin Cha, Assistant Professor of Urban and Environmental Policy, Occidental College

Sophie Chamas, Senior Teaching Fellow, SOAS, University of London

Piya Chatterjee, Professor of Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Scripps College, Claremont Consortium

Ajay Singh Chaudhary, Executive Director and Core Faculty in Social and Political Theory, Brooklyn Institute for Social Research

Zahid Chaudhury, Associate Professor of English, Princeton University

Noam Chomsky, Professor of Linguistics, MIT

Samantha Christiansen, Assistant Professor of History, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs

Kandice Chuh, Professor of English, CUNY Graduate Center

George Ciccariello-Maher, Visiting Scholar, Decolonizing Humanities Project, The College of William & Mary             

Daniel Aldana Cohen, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania

Altha Cravey, Associate Professor of Geography, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Carole Crumley, Professor Emerita of Anthropology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Elyse Crystall, Teaching Associate Professor of English, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Ayça Çubukçu, Associate Professor in Human Rights and Co-Director of LSE Human Rights, London School of Economics and Political Science

Jocelyne Dakhlia, Directrice d’Etudes, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris

Monisha Das Gupta, Professor of Ethnic Studies and Women’s Studies, University of Hawaiʻi

Frank Deale, Professor, CUNY School of Law

Geneviève Dorais, Professeure d’histoire, Université du Québec à Montréal

Lisa Duggan, Professor of Social & Cultural Analysis, New York University

Başak Ertür, Lecturer in Law and Co-Director of Birkbeck Centre for Law and the Humanities, Birkbeck, University of London

Eric Fassin, Professor of Sociology, Department of Gender Studies and Department of Political Science, Université Paris 8 Vincennes – Saint-Denis

Roderick Ferguson, Yale University

Michelle Fine, Distinguished Professor of Critical Psychology, Women’s Studies, American Studies and Urban Education, CUNY Graduate Center

Cynthia Franklin, Professor of English, University of Hawai’i

Candace Fujikane, Associate Professor, English Department, University of Hawaiʻi

Diane Fujino, Professor of Asian American Studies, University of California at Santa Barbara

Libby Garland, Associate Professor of History, Kingsborough Community College

Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi, Professor of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University

Richard Gilman-Opalsky, Professor of Political Theory and Philosophy, Political Science, University of Illinois

Bassam Haddad, Director of the Middle East and Islamic Studies Program and Associate Professor, Schar School for Policy and Government, George Mason University

Dyala Hamzah, Professeure agrégée, Département d’histoire, Université de Montréal

Michele Hardesty, Associate Professor of US Literatures & Cultural Studies, Hampshire College

Stefano Harney, Honorary Professor, University of British Columbia

David Harvey, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Geography, CUNY Graduate Center

Salah Hassan, Associate Professor of English, Michigan State University

Christina Heatherton, Assistant Professor of American Studies, Barnard College

Marc Lamont Hill, Professor of Media Studies and Urban Education, Temple University

Fredric Jameson, Professor of Literature, Duke University

Caren Kaplan, Professor Emerita of American Studies, University of California-Davis

Rebecca Karl, Professor of History, New York University

J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, Professor of American Studies, Wesleyan University

Joseph Keith, Associate Professor of English, SUNY Binghamton University

Robin Kelley, Distinguished Professor and Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History, University of California-Los Angeles

Laleh Khalili, Professor of International Politics, Queen Mary University of London

Sherryl Kleinman, Emerita Professor of Sociology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Troy Andreas Araiza Kokins, Lecturer in Latin American Studies, University of California-San Diego

Mark Lance, Professor of Philosophy, Professor of Justice and Peace, Georgetown University

Zachary Levenson, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of North Carolina, Greensboro

Mark LeVine, Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History, University of California-Irvine

Susana Loza, Associate Professor of Critical Race, Gender, and Media Studies, Hampshire College

Simeon Man, Associate Professor of History, University of California at San Diego

James McDougall, Professor of Modern and Contemporary History, Trinity College, Oxford

Liz Montegary, Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, SUNY Stony Brook University

Bill Mullen, Professor of English and American Studies, Purdue University

Donna Murch, Associate Professor of History, Rutgers University

Premilla Nadasen, Professor of History, Barnard College

Don Nonini, Professor of Anthropology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Mimi Thi Nguyen, Associate Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and Asian American Studies, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Hussein Omar, Assistant Professor, University College Dublin

A. Naomi Paik, Associate Professor of Asian American Studies, Gender and Women’s Studies, and History, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Michael Palm, Associate Professor of Communication and AAUP Chapter President, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

David Palumbo-Liu, Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor, Stanford University (PhD, UC Berkeley)

Nicola Pratt, Associate Professor of International Politics of the Middle East, University of Warwick, UK

Tiana Reid, Graduate Student Worker, Department of English & Comparative Literature, Columbia University

John Rieder, Professor Emeritus of English, University of Hawai‘i

Boots Riley, Filmmaker, Performer, and Activist

Beth Robinson, Assistant Professor of History, Texas A & M University – Corpus Christi

Dylan Rodríguez, Professor of Media and Cultural Studies, University of California at Riverside

Andrew Ross, Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis, New York University

Sandrine Sanos, Professor of Modern European History, Texas A & M University – Corpus Christi

Nadya Sbaiti, Assistant Professor, Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies, American University Beirut

Naomi Schiller, Associate Professor, Anthropology, Brooklyn College and The Graduate Center, CUNY

Malini Johar Schueller, Professor of English, University of Florida

Michael Schwalbe, Professor of Sociology, North Carolina State University

Zach Schwartz-Weinstein, Bard Prison Initiative

S. Shankar, Professor of English, University of Hawai‘i

Naoko Shibusawa, Associate Professor of American Studies/Ethnic Studies, Brown University

Ella Shohat, Professor of Art & Public Policy and Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies, New York University

Eric Smoodin, Professor of American Studies, University of California-Davis

Robyn C. Spencer, Associate Professor of History, Lehman College-CUNY and the CUNY Graduate Center

Rei Terada, Professor of Comparative Literature, University of California-Irvine

Jeanne Theoharis, Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Brooklyn College

Molly Todd, Associate Professor of History, Montana State University

Alejandro Velasco, Associate Professor of History, New York University

Françoise Vergès, Former Global South(s) Chair, FMSH, Paris, Public Educator, Decolonial Feminist Activist

Dana Ward, Professor Emeritus, Pitzer College (UC Berkeley ’71)

Cornel West, Professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy, Harvard University; Professor Emeritus, Princeton University

Catherine Zimmer, Adjunct Professor, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Professor, Graduate Center, City University of New York

Elizabeth Bishop, Core Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program, Université d’Oran 2

Camara Starks, Student, Santa Ana College

Maria DeGuzman, Professor of English & Comparative Literature, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Dina Al-Kassem, Professor, University of British Columbia

Adam Miyashiro, Associate Professor of Literature, Stockton University

Angela Naimou, Associate Professor of English, Clemson University

Roxanne Panchasi, Associate Professor, Simon Fraser University

Arang Keshavarzian, Associate Professor, Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, New York University

Nabil Al-Tikriti, Associate Professor, Department of History & American Studies, University of Mary Washington

Andrew Pope, Lecturer, Committee on Degrees in History & Literature, Harvard University

Keri Leigh Merritt, Independent Scholar-Historian

Jacob Lee, Assistant Professor of History, Pennsylvania State University

Pete Moore, M.A. Hanna Associate Professor of Politics, Case Western Reserve University

Richard Anderson, Postdoctoral Scholar, Pennsylvania State University

Shannan Clark, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Montclair State University

Caroline Grego, Visiting Assistant Professor, Queens University of Charlotte

Todd Shepard, Arthur O. Lovejoy Professor, Johns Hopkins  

Anne-Marie Angelo, Senior Lecturer in History, University of Sussex (UK)

Lucia Hulsether, Assistant Professor, Skidmore College

Osamah F. Khalil, Assoc. Professor, History, Syracuse University, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs (PhD, UC Berkeley, 2011)

Wendy Craig, Assistant Dean, retired

Trenton Coleman, UCI Alumni

Philip Grant, PhD, Sociocultural Anthropology, UC Irvine (2012)

Hunter Bivens, Literature, UCSC

Dana Francisco Miranda, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Muhlenberg College

Dawson Barrett, Associate Professor, Del Mar College

Christina Sharpe, Professor, York University (Canada)

Hugh McDonnell, Assistant Professor of European Politics, Literature and Culture, University of Groningen

John Rufo, Graduate Student Worker, CUNY Graduate Center

Alexander G. Weheliye, Professor of African American Studies, Northwestern University  

Dmitri Nikulin, Professor of Philosophy, The New School for Social Research

Pierre Bélanger, Landscape Architect, OPEN SYSTEMS  

Aren Aizura, Associate Professor in Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies, University of

Minnesota

Drew Flanagan, Visiting Assistant Professor of History, The University of Pittsburgh at Bradford

Peter Hill, Vice Chancellor’s Research Fellow, Northumbria University (UK)

William Horne, Postdoc, Villanova University

Naomi Walzer, Student undergrad

Christopher Breu, Professor of English, Illinois State University  

Bret Benjamin, Associate Professor, University at Albany, SUNY

Colin Dayan, Professor, Vanderbilt University

Ricardo A. Bracho, Writer

Kiana Borjian, Student in solidarity

Craig Willse, former associate professor

Lauren Berlant, George M. Pullman Distinguished Service Professor University of Chicago  

Neferti Tadiar, Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Barnard College, Columbia University  

Chad Shomura, Assistant Professor, University of Colorado Denver

Eric Covey, Visiting Assistant Professor, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi

Lucien Baskin, Student, City University of New York

Bryant W. Sculos, Visiting Assistant Professor, Dept. of History & Political Science, Worcester State University

Richard  Grusin, Director, C21, UW-Milwaukee

Elizabeth Ferrari, UCB Class of 1987 L&S

Ronald Williams II, Assistant Professor of African American Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Kelly L Sears, Assistant Professor

Lisa Kahaleole Hall, Associate Professor and Director, Indigenous Studies, University of Victoria  

Albert Ponce, Professor of Political Science & Social Justice, Diablo Valley College

Lilia Soro, Associate Professor, University of Wyoming  

Ron Smith, Associate Professor, Bucknell University

Kimberly Drake, Associate Professor, Scripps College

Dorothy Kim, Assistant Professor of English, Brandeis University

Jack Jackson, Assistant Professor of Politics, Whitman College

Erin Brady, Assistant Professor, Indiana University  

Danielle Seid, Assistant Professor, Baruch College  

Melanie Richter-Montpetit, Assistant Professor of International Relations and Director of the Centre for Advanced International Theory, University of Sussex

Donatella Izzo, Professor of American Literature, “L’Orientale” University, Naples, Italy

Nada Elia, WWU

Martha Copp, Professor, East Tennessee State University

Lauren Parsons Muller, Professor, City College of San Francisco

Jacob Mundy, Associate Professor, Colgate University

Daniel Altshuler, Assistant professor, Hampshire College

Mauro Resmini, Assistant Professor of Film Studies and Italian, University of Maryland  

S. Charusheela, Professor, Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, UW Bothell

Kirstine Taylor, Assistant Professor, Ohio University

Allison McCracken, Associate Professor, American Studies, DePaul University

Sean Cashbaugh, Lecturer, Princeton Writing Program, Princeton University

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, University Professor, Columbia University

Amanda E. Rogers, NEH Visiting Assistant Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies  

Ian M Hartshorn, Assistant Professor of Political Science, UNR

Samantha Knapton, Lecturer at University of East Anglia, UK

Aram Shabanian, MA Candidate in Non-Proliferation and Terrorism Studies, Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey  

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, Assistant Professor, Philosophy Department, Georgetown University

Kamran Rastegar, Professor, Tufts University

Sam Bowden, PhD candidate Rutgers University

Avital Ronell, University Professor of the Humanities, New York University

Peter Magnuson, Independent Researcher

Anna Campbell, Assistant Professor, UW-Madison

Megan Hyska, Assistant Professor, Philosophy Department, Northwestern University

Tiffany Dang, PhD Candidate, University of Cambridge

Morwan Osman, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Department of Medicine, University of Cambridge

Tania Lizarazo, Assistant Professor, University of Maryland Baltimore County

Marcos Balter, Associate Professor, Cali School of Music, Montclair State University

Didem Ertem, Student

Chloe Avery, Graduate Student, University of Chicago

Stephanie DeGooyer, Associate Professor, Willamette University /Visiting Professor, Harvard University

Eli Meyerhoff, Visiting Scholar at Duke University

Siddhartha Deb, Writer, The New School

Pilar Alvarez, Professor of Spanish, Emerita, California State University, Chico

Amanda Armstrong, Assistant Professor of History, Fordham University

Ravi Arvind Palat, Professor of Sociology, Binghamton University

Murtaza Batla, Providence

Sophie Kurland, Undergraduate Student at UCSC

Marco Durazo, Alumni, UCLA

Kristen Hatch, Associate Professor, Visual Studies Program/Film & Media Studies, UC Irvine

Barbara Foley, Distinguished Professor of English, Rutgers University-Newark

Sayres Rudy, PhD Politics Columbia

Ana Maria Candela, Assistant Professor, Binghamton University

Manuel Schwab, Assistant Professor in Sociology, Egyptology, and Anthropology at American University in Cairo

Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda, Assistant Professor, Grinnell College

Kate Doyle Griffiths, Brooklyn College

Charles Post, Professor, Sociology BMCC and the Graduate Center-City University of New York

Abigail Boggs, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Wesleyan University

Jerome Whitington, New York University (UC Berkeley PhD 2008)

Magdalene Kate Moy, Drexel University

Ian Fleishman, Assistant Professor of German and Cinema & Media Studies, University of Pennsylvania

Oyku Tekten, PhD Student, English Department, The Graduate Center

Magalí Rabasa, Assistant Professor, Lewis and Clark College

Corinne Teed, Assistant Professor, Art, University of Minnesota

Jason McGraw, Associate Professor of History, Indiana University

Nataly Escobedo Garcia, Graduate Student, University of California, Irvine

John D Márquez, Associate Professor, Northwestern University

Sarah Zimmerman, Western Washington University (UC Berkeley PhD 2011)

Emily Lyons, Adjunct Professor, University of Arizona

Jean Lee, Assistant Professor of English, Western Washington University

Wendy Matsumura, Associate Professor, UC San Diego

Raj Chetty, Assistant Professor, San Diego State University

Ashon Crawley, Associate Professor of Religious Studies and African American Studies, University of Virginia

Christoph Hanssmann, Assistant Professor, San Francisco State University

Jed Murr, Senior Lecturer, American & Ethnic Studies, Cultural Studies, University of Washington Bothell

Lissette Tatiana Olivares, Visiting Instructor, Pratt Institute

Paula Ioanide, Associate Professor, Ithaca College

Isabel Montanez, Distinguished Professor of Geosciences, University of California, Davis

Yumi Pak, Assistant Professor, Department of English, CSU San Bernardino

Jessica Levy, Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Virginia

Bob Buzzanco, Professor

Francisco Gonzalez Camelo, Adjunct Professor BMCC-CUNY

Stephen Sheehi, Sultan Qaboos Professor of Middle East Studies, William & Mary

Christa Salamandra, Professor of Anthropology, Lehman College, CUNY

Timothy J. Reiss, Emeritus Professor, New York University; Visiting Scholar, University of Hawai’i-Manoa

Greta LaFleur, Associate Professor of American Studies, Yale University

Judith Norman, Professor of Philosophy at Trinity University, San Antonio TX

Katherine Gillen, Associate Professor of English, Texas A&M-San Antonio

Michelle Eirini Padley, Graduate Student in the Department of Geography, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Alexa Firat, Assistant Professor of Arabic Studies, Temple University

Helen H. Jun, Associate Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago

Lilly Irani, Associate Professor, Communication & Computer Science, UC San Diego

Noura Erakat, Assistant Professor, Rutgers University

Sean Leah Bowden, Doctor of Musical Arts, UC San Diego

Marcelo Flores Lazcano, PhD in Music Composition, UCSD 2018

Lauren Hayes, Assistant Professor, School of Arts, Media + Engineering, Arizona State University

Alissa Lund, Theater Arts Alumna Class of 2010

Rumman Chowdhury, PhD, UCSD. Responsible AI lead, Accenture

Kevin Toksöz Fairbairn, Researcher, Leiden University

Susan Anderson

Iván Ferrer, Freelance Composer

Michael Zbyszyński, Lecturer: Goldsmiths, University of London. UCB alumni, PhD 2000

Tom DePaola, Researcher, Pullias Center for Higher Education, USC

James Best, Lecturer, California State University Dominguez Hills

Robert Warrior, Hall Distinguished Professor of American Literature and Culture, University of Kansas

Jessica Hatrick, USC PhD Student at Annenberg School for Communication

Bonnie Burns Price, Retired professor