Cal State Professors Targeted for Exposing School’s Ties to Israel’s Genocide in Gaza by Joshua Frank, CounterPunch, September 10 https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/09/10/cal-state-professors-targeted-for-exposing-schools-ties-to-israels-genocide-in-gaza
Last month, in a tangible victory for the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) movement, San Francisco State University (SFSU) agreed to pull its investment from four companies tied to weapons manufacturing and Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The four include Lockheed Martin, aerospace company Leonardo, military contractor Palantir, and construction equipment maker Caterpillar, whose bulldozers have been tearing up Gaza and the West Bank for decades. The success was four years in the making, as SFSU students successfully passed a divestment resolution in 2020. . . . While the sun may be setting on SFSU’s complicity in Israel’s genocidal mayhem, the situation isn’t as pleasant at Cal State Long Beach (CSULB), the second-largest school in California’s Cal State system, despite that students passed a similar divestment resolution in 2017. School administrators have done their best to stifle criticism of Israel and recently went as far as to send an email warning five faculty members for allegedly violating the school’s 2023-2024 “Time, Place, Manner” (TPM) rules by using a megaphone and a microphone at a Palestinian solidarity protest. While students have been cited in the past, this appears to be the first time professors have been accused of violating the policy. As college protests erupted around the country, over 500 pro-Palestine activists and dozens of faculty at CSULB held a teach-in on May 2. While many other faculty spoke at the peaceful teach-in on a megaphone, only five were targeted for their participation. ... . . . The professors, whose supporters are calling “the CSU-5,” appear to have been targeted, not because they amplified their voices at a campus protest but because, along with another faculty member, they co-wrote a critical piece for Mondoweiss and CounterPunch. The sixth professor did not speak at the May 2nd protest. The widely read piece exposed CSULB’s ties to Boeing and other defense contractors’ complicity in Israel’s genocide against Palestinians. ,,, [ Boeing University: How the California State University Became Complicit in Palestinian Genocide, CounterPunch May 24, 2024 https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/05/24/boeing-university-how-the-california-state-university-became-complicit-in-palestinian-genocide ] . . . CSULB President Jane Close Conoley has a lengthy track record of stifling criticism of Israel on campus. During the 2017 student senate vote on divestment, Conoley penned an op-ed for the school’s newspaper condemning the resolution to divest from corporations with direct ties to the Palestinian occupation and genocide. At the time, faculty members argued that Conoley had a “chilling effect” on free speech by inserting herself into the debate. Despite the resolution passing (15, 7, 1) in a roll call vote, Conoley effectively killed the legislation by refusing to enforce it. What did Conoley get for silencing the divestment vote? Recognition for her excellent work from the Orange County/Long Beach branch of the pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League (ADL) later that year. . . . The fact that Conoley is cozy with the ADL should be cause for concern. The organization deems nearly all opposition to Israel, including divestment, as anti-semitism.... . . . “There cannot be a Palestine exception to academic freedom,” adds Prof. Azza Basarudin, who admits they won’t stop until the genocide stops. “The university’s role is to support faculty and students, not to give in to pressure and interference from external donors, corporations, alums, and political lobbyists.” If there’s a silver lining to all of these attacks on free speech, it’s that efforts to stifle dissent are only likely to backfire and reinvigorate the pro-Palestine movement on college campuses. As long as children continue to be killed in Gaza and blood is shed in the West Bank, a new generation of students and professors of conscience like the CSU-5 will rise to pressure their employers to sever ties with industries that profit from genocide. # # # On Tue, Sep 10, 2024 at 1:07 PM Dennis Brasky via groups.io <dmozart1756= [email protected]> wrote: > *https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/09/10/is-zionism-becoming-a-form-of-fascism/ > <https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/09/10/is-zionism-becoming-a-form-of-fascism/> > * > > Cal State Professors Targeted for Exposing School’s Ties to Israel’s > Genocide in Gaza > <https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/09/10/cal-state-professors-targeted-for-exposing-schools-ties-to-israels-genocide-in-gaza/> > > https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/09/10/cal-state-professors-targeted-for-exposing-schools-ties-to-israels-genocide-in-gaza/ > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. 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