Category: Uncategorized

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

Statement regarding UCSC student conduct charges

We are dismayed that the UCSC administration continues to punish students, grads and undergrads, through the Student Conduct proceedings. Despite the academic senate’s February 19th resolution calling on the administration to withdraw sanctions against striking and arrested students; despite a statement from the UC-wide academic council on February 18th calling on the university to refrain from punitive measures; despite that the San Francisco chapter of the National Lawyers’ Guild has deemed the punishment illegal; despite local and national outrage, including a boycott of the UC signed by hundreds of academics across the country – despite all of this, administration has continued to enact draconian measures of punishment and political repression. 

We are in the midst of a global pandemic, in which cities and states have closed courts and halted criminal proceedings. Yet, beyond the fact that fired student-workers are still not reinstated, the UC’s disciplinary hearings have continued, with a new wave of student conduct summonses sent out last Thursday for grades moved from Canvas in December. The administration has refused to halt or revoke any of these measures even after most students submitted grades, and while a physical picket cannot continue. We see this haphazard rollout of conduct charges as a way to further punish and intimidate students and workers for protesting their precarious conditions. 

One of the most egregious elements of these processes is that the undergrads who supported us and stood with us have been disciplined along with us through these student conduct proceedings. While these disciplinary proceedings have been served to dozens of students, there has been a particularly pernicious and aggressive targeting of students of color – both grads and undergrads –  including undocumented students. Some of these students have received up to four summonses for a range of protest actions, and just yesterday were subjected to punishments including multi-year suspensions, loss of housing, loss of access to campus facilities, and mandated community service. They see themselves tokenized as emblems of the institution’s “diversity”, but when these same “diverse” students protest, they are met with inordinate repression, adding significant hardship to their lives and the continuation of their academic careers. 

Racialized language, historically used to criminalize and dehumanize people of color, is being used in these reports. Multiple summonses identify students of colour engaged in the right to free speech and peaceful assembly as “intimidating”, “aggressive” and “threatening”. One is subject to the charge that they ‘stared at [an administrator] in an attempt to intimidate her’. In another example, an undergraduate student – who is also a US military veteran – is identified as being “very aggressive” and “frightening”, and comments that he wore military fatigues.

While some students still await the “resolution” from their Student Conduct hearings, Carlos Cruz, a History PhD student, prominent COLA4ALL activist, and recipient of four separate student conduct summonses, was suspended yesterday from the university until June 2022. It is clear to us that Carlos was targeted by the administration and punished for his activism. We agree with Carlos when he says, “the Student Conduct office is operating like an extension of the school to prison pipeline, as it targets politically active students of color who are engaging in organizing efforts to call out issues like food insecurity, rent burden, and wage disparities at UCSC”. 

Particularly troubling is the level of surveillance and policing that went into building cases against students. Records acquired via California Public Records Act requests show that the UCSC Police Department tapped the California National Guard and California emergency services personnel for help with a surveillance operation targeting the strike – this has been documented in a Vice article released today. We are also deeply troubled by the university’s mysterious Demonstrations Operations Team (DOT), whose role on campus remains opaque at best. Apart from being ostensibly charged with “coordinating the campus’ specific operational planning and response needs related to campus activism”, we have no information about who team members are (apart from one DOT member who is a former police officer), and little to no knowledge about their budget, surveillance activities, or oversight role. We understand that DOT has worked with UCPD and UCSC administrators to identify and bring charges against select individuals for allegedly violating the Code of Student Conduct while protesting. 

We are angered and disheartened by the continuing punitive and repressive measures of an institution that brands itself as “the original authority on questioning authority”. We continue to stand in solidarity with all students persecuted by the UC and will fight to reverse and drop all discipline.

Re: ‘Summons to Discuss Possible Rules Violations’

Dear senior administration,

Many of us received student conduct summonses [attached below] today for having apparently “deleted, removed, or altered multiple undergraduate student grades in the Canvas Gradebook” in Fall Quarter. Most strikers have submitted grades. Why administration continues these processes of discipline for use of Canvas, when our Description of Duties do not require the use of Canvas; why we are disciplined as students, when many of us have already been disciplined (fired) in our roles as workers; and why this must continue throughout a global pandemic, appears entirely unnecessary, petty and vindictive. 

This action flies in the face of numerous calls from UCSC and UC-wide faculty, grads, and undergrads, and the wider community, for the administration to cease disciplinary actions. As far back as February 20th, the UCSC Academic Senate passed a resolution that, among other things, calls “for the withdrawal of sanctions against striking and arrested students” [Academic Senate Resolution Bassi and Leiva, attached below]. The day before, the UC-wide Academic Council concluded a statement on the UCSC grad student strike with a resolution that “the University should refrain from punitive action against graduate students during the strike and from retaliation against them once the strike has been concluded.” The San Francisco Chapter of the National Lawyers’ Guild deemed the punishment illegal, and highlighted the university’s lack of neutrality in these meetings, violating students’ rights to due process. Furthermore, these forms of discipline were part of the grounds for the call for a boycott of the UC, signed by hundreds of academics across the country. To continue with these processes, as these resolutions and statements point out, raises serious concerns not only for values of shared governance and academic freedom, but also students’ constitutionally protected rights.

Already in hundreds of grievance meetings, students have been baffled by a process in which they were already presumed guilty, while the university was unable to provide evidence of their individual guilt. Not only graduate students but also undergraduates have faced student conduct charges relating to a labor action that appear on their academic records, delay the completion of their degrees and threaten their on-campus housing and student status. A recent letter from the Faculty Organizing Group notes that this discipline continues while courts are shut and criminal proceedings have been halted. The purpose of these disciplinary hearings, as they write, seems only to be “to intimidate and overwhelm students”. These actions are unconscionable. We ask that you do the right thing, and cancel all student conduct summonses, end all other sanctions, and erase discipline from the records of all involved. 

In perplexity,

Disciplined graduate students

Attachment: Student Conduct SummonsDownload
Attachment: Academic Senate ResolutionDownload

Universal COVID-19 Time to Degree Extension for All Graduate Students

Dear UCSC grads, 

While our individual experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic vary, we are all affected by it. To this end, we ask that UCSC administration grants a universal one-year time to degree extension to all graduate students, regardless of their discipline, year in program, personal circumstance, and nationality.  

More specifically, we request that UCSC administration:

  1. Makes available a fully-funded one year normative time to degree increase for all graduate students 
  2. Extends the non-residential supplemental tuition (NRST) waiver by one year  
  3. Waives the 18-quarter teaching limit

UC Santa Barbara, UC Berkeley and UC San Diego have granted a one-year, one-semester and one-quarter extension respectively to all doctoral students across the board, demonstrating that inclusive, all-encompassing solutions are not only possible, but that they can also be implemented at a campus level in record time.

Please add your name to this petition to urge UCSC administration to support its graduate students by granting us a universal fully-funded time to degree extension.

UC-Wide May Day Strike // UCSC May Day Caravan

UC-wide Call to Action:

May Day strike against austerity and unsafe working conditions 

TL;DR:  Our greatest weapon is the labor we can withhold from this institution. On May 1, do not log on to Canvas. Do not log on to Zoom. Do not respond to emails, do not grade, and do not submit papers. Do not go to work as usual. Reclaim the time you need to care for yourself and your community. 

If you are currently living in Santa Cruz, you are invited to join us for a May Day Caravan, Friday from 12pm-4pm, as we honor those who are fighting and striking across our city. This will be a slow-moving, socially-distant action using car and bike transit, and our first in-person(ish) gathering since shelter-in-place began. Sign this commitment form to receive more details about our route. If you are not currently in Santa Cruz, you can still be part of our journey by following along on Instagram @payusmoreucsc and Twitter @payusmoreucsc. 

~

Flyer for all UC campuses: “May 1, 2020 UC General Strike. As workers, our power lies in our ability to withhold labor – to go on strike. On May Day, we strike against the University of California’s devastating austerity measures and callous treatment of its essential employees through COVID-19. Santa Barbara: Rally to Bail Out the Working Class: 5:30 PM - Downtown Santa Barbara. RSVP: bit.ly/maydaySB. Instagram @ucsb4cola. Santa Cruz: May Day Car & Bike Caravan: 12 PM - Oakes College. RSVP: tinyurl.com/santacruzmayday. Instagram @payusmoreucsc. Berkeley: Worker & Community Caravan. 10 AM - Port of Oakland Berth 59. Details: bit.ly/MayDayInTheBay. Irvine: #FreeThemAll Vehicle Rally: 12 PM - Orange County Central Jail. Details: bit.ly/FreeThemAllOC. Instagram @uci4cola.”
Flyer for all UC campuses: “May 1, 2020 UC General Strike. As workers, our power lies in our ability to withhold labor – to go on strike. On May Day, we strike against the University of California’s devastating austerity measures and callous treatment of its essential employees through COVID-19. Santa Barbara: Rally to Bail Out the Working Class: 5:30 PM – Downtown Santa Barbara. RSVP: bit.ly/maydaySB. Instagram @ucsb4cola. Santa Cruz: May Day Car & Bike Caravan: 12 PM – Oakes College. RSVP: tinyurl.com/santacruzmayday. Instagram @payusmoreucsc. Berkeley: Worker & Community Caravan. 10 AM – Port of Oakland Berth 59. Details: bit.ly/MayDayInTheBay. Irvine: #FreeThemAll Vehicle Rally: 12 PM – Orange County Central Jail. Details: bit.ly/FreeThemAllOC. Instagram @uci4cola.”
Flyer for UCSC: “May Day Caravan* in solidarity with all workers, incarcerated people, and houseless people. International worker’s day / no work!! / no class!! / no rent!! *Route to come.”
Flyer for UCSC: “May Day Caravan* in solidarity with all workers, incarcerated people, and houseless people. International worker’s day / no work!! / no class!! / no rent!! *Route to come.”

UC campuses across the state have formed these demands against the harmful learning environment and unsafe working conditions that have been imposed on us by the University of California in light of its decision to move to online instruction amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The National Labour Relations Act guarantees the right to a safe workplace, and yet many of us work in our own inadequate, rent-burdened housing. On May Day we call attention to these issues:

1) UC has continued to demand rent and has scheduled a rent increase amidst the pandemic. UCSC operates its student housing as a company town, charging rent in Family Student Housing equivalent to many TAs’ annual salaries. Undergraduates who rely on on-campus housing during remote instruction are charged at business-as-usual rates, despite being shuffled around rooms in far-from-normal conditions. Most jobs and “side hustles” are unavailable to us in these times. The UC has the resources to support us in these emergency times, and yet they squeeze us tighter. We extend solidarity to all those unable or unwilling to pay rent this May 1st. Sign this petition to support FSH residents.

2) Grad workers need extended funding, but UC is giving us extended austerity: Amidst the pandemic, some UCs have extended normative time but UCSC has not announced any additional support for grad workers, while our research gets stalled, external grants get cancelled and academic jobs evaporate. You can use this form to tell the UC that they need to give us guaranteed summer funding, extend our time to degree and our funding packages by a year, drop Non-Resident Supplemental Tuition (NRST) for international grads, and waive its 18-quarter teaching limit (you’ll need to be signed into a UCSC email account to access the form). The months-long fight for a COLA has sought to highlight a fundamental, structural flaw within the UC system: Despite sitting on billions of dollars, the UC does not think its graduate student workers deserve a living wage and financial security when it accepts them into their “world-renowned” programs. The COVID-19 crisis has only exposed this racket for what it is. We demand better.

3) Without a COLA, our unsafe living conditions have become unsafe working conditions:  Our homes, for those of us who have one, have become our new workspaces. These homes are unlivable, unstable, and therefore unsafe because the university has refused to provide students’ the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) necessary to meet even our most basic needs, forcing us into substandard housing that often pose multiple health risks resulting from mold to asbestos (see here, here, here, and here for examples). We are certain that many of our home/work spaces would not pass an Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspection. Furthermore, our wages force many of us to share extremely small spaces with multiple roommates. This not only puts us more at risk for contracting COVID-19, but also traps us in shared living situations that make us vulnerable to things like domestic abuse. This potential violence is only magnified for women, trans, and gender non-conforming people, as well as for people of color.
 

4) Zoom IS an unsafe workspace: Online instruction via Zoom exposes students and instructors to racist, anti-semitic attacks and sexual violence in the form of “Zoom-bombings.” These attacks have been occurring repeatedly in teach-ins, class sessions, meetings, and other events (see here, here, here, here, and here, for examples). Additionally, online instruction is an invasion of our privacy and is not a safe nor secure virtual classroom. Any Zoom call can be recorded without our knowledge or consent, and Zoom also shares emails and personal profiles with strangers, and permits third-party tracking of users’ information. Furthermore, it remains unclear whether and what user information Zoom is sharing with law enforcement. Zoom is a platform for white supremacists, and the UC is emboldening them;  the partnership between the two comes at the expense of Black and Brown students and instructors in particular.

We have repeatedly made the university aware of these unsafe conditions, but they have not improved them. 

Many of us at UCSC have been striking since Fall 2019. While our tactics have had to change, we continue to demand living wages so we can have housing, food and healthcare security for graduate student workers, undergraduate students, and all university workers. Our strike has spread across the state but the UC has ignored our concerns, responding instead with police brutality, terminations, and trumped-up student conduct summons. COVID-19 and the move to online teaching via Zoom has systematically worsened the crisis we were already living in. This Friday, join UC student workers across the state and graduate students across the country in calling for what we need to survive in this institution. While this is only a one-day strike, our main efforts are towards building a union-sanctioned ULP strike for a COLA. We need your pledge here. 

Tell us here how you’ll be striking on May 1st. Please share this call with students and faculty who may want to participate. 

Solidarity Forever!

COLA strikers will collectively submit grades and organize for a ULP strike

New guidelines from the Committee on Educational Policy (CEP) have resolved to replace all missing grades with Ps on May 1, 2020. After multiple failed attempts to break the strike and break solidarity between undergraduate students, grads, and faculty, the administration has turned to its only sure tactic: its heavy hand from above. 

In doing so, the administration has shifted the burden of missing grades from themselves and onto the undergraduates it purports to care for and educate. We cannot allow this.

In response, the COLA strikers have decided collectively to submit outstanding Fall and Winter grades and organize for a ULP strike—a union-sanctioned and legally protected state-wide strike! We are living through a pandemic that exacerbates our existing precarity and faced with a brutal and exploitative employer that will take every latitude to rebalance power in its favor. 

By submitting the grades we have carried through our struggle, we ensure that our students receive the grades they earned despite the administration’s continued indifference towards undergraduate education. 

We are deeply grateful for all of the undergraduate support we have received throughout our movement. As a movement born out of precarity, we work in solidarity with all who fight for better living conditions and a quality education at UCSC. 

On multiple occasions over recent months, we offered UC Labor Relations a “grade trade.” Two weeks ago, UC Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara strikers offered to submit all outstanding grades for the reinstatement of all student workers fired for striking and the retraction of all student discipline. UC administrators, once again, said no. Around 80 UCSC graduate students remain terminated. Dozens, including undergrads, face student conduct charges. Despite the global pandemic, UC is pursuing punitive measures against students. And we cannot afford rent.

Therefore, our fight continues as we move to a new phase of organizing. Our union, UAW-2865, filed two Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) charges against the UC for their discriminatory discipline of strikers and their refusal to bargain for COLA with the union. In addition to representing our strongest path to reinstatement, the ULP includes a call for a raise to $40,000 per year for all graduate student workers.

We urge all TAs, GSIs, tutors, and readers to sign the ULP strike pledge for a sanctioned union strike (and to join the union if you have not already). More than 3,600 grads have currently signed the ULP strike pledge across the state, with more than 2,300 currently in-unit workers. The union is pushing for 5,000 in-unit pledges before calling the strike vote, guaranteeing that we will strike in huge numbers. 

Share the strike pledge with your departments and with your colleagues and comrades on other UC campuses.

Sign up to phone bank to help us win COLA.

Inter-Campus Faculty Statement on Support for UAW ULP strike

We’re building power towards an enormous statewide strike! Check out this statement of statewide faculty support for our ULP strike. Please help us build towards an enormous strike – sign up for phonebanking on Thursday and Friday, and/or email all your colleagues about the ULP strike pledge!

(Also find this statement at this link on the FOG website)

Inter-Campus Faculty Solidarity Network – Statement on Faculty Support for UAW ULP Strike – 20 April 2020

UC faculty at nine campuses have indicated their willingness to strike in solidarity with an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) strike, if this action were to be called by the UAW 2865 UC Student-Worker Union. In less than a week, over 300 faculty, including both senate faculty and lecturers, have responded to a statewide survey created and circulated by our coalition. Of those who responded, 62 percent declared they would sympathy strike with a ULP strike. 

This articulation of faculty commitment is in addition to multiple public statements by faculty, including those made by both the Council of UC Faculty Associations (CUCFA) and Academic Council, calling on the university to refrain from punitive action against striking graduate students and to enter into negotiations with the union. 

Graduate students’ labor is absolutely vital to the university’s teaching, research, and service missions. The UC can resolve this situation immediately by entering into negotiations and seeking a settlement to this labor dispute — we encourage them to do so.  And, if they do not, we are ready and willing to act alongside graduate student workers in response to the university’s unfair labor practices.

The Next Phase of the COLA Struggle

TL;DR: The present conditions require us to shift into a new phase of organizing—as a first step, sign up to phone bank to help push us towards a sanctioned strike this quarter, and sign the ULP strike pledge for a sanctioned union strike.

The start of the new quarter gives us an opportunity to step back and assess the state of our movement. Our new working conditions in the age of COVID-19 are forcing us to reconsider our tactical choices. We know that we must continue to organize for the COLA we all need, but it is time to organize differently.

Until now, our offensive tactics have been wildcat strike actions. We held our ground most impressively in a grueling, month-long physical picket line at the Bay & High intersection, gathering widespread public support and igniting wildcat activities on other campuses. But we also faced serious and demobilizing setbacks. Disciplinary retaliation and sheer fatigue took their toll. Administrators and faculty joined forces to find new and inventive ways to prevent graduate workers from withholding final grades. The pandemic obliterated our familiar methods of in-person organizing. We must take these setbacks seriously, re-evaluate our collective power, and recalibrate our tactical horizons.

To that end, COLA organizers at UC Santa Cruz will agitate in the coming weeks for the authorization of our union’s statewide ULP strike. The first step is to sign up for phone banking. The second is to call meetings with, and call people in, your departments to spread the ULP strike pledge.

What is the ULP strike?

Our union, UAW 2865, has filed multiple Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) charges against the UC, including for its summary firing of over 80 wildcat strikers at UCSC, and for its refusal to bargain directly with the union over COLA. These unjust practices are severe enough that UAW’s statewide Bargaining Team is prepared to call an official strike, but only if enough union members are ready to withhold their labor when the call comes. The UAW’s current position on settlement for these ULP charges includes a raise to $40,000 per year for graduate student workers.

Why the ULP strike? 

Make no mistake: the possibility of a ULP strike is a concrete victory in the COLA movement, and a genuine victory of the wildcat strike. Whereas we, as rank and file workers, once stood far ahead of the union, the union is now beginning to catch up to us. We are now well placed to combine our rank and file militancy with the union’s considerable resources and legal protections. 

The current crisis conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic compound our precarious living conditions. In the thick of this crisis and the uneven distribution of its effects, the demand for a COLA is the demand to survive. We want to struggle, as workers all over the world are now struggling, with a renewed urgency. But we need protections, and we need greater numbers. On the eve of a historic economic depression, and with 3.3 million unemployment claims filed across the country last week, many among us are gaining a hesitancy about engaging in bold but risky wildcat actions, especially when confronted with an employer that would rather leave its workers without healthcare in a pandemic than bargain over a living wage. 

A ULP strike is distinct from a wildcat strike because it is voted on by the full union membership, sanctioned by the union, and gives legal protections to every single worker on strike. These protections are necessary certainties in these uncertain times. They will allow us to strike against the university with the full weight of our statewide union behind us. 

When will the ULP strike be? 

The ULP strike is not the opposite of a wildcat strike. Both forms of strike are nothing without the power of the rank and file. If you have been following the official emails from our statewide union leadership, you may be under the impression that it is only a matter of waiting for the leadership to tell you when to strike. 

But the truth is that our union leadership is cautious in its political outlook, and will only be decisive when pushed to decision from below. If union members muster up strike readiness in large numbers, leadership can be compelled to call a strike vote sooner. Otherwise, they will hesitate and postpone, and allow the weeks of Spring quarter to pass by. In other words, rank and file workers can determine the timeline of the ULP strike. 

What happens to the withheld grades?

You may have heard about the administration’s “Last Chance Agreement” to reinstate fired wildcats. Due to the absurdly tight timeline (less than 24 hours) and the ambiguities of this “offer,” COLA wildcats have written to administrators asking for clarifications and outlining a counter-proposal.

Moreover, the reinstatement of Santa Cruz graduate student workers is a central plank of the UAW’s terms for settling its ULP charges. It is uncertain how this will play out and we will need to adjust strategically to developments in negotiations, at our campus, and on other campuses. 

As with everything in the COLA struggle, the speed and terms of any outcome will depend on our strength at the time of negotiations. Our strongest position, at present, is to negotiate during a statewide sanctioned strike. 

What we have always said nonetheless remains true: only Santa Cruz wildcats (and now wildcats at other campuses) decide when to submit grades, and under what circumstances. 

Next

As we start the new quarter, we will regroup, reassess and rebuild infrastructure. We will be sending a survey over the next few days which will ask grads your thoughts on the strengths and weaknesses of the COLA movement so far, and what you want to see happen with the campaign going into Spring quarter. We will join a statewide intercampus General Assembly Friday April 3 at 11am (Zoom link forthcoming), and there will be a UCSC General Assembly soon (details TBC).

All of us have faced enormous uncertainty over the past months. Now, more than ever, is the time to build our collective strength to fight for a future full of security and certainty.

In power and solidarity,
COLA organizers

Counter-Offer to Latest Deadline, “Last Chance Agreement”

To UCSC Administration,

We first register our dismay that your latest deadline to turn in grades (details attached) arrived to us with less than 24 hours to respond. Some fired graduate workers have not received the offer and many will simply miss the email as they adjust to the uncertainty of the pandemic. 

The Santa Cruz wildcat strikers have always been open and responsive to good faith communications, initiating multiple requests to negotiate, including a “grade trade” offer back in February—all refused by administration. Instead of negotiating with us collectively and in good faith, the administration’s approach aims to instill panic in individual grade withholders in a renewed attempt to undermine collective action. The COLA movement, however, will continue to make decisions collectively.

In that vein, we are unable to respond to this deadline without clarifications on the following points:

  • Will fired graduate student workers who are now not able to find a spring appointment receive compensation?
  • Will GSIs who have had their class removed receive compensation?
  • Will those graduates who were made ineligible for spring appointments (rather than fired from an existing spring appointment) receive compensation if they are unable to find a new appointment?

With affirmative clarification on the above points, the COLA movement will agree to collectively submit grades under the following terms:

  • The removal of all disciplinary measures from student records for past actions related to the wildcat strike, including the grading strike, the picket line, campus shutdowns, the ARC office takeover, and dining hall takeovers, and the guarantee not to further pursue student conduct procedures against students who were involved in these actions.
  • A guarantee of full reinstatement for the spring quarter for all fired graduate student workers, including TAs and GSIs and those graduate students made ineligible for spring appointments, along with full compensation for those who cannot find an appointment at this late time.
  • A guarantee of eligibility for future ASE appointments for all fired graduate student workers.
  • That the administration remove clause E: “In the event XXXXX is terminated from employment pursuant to this Agreement, XXXXX waives her right to a Skelly hearing. XXXXX and the Union acknowledges and agree that the parties waive their right to file a grievance or complaint with the University of California, the courts or any governmental administrative agency concerning her dismissal for failure to adhere to the terms and conditions of this Agreement.”
  • A guarantee that this offer be expanded to students who are withholding Winter quarter grades.
  • An expansion of the $2,500 housing supplement to all graduate students including MA students, MFA students beyond the 2nd year of their program, PhD students beyond the 5th year of their program, and all fired graduate students.
  • A written commitment to advocate for UCOP to immediately engage in good faith bargaining with UAW 2865 over a Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for all ASEs in the UC system. We are not striking to be reinstated; we are striking for a COLA.

The context of the global COVID-19 pandemic has only intensified the urgent need to make fired workers whole. The University of California cannot remain content with a wishful vision of “online business as usual” while its imperiled workers struggle to adapt to drastic changes in their working and living conditions. Now more than ever, graduate student workers, including those of us who are immunocompromised or otherwise particularly vulnerable to COVID-19, need job security, a living wage, and freedom from unjust and arbitrary discipline. 

We are open to negotiation, as we have expressed and pushed for throughout this strike. We ask that you renege your bad faith offer and meet our good faith one. We expect clarifications and an answer to our terms by the end of the week, Friday 11:59pm.

Signed,

UC Santa Cruz Wildcat Strikers

ATTACHMENT TO BOTTOM OF EMAIL: Word Doc of “Last Chance Agreement” 

______________________

Kavitha’s email: 

Hi everyone, 

I wanted to send you an update on your Notices of Actions to Dismiss and the emails you received telling you that you would not be eligible for ASE employment in the future.  

As many of you have likely heard, management has agreed to offer jobs for the spring quarter and in quarters thereafter to all of you, should you decide to submit grades by 5pm today or if you have already submitted the rest of your fall quarter grades. Attached is a template for such an agreement, though it would be tailored to your specific case. 

If that timeline is too short and you need another day, please be in touch. Like nearly any agreement for reinstatement for these types of activities, the agreement for you would likely include, like the one attached, a limit on future wildcat grade withholding.  

I hope you’re all safe amidst the ever-changing conditions of COVID-19.  

Sincerely,

Kavitha

Text of the Last Chance Agreement

Last Chance Agreement Between

XXXX 

And

University of California, Santa Cruz

And

UAW 2865

March 29, 2020 

The University of California Santa Cruz (hereinafter referred to as the University), XXXX (hereinafter referred to as XXXX and the United Auto Workers 2865 (hereinafter referred to as Union) enter into this Last Chance Agreement (hereinafter referred to as Agreement). 

Acknowledgements

On March 26, 2020, XXXX received a letter notifying her that she would be dismissed from her spring teaching assistant appointment in XXXXX effective March 31, 2020 for failing to turn in fall quarter grades after a directive from interim Campus Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Lori Kletzer.

 On or about March 27, 2020, the University received information from XXXX regarding her submission of fall quarter grades. XXXXX submitted documentation, including two letters of support from her fall and winter quarter instructors of record, as well as a personal letter discussing that she remains committed to taking actions in the best interest of her students now and in the future.

On March 28, 2020, the University confirmed that XXXXXX submitted her fall and winter quarter grades.

In light of XXXXX subsequent grade submission and commitment to her students, the University agrees that it will not seek to dismiss XXXXX with the Union’s agreement to the following: 

Terms and Conditions

  1. Upon signature of this Agreement, the Notice of Dismiss dated March 26, 2020 and all supporting documents including but not limited to the Notice of Intent to Dismiss and Skelly recommendation, will be withdrawn. None of the listed documents will be placed in XXXXX personnel file. Without a dismissal on file, XXXXX will retain her spring quarter 2020 teaching assistant position in XXXXX.
  1. XXXXX is required to meet the standards of performance required of an academic student employee position, including but not limited to adherence to the  description of duties form, compliance with Regental policy 1111, and timely and accurate submission of grades for all quarters in which she holds an academic student employee appointment from the date of signature on this Agreement through the date XXXXX graduates from her degree program or separates from the University, whichever is earlier.  Her failure to meet these standards will subject her to automatic dismissal and loss of future eligibility for an academic student employee appointment with the University from the effective date of this Agreement.
  1. Nothing in this Agreement precludes XXXXX from engaging in protected, concerted activity.
  1. XXXXX acknowledges and agrees that her continued employment with the University is contingent upon her compliance with the terms and conditions of this Agreement, and that her failure to comply with all terms and conditions of the Agreement subjects her to dismissal upon execution of this Agreement.
  1. In the event XXXXX is terminated from employment pursuant to this Agreement, XXXXX waives her right to a Skelly hearing XXXXX and the Union acknowledges and agree that the parties waive their right to file a grievance or complaint with the University of California, the courts or any governmental administrative agency concerning her dismissal for failure to adhere to the terms and conditions of this Agreement.
  1. The parties further agree that this Agreement shall not serve as a precedent for the resolution of any other issue or grievance and that this Agreement shall not be precedent setting.
  1. Nothing contained herein shall be deemed an admission by the University of any misfeasance or liability whatsoever.
  1. It is further agreed that XXXXX and the Union will not grieve this Agreement.
  1. If any provision, or portion of any provision(s), of this Agreement is found to be invalid or unenforceable, such provision or portion thereof shall be deemed severed and the remaining terms of the Agreement shall remain in effect.

This Last Chance Agreement incorporates the entire understanding between the parties and recites the sole consideration for the promises exchanged herein. In reaching this agreement, neither party has relied on any presentation or promise except as expressly set forth herein. Each of the undersigned parties hereby acknowledges that a representative of their own choosing has represented them and that they understand and fully aware of the contents and legal effect of this Last Chance Agreement and agree to be bound by the terms contained herein.

///

///

Date: Date:

For the University: XXXXX

____________________________ ____________________________

Jennifer Schiffner,

Director, Employee & Labor Relations

For UAW 2865:

____________________________

Kavitha Iyengar, President

I am withholding grades today

Email from graduate student to UCSC Chancellor and Executive Vice Chancellor on the day Winter quarter grades are due.

To the administration,

Despite the world-sized cloud of severe uncertainty the Covid-19 global pandemic has thrown us into, I am certain nevertheless that I will not be submitting grades today. The conditions of precarity that many the world over are newly experiencing – fear of falling ill, fear of job loss and financial ruination, feelings of isolation and powerlessness – these were already more than familiar to us, driving us to begin our movement for a COLA in the first place. We needed one before, and now we need one more than ever.

I am speaking for myself. The 80+ graduate student teachers you sacrificed were striking for the same cause I am striking for, so I withhold grades in solidarity. As a movement we have always made decisions collectively, but acted autonomously. And so I speak autonomously. But in this time of imposed isolation, it has become starkly clear that we have never been autonomous; that we think and we act on each other’s behalf; that in all our particular acts we nurture and further a co-allegiant goal. We striking graduate students, ourselves, gathered the funds to lift out of total penury the 80+ students you terminated. In keeping, I sincerely hope you are staying safe and enjoying the company of your loved ones in this precarious time of isolation and apprehensiveness. In keeping, while you may thank this pandemic for having shut down campus in lieu of us shutting down campus, and while you may thank this pandemic for virally overtaking the news cycle in lieu of stories of your brutality and our victories, do not for one moment think or thank Covid-19 for shutting down the strike. It has only more keenly affirmed us of our foundational resolve, and more firmly reminded us of our need to organize.

So I repeat, I myself am withholding grades today. I’m uncertain what sort of retaliation you are planning towards myself and others like me; your recent action against 80+ graduate student workers was unconscionable then, whereas a similar retaliatory action now would likely place you in a circle of…well, I’ve been reading a lot of Dante. I would ask instead that you respond to us with a COLA, that you use your administrative power to act as an exemplary model of what community leaders can do for their members in times of crisis. I don’t care if that’s naive. We are a community in crisis, and you can do something about it. Do something about it.

This is not a plea, this is a suggestion; generosity looks better than Randian intransigence. Either way we’ll get our COLA.

Sincerely,
Jared Harvey
PhD Candidate in Literature