UC San Diego Faculty with backbone

Subject: Classes/TA sections canceled today
From:    "ivan evans"
Date:    Fri, February 26, 2010 6:55 am
To:      "ucsd-faculty-coalition@googlegroups.com"

Dear colleagues:

I have just canceled my lecture for today and invited my TA to cancel her
TA section. I also cc'd the Dean of the Social Sciences to apprise him of
my decision.

I have also circulated to that class (a large intro to Sociology class) my
letter to you in which I called for a strike and disruptive demonstrations
on campus. I have nothing to conceal from them and from the
administration. THIS IS WHAT TENURE IS FOR: it provides us with the
protections we need to act morally and appropriately when the time calls
for it. We have always been professional. Now let's add boldness to it.

I call on all tenured faculty to do the same: cancel your lectures, join
us on Library Walk and let us march across campus. Let them arrest us: the
whole world is watching.

So bring home-made placards. I am searching for markers right now to make
my own,

Ivan

Dear all,

Please call on Chancellor Fox to declare a state of emergency and shut
down the campus.  Last night, a group of Black students had to spend the
night at the Cross because they feared for their lives if they were going to try to make it home.
This is NOT a university.

Students should not fear for their lives while going to school.

It is fundamentally wrong that students and faculty of color have had
to labor around the clock this past week, putting aside their study, their
research, their teaching, their writing, while the rest of the campus
continue as usual.

It is fundamentally unfair. Who will give them back the lost hours?  Who
will compensate them for their always-uncompensated and unrecognized
labor, in this case to birth an institution that is truly a place of LEARNING, in the most profound sense of that word.

We call on all of you--students, staff, faculty, union reps,
librarians--to share in this labor.

Yen
Yen Le Espiritu
Professor and Chair
Department of Ethnic Studies
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, CA 92093-0522
Tel.: (858) 534-5206
Fax.: (858) 534-8194

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