Speaker 1: A media.
Speaker 2: Hi, and welcome to the show. It's me James today
Speaker 2: and I'm very fortunate to be joined by a member
Speaker 2: of the UCSD faculty, someone who is a professor of
Speaker 2: environmental physics at Script's Institution of Usunography. You're also teaching
Speaker 2: the Critical Gender Studies department, and we're talking today about
Speaker 2: the disciplinary action that they are facing for participation in
Speaker 2: the Guards of Solidarity Encampment. So welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us. Thank you, James. I'm really happy
Speaker 1: to be here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's great too, great to have you. I'm glad
Speaker 2: we can share our platform and talk about this. So
Speaker 2: I think to begin with, you know, it's been a
Speaker 2: little while perhaps, I know a lot of people have
Speaker 2: sort of been investigating and changing their politics in the
Speaker 2: last year or so, so perhaps you could explain a
Speaker 2: little bit about the Guards of Solidarity Encampment, the moment
Speaker 2: that came in and the role that it played in
Speaker 2: the anti genocide Palestinian liberation movement at uc San Diego
Speaker 2: more broadly.
Speaker 1: Yes, once again for this opportunity. So, the encampment at
Speaker 1: UCSD was set up on May first, twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: and that was happening in the context of encampments that
Speaker 1: were being set up at universities across the US. I
Speaker 1: believe that the UCSD encampment was approximately the hundredth encampment
Speaker 1: set up in the US at that time. There's quite
Speaker 1: a number of interesting things about kind of the whole
Speaker 1: encampment movement. First of all, the fact that they met
Speaker 1: with such severe repression is very suggestive that how effective
Speaker 1: they were in bringing the issues related to the genocide
Speaker 1: and the occupation of Palestine to the forefront in ways
Speaker 1: that certainly were aren't happening in the US at the time.
Speaker 1: Another thing about the encampments that I found really interesting
Speaker 1: but also I mean, I think brilliant from a organizing perspective,
Speaker 1: is that they were very visually and viscerally recreating the
Speaker 1: conditions under which Palestinians in Gaza were living at the
Speaker 1: time and still are, having been displaced from their residences
Speaker 1: and being forced to live in these very makeshift at
Speaker 1: tent encampments. And so there was a recreation len of
Speaker 1: those conditions in a very visual way. And I think
Speaker 1: that that also was in some sense reminiscent of the
Speaker 1: shantytowns that were constructed on college campuses in the US
Speaker 1: in the mid eighties in the anti apartheid movement, So
Speaker 1: I think paying attention to some of those those details
Speaker 1: which off and get lost. We started talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: rise police and so forth. These encampments were They weren't
Speaker 1: just you know, a bunch of students hanging out. These
Speaker 1: were constructed and developed in a very thoughtful manner, and
Speaker 1: that was definitely the case at UCSD, as I was
Speaker 1: told by students who were participating in it, as a
Speaker 1: space you engage in education and research about the genocide
Speaker 1: and about the occupation of Palestine, as well as the
Speaker 1: ties that UCSD had to the occupation and the genital
Speaker 1: side in Palestine. So you had, and I talked to
Speaker 1: many students who were actively engaged in this. You had
Speaker 1: students sitting on their laptops doing research about the UCSD's
Speaker 1: ties to weapons and manufacturers, the ways that UCSD supported
Speaker 1: the discourses that were enabling the genocide and the occupation,
Speaker 1: including archaeological research, and also you know, there was a
Speaker 1: program associated with every day and the students would plan teachings.
Speaker 1: Sometimes professors would do the teachings, sometimes students, sometimes community members.
Speaker 1: There were teachings on a whole range of really interesting topics,
Speaker 1: including of course about Palestine, about the genocide, but also
Speaker 1: about other issues like the role of surveillance and surveillance
Speaker 1: technology in the genocide, the ecoside that was happening continues
Speaker 1: to happen in Gaza and Palestine. And so it was
Speaker 1: it was a place of an amazing place of learning
Speaker 1: and research and also community engagement. So as I said,
Speaker 1: you know, outside speakers are being brought in, community members
Speaker 1: were coming in and participating and learning, and so you know,
Speaker 1: those three things, research, teaching, and community engagement, those are
Speaker 1: precisely the things that the university tells us as faculty
Speaker 1: and students that we should be doing. So it to
Speaker 1: me the encampment was functioning even though it wasn't getting
Speaker 1: any support from the university, and it was actually Universities
Speaker 1: throughout its five days of existence, was trying to shut
Speaker 1: it down despite all that it was functioning essentially like
Speaker 1: any other research institute on campus, and I would say
Speaker 1: probably than many of the research institutes on campus.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I tended a few times to talk
Speaker 2: to people to observe to do my journalism. As you said,
Speaker 2: a university immediately was very obviously very hostile. You had
Speaker 2: people from like university administration giving out little flyers or
Speaker 2: something about like university rules, and there was constant presence
Speaker 2: of UCPD, constant presence of administration, constant concerns for people
Speaker 2: about their safety in the encampment. As you said, the
Speaker 2: university was very hostile to it, despite it doing things
Speaker 2: at the university purports to believe in. Let's discuss briefly
Speaker 2: the history. UCSD hasn't always come down so hard on
Speaker 2: protest movements, but it also has something of a history
Speaker 2: of handling these moments very poorly, I would say. So
Speaker 2: perhaps we could begin, yeah, if you could talk about
Speaker 2: the antia partype movement, and then we can move through
Speaker 2: what people have called the Black Winter at UCSD and
Speaker 2: some of the other things that we both have some
Speaker 2: experience of.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, so it's very interesting to me. I mean,
Speaker 1: of course, you know, many people are aware of the
Speaker 1: history of a student activism at UCSD, and many times
Speaker 1: when you just mentioned that, people immediately think of Angela Davis,
Speaker 1: who of course was fired by UCSD but then went
Speaker 1: on to become a distinguished professor at uc Sata Cruz
Speaker 1: And you know, just prolific and amazing scholar academic but
Speaker 1: not talking about obscure academic topics, but you know, topics
Speaker 1: that are directly relevant to people's lives. So many of
Speaker 1: those topics and so now, of course the UCSD celebrates
Speaker 1: Angela Davis without mentioning that they fired her. So there's
Speaker 1: kind of a there is a little bit of this.
Speaker 1: This Okay, we're going to try to suppress Steed's movements,
Speaker 1: but then later on celebrate them. So there, of course
Speaker 1: were quite a number of other stuphle led movements. One
Speaker 1: of them, as you mentioned, was the anti apartheid movement,
Speaker 1: and of course that was also part of a national movement.
Speaker 1: Especially Berkeley was very strong campus in that respect, but
Speaker 1: you know, numerous campuses across the US were involved in
Speaker 1: that movement, as was UCSD, and we had the UCSD
Speaker 1: the students, and this was in nineteen eighty five. It
Speaker 1: took place over a period of out about four or
Speaker 1: five months. As I recall, the students had numerous protests
Speaker 1: and at the time for people who were familiar with
Speaker 1: the u SSD campus. UCSD has grown significantly since the eighties,
Speaker 1: but at that time, the central meeting place for campus
Speaker 1: was and what's called Ravel College and Revel Plaza. So
Speaker 1: there were numerous protests there anti apartheype protests. The students
Speaker 1: on several occasions set up replica shanty towns on the
Speaker 1: Revel Plaza, as happened at many other universities in the US.
Speaker 1: Those were basically replicas of impoverished conditions that South African
Speaker 1: black folks had to live in under apartheid in South Africa.
Speaker 1: So they were setting up to the shantydown student kind
Speaker 1: of reprinting those conditions visually. And additionally, during that four
Speaker 1: or five month period, the students occupied the Humanities Library
Speaker 1: which was called Galbraith Hall. It's just adjacent to rod
Speaker 1: All Plaza. They took over the library and they occupied
Speaker 1: it for a month, more than a month, okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And like all of these things happened and there were
Speaker 1: no invasions of the riot police or anything. And what
Speaker 1: came out of that movement that the U sees was
Speaker 1: that the regents decided to divest from all corporations associated
Speaker 1: with South Africa. So that was like a major win.
Speaker 1: But it was not just a win for the student movements,
Speaker 1: but it was also a win for the university. Because
Speaker 1: the students were basically able to show the university that
Speaker 1: participating in this very unjust system with something that shouldn't
Speaker 1: be doing. And so the students basically helped the university
Speaker 1: to see that. Yeah, and so by kind of allowing
Speaker 1: these protests to happen, in a sense, it allowed the
Speaker 1: university administration and I'm not singing their praises, because you know,
Speaker 1: they were quite retrograde in many ways as they are now,
Speaker 1: But by kind of stepping back and allowing these things
Speaker 1: to happen, the university was able to learn from what
Speaker 1: the students were saying and to act on it. So
Speaker 1: I feel that that moment in history was something that
Speaker 1: I mean, I know the current administration hasn't forgotten because
Speaker 1: they celebrate it now. They say, you know, how wonderful
Speaker 1: we were for divesting from South Africa and look at
Speaker 1: our great students, you know. But Okay, so that happened
Speaker 1: in the eighties. Before we get to Black Winner, I'm
Speaker 1: just going to mention one other event, which I think
Speaker 1: is significant, especially when we're thinking about encampments. So, in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two, UCSD was the only UC campus that
Speaker 1: did not have a Women's Resource center. And women and
Speaker 1: their allies on campus had been organizing to get a
Speaker 1: women's center since the seventies on the UCSD campus, but
Speaker 1: they have mostly been ignored by the administration or you know,
Speaker 1: where are we going to find the money, blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: So a student led but they were also like staff
Speaker 1: and faculty involved as well, because the famal misogyny was
Speaker 1: very real on the UCSD campus. Then I arrived UCSD
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety and I immediately saw problem, so I
Speaker 1: was very aware of it. So the organizers then of
Speaker 1: this movement decided to set up an encampment on what
Speaker 1: is called sun God Lawn, which is kind of a
Speaker 1: major open space on campus. So they set up this
Speaker 1: encampment and basically they reproduced what they envisioned a women's
Speaker 1: center would look like, and so they essentially opened a
Speaker 1: women's center in this open space. They set up this encampment,
Speaker 1: they staffed it twenty four to seven and it was
Speaker 1: up for a week. No arrests, room made, no disciplinary
Speaker 1: charges resulted. But the university then started paying attention to
Speaker 1: the demand for a resource center, and it took them
Speaker 1: several years, but they eventually set up the Women's Resource
Speaker 1: Center that exists now in ninety five. So again that
Speaker 1: was an encampment where the administration was basically able to
Speaker 1: learn from the acticus on campus about you know how
Speaker 1: they basically kind of behave reasonably.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's take a little break and when we come back,
Speaker 2: Lan and talk about the Black Winter, which coincides with
Speaker 2: the start of my own time at uc San Diego.
Speaker 3: And then the third example of this is is something
Speaker 3: that's called Black Winter, and it's a essentially a three
Speaker 3: week intense period of organizing on campus that happened.
Speaker 1: I mean it was in response and direct response to
Speaker 1: a racist party that was how by one of the
Speaker 1: UCSD fraternities that they called the Compton Cookout. They put
Speaker 1: out an announcement on Facebook, which was probably the golanto
Speaker 1: today's Instagram and I don't even know, probably many of
Speaker 1: your listeners haven't even heard Facebook, but and back then
Speaker 1: it was it was very big, and it was a
Speaker 1: you know, just despicable racist description of a party where
Speaker 1: people were supposed to dress up as what they imagine people,
Speaker 1: you know, characters from from Compton would look like. And
Speaker 1: of course, you know, students who found out about this,
Speaker 1: you're very upset at the time. The students in the
Speaker 1: Black Student Union and in Match, who were working very
Speaker 1: closely together, had been organizing for quite a number of
Speaker 1: years prior to this around you know what at the time,
Speaker 1: this is twenty ten, was called campus climate. And that's
Speaker 1: basically just the fact that there was a lot of racism,
Speaker 1: sometimes overt racism, sometimes less overt microaggressions that were very
Speaker 1: common and for many especially black students but really all
Speaker 1: states of color and also queer and trans students as
Speaker 1: were basically had to navigate this like every day, I
Speaker 1: mean as part of their everyday life. So it was
Speaker 1: this extra burden on our students, and they had been
Speaker 1: organizing around this for quite some time. They had written
Speaker 1: a report that was all do you see us? So
Speaker 1: you see do you see us? In many ways, they
Speaker 1: were ready for an event like this. They were prepared.
Speaker 1: They had been doing a lot of organizing already, and
Speaker 1: so when this hit they they basically immediately went to
Speaker 1: the administration and said, you know, can you do something
Speaker 1: about this? The administration said, you know, it's free speech.
Speaker 1: They deployed that phrase when it's useful to them, but yeah, tactically,
Speaker 1: so that was the message they were putting out and
Speaker 1: it became it very quickly became a news item. So
Speaker 1: local outlets were reporting on it, and the response of
Speaker 1: the university was free speech, and it basically started escalating.
Speaker 1: There were a number of students on campus at the
Speaker 1: time will be still today but maybe a little bit quieter.
Speaker 1: We were fairly openly racist, and there was one group.
Speaker 1: They published a newspaper newsletter which was particularly so, and
Speaker 1: they also had a television show on It doesn't exist anymore.
Speaker 1: It's called the UCSD TV. It was kind of a
Speaker 1: local TV station. The company cookout party happened on Monday,
Speaker 1: and that was like a holiday in February. And then
Speaker 1: on Thursday of that week, the student group that I
Speaker 1: was talking about how a TV show and they started
Speaker 1: using the N word explicitly on that show, and a
Speaker 1: number of students saw that, and of course, we're completely outraged.
Speaker 1: And so the students in the Black Student Union and
Speaker 1: kind of their friends were basically trying to figure out
Speaker 1: what to do, and so they decided to call for
Speaker 1: a rally on the Library Walk, which is the main
Speaker 1: one of the main walkways and UCSD, and they called
Speaker 1: for a rally right in front of the where the
Speaker 1: Chancellor's office was located at the time, and so they
Speaker 1: had this rally quite a number of people. They called
Speaker 1: the rally Real Pain, Real Action. You know, they were saying,
Speaker 1: we were feeling real pain at these kind of racist incidents,
Speaker 1: and we want to see real action by the administration.
Speaker 1: So they had this rally and the chancellor at the time,
Speaker 1: who is Mary Anne Fox, came out to the rally
Speaker 1: and there's video of this somewhat pathetic video, and basically
Speaker 1: the organizers of the rally were like chanting leading the
Speaker 1: chance and then the Chancellor was basically following the organizers
Speaker 1: and trying to put her arm around them, as if
Speaker 1: somehow that would solve everything. You just need a hug.
Speaker 1: Then of course the organizers were like, no, not getting
Speaker 1: hear me. I don't want to hug, I want some action. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this kind of snowballed. The Chancellor basically then met with
Speaker 1: a bunch of these students who had been at a
Speaker 1: rally and kind of they had they had a list
Speaker 1: of like thirty demands, and she went through the list
Speaker 1: and it was just like there's video of this too,
Speaker 1: and it's it's almost I mean, I just feel because
Speaker 1: I knew like a bunch of these students that I
Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, you know how awful this
Speaker 1: must have fell to them. But she was going through
Speaker 1: this list very rationally and dispassionately and saying, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: we can't do that, sorry, but this one, yes, this
Speaker 1: one's done, This one's done. And the students were sitting
Speaker 1: there like, well, if it was done, you know, why
Speaker 1: haven't you done it? You know, if it's so easy
Speaker 1: to do. Yeah, And so a thing very definitely came
Speaker 1: out of that meeting. But the university decided to make
Speaker 1: a teaching the following Wednesday. And I mean, of course,
Speaker 1: teachings are not the things that people in power do,
Speaker 1: so they're obviously kind of co opting and appropriating that term.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So what the students decided to do because they were
Speaker 1: they knew that this was just going to be okay,
Speaker 1: we're going to try to bury this basically, yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so what the students did that they organized a
Speaker 1: press conference that morning, which a lot of press didn't
Speaker 1: come out to, and they had really powerful speakers, and
Speaker 1: this was before the teaching, and then they just went
Speaker 1: out of march. They marched around the Chancellor's complex, you know,
Speaker 1: continuously chanting up to the point of the teaching, and
Speaker 1: so then they all went into the teaching. They had
Speaker 1: like five hundred people by that time. Yeah, the room
Speaker 1: was just completely packed, and so they allowed the teaching
Speaker 1: to start. But then at some point one of the
Speaker 1: Black student Union members went up and said, we've had
Speaker 1: enough of this. We're now going to do our own
Speaker 1: teach out. So they marched out of the teaching and
Speaker 1: went around to this area that has these steps, and
Speaker 1: just you know, five hundred folks, incredible concentration of black
Speaker 1: folks and people of color, students and faculty and all
Speaker 1: of their allies all gathered together and they had to
Speaker 1: teach out, which was incredibly powerful. And that day I
Speaker 1: said it myself and for many other people that I
Speaker 1: knew at the university. We basically all said, this is
Speaker 1: the best day we've ever had at UCSD, so amazing.
Speaker 1: The next day, in the library, in the main library,
Speaker 1: one of the students who was who there found a
Speaker 1: newsing in the library. And of course, I'm sure your
Speaker 1: listeners know that the news is a very powerful symbol
Speaker 1: of violence against black folks in the US, and so
Speaker 1: that was that was traumatizing for so many students. I
Speaker 1: remember getting text messages from students, you know, saying, you know,
Speaker 1: I can't come on campus because I don't feel safe
Speaker 1: here anymore. Yeah. So the next morning, the students held
Speaker 1: a rally again in front of the Chancellor's office where
Speaker 1: they were probably I'm guessing close to one thousand people,
Speaker 1: and people just got up and were talking about what
Speaker 1: they were feeling in their analysis. The university came in.
Speaker 1: They sent like a spokesperson to say, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: we have the police out like looking for whoever hangs
Speaker 1: on the noose or whatever. And I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: the police are not a comfort.
Speaker 2: No one wanted to hear like we're sending the cops.
Speaker 1: At that moment. Yeah, yeah, exactly exactly. So the students
Speaker 1: then went in and they occupied the Chancellor's office for
Speaker 1: the full day and that really made people sit up
Speaker 1: a nose. And by this time there was international coverage
Speaker 1: of what was going on. There was an opening of
Speaker 1: the Civil Rights investigation on UCSD. I was getting emails
Speaker 1: from colleagues like in other countries saying, what's going on
Speaker 1: at is this? Like, you know, it sounds like a
Speaker 1: KKK rally or something not exactly that, but it's close.
Speaker 1: So then this all culminated about a week later in
Speaker 1: a huge rally where much of the library walk was
Speaker 1: completely packed filled with people. It was definitely blocked, and
Speaker 1: during that rally the university said, we will commit to
Speaker 1: implementing these demands, the demands of the students. Of course,
Speaker 1: in the end they'd backed off much of that, but
Speaker 1: so that was like a huge victory, and it did
Speaker 1: result in some pretty substantial changes to UCSD. I'll just
Speaker 1: mention a couple of them. So UCSD create a Black
Speaker 1: Resource Center which didn't exist before, a Roser Resource Center,
Speaker 1: and a inter Travel Resource Center, so those were, you know,
Speaker 1: significant victories. They also created a undergraduate requirement or requirement
Speaker 1: that undergraduates take a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion course, and
Speaker 1: that was an attempt to try to change the climate
Speaker 1: and do some educating. You know, students in California universities
Speaker 1: come from also to different backgrounds, and some of them
Speaker 1: are very aware of racism and its impacts and anti
Speaker 1: blackness and impacts that some come without that knowledge. So
Speaker 1: that was a significant help, but also at the time
Speaker 1: was boosted a little bit. It didn't end up maybe
Speaker 1: being such a great boost, but it didn't boost the
Speaker 1: departments that teach those kind of courses because now they had,
Speaker 1: you know, a significantly greater number of students and we're
Speaker 1: getting more resources as a result. So all those things
Speaker 1: were were good again, no arrests, no disciplinary actions, and
Speaker 1: the university learned some valuable lessons.
Speaker 2: Definitely, Let's take a little break and when we come back,
Speaker 2: I want to talk about this. This like Palestine exception
Speaker 2: to free speed. All right, we are back. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: remember that that Black Winter moment very well. I recently
Speaker 2: arrived at UCSD and I was immediately taken aback by
Speaker 2: the brazenness of the racism. It can of come from Britain,
Speaker 2: not a non racist country, but yeah, the openness and
Speaker 2: the cruelty and the delight that certain people took in
Speaker 2: that was pretty appalling. Now, if we skip forward thirteen
Speaker 2: years right to the beginning of the genocide and Gaza,
Speaker 2: a lot has changed on campus, but also a lot
Speaker 2: has not. Right, It's still not a massively diverse institution UCSD,
Speaker 2: even compared to other institutions in the city. But from
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three through twenty twenty four, right, we have
Speaker 2: this movement on campus to end the genocide, and Gaza
Speaker 2: comes a movement it's about more than that, right, about
Speaker 2: liberation for Palestinian people, and then broadly about like I guess,
Speaker 2: liberation in the region and what that means. And the
Speaker 2: university did not respond in the same way. This has
Speaker 2: led to people theorizing a Palestine exception for free speech.
Speaker 2: So could you explain that to people? And I thought
Speaker 2: you had a really interesting approach to it as a
Speaker 2: scientist that practice could share with people as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as you said, kind of in the wake of
Speaker 1: October seventh, that marked the beginning of Israel's genocide on Gaza. Obviously,
Speaker 1: it took many people quite a while to conclude it
Speaker 1: his genocide, but I remember it was almost maybe it
Speaker 1: was within a week or perhaps ten days of October seventh.
Speaker 1: The coal you know, Palestinian unions like put out a
Speaker 1: call for labor solidarity in which they turned to what
Speaker 1: was happening in jazz sign and there are also others
Speaker 1: who were who were doing that as well.
Speaker 2: Just personally, Like I was in Syria on seventh October,
Speaker 2: I think I entered that day. I spent some time
Speaker 2: in Kurdistan, and I remember by the time I was
Speaker 2: conducting interviews in southern Kurdistan, maybe a week later, maybe
Speaker 2: ten days later, Kurdish groups were using that phrase. Right,
Speaker 2: like there was a sense of like impending disaster that
Speaker 2: came very quickly. This is what will happen next, will
Speaker 2: be horrific. But yeah, those calls came very quickly, as
Speaker 2: you said.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And of course, like students and USSD were were
Speaker 1: kind of also coming to those conclusions. The administration was
Speaker 1: putting out language that was, you know, sympath that to
Speaker 1: those who who were killed or you know, injured on
Speaker 1: October seventh, but they were ignoring everything else that was happening.
Speaker 1: And so of course this wasn't a surprise, but it
Speaker 1: was part of what was happening. And it was also
Speaker 1: the kind of language that the university was using, and
Speaker 1: this is something that continued. It was essentially recalling, even
Speaker 1: though it kind of had this neutral sense to it,
Speaker 1: it was recalling the you know, the decades of Islamophobia,
Speaker 1: anti aerb racism that happened in the wake of of
Speaker 1: nine to eleven. So in a sense, they were communicating
Speaker 1: by using that kind of language language around you know,
Speaker 1: using words like violence and safety and civility. They were
Speaker 1: communicating very clearly that people could talk about what happened
Speaker 1: on the morning of October seventh, but not about anything else.
Speaker 1: And that was entirely clear. I mean, it's not like
Speaker 1: we had to do any deep analysis to figure out
Speaker 1: that's what the administration was saying. And you know, as
Speaker 1: students organized over the following months, students who were engaged
Speaker 1: in that organizing or being subject to disciplinary investigations. There
Speaker 1: were some faculty who were investigating for mentioning the jedocide
Speaker 1: and the occupation of Palestine in their classes, and all
Speaker 1: of these things were creating a climate of fear but
Speaker 1: also uncertainty, like you could never be sure if what
Speaker 1: you would say could get you in trouble. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: so the easiest thing to do would be to say
Speaker 1: nothing at all. Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's like a chilling effect on speech.
Speaker 1: Absolutely so, so that was happening. This phenomenon, of course,
Speaker 1: wasn't invented by the administration. It's something that's been going
Speaker 1: on for quite a while, many many decades. As you mentioned, James,
Speaker 1: is called the Palestine exception to free speech. There if
Speaker 1: anyone wants to find out more about it. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a huge amount of scholarly work on it. There's
Speaker 1: an excellent report that's available freely online which is called
Speaker 1: exactly that The Palestine Exception to Free Speech, written by
Speaker 1: Palestine Legal and the Center for Constitutional Rights, very easy
Speaker 1: to find online. And one of the things as a physicist,
Speaker 1: I'm very critical of the role of physics in society.
Speaker 1: You have to think very deeply to be critical of physics,
Speaker 1: thinking about nuclear physics and so forth. But as a
Speaker 1: person who does physics professionally, I often think about problems
Speaker 1: from a physics perspective, and so when I think about
Speaker 1: the Palestine Exception, I kind of bring a bit of
Speaker 1: a physics lens to it. So in physics, when we're
Speaker 1: looking at a phenomenon, we often can't observe that phenomenon directly.
Speaker 1: And so for example, people who study the physics of
Speaker 1: subatomic particles, they will to study how to sub atomic
Speaker 1: particles interact, or many sub atomic particles interact, they will
Speaker 1: collide them together. They don't have the precision and the
Speaker 1: resolution to observe exactly that interaction, but they can look
Speaker 1: before the interaction and then what comes out afterwards, and
Speaker 1: by looking at those patterns of what goes in and
Speaker 1: what comes out, they can get an idea of what's
Speaker 1: happening within that black box. And so this is the
Speaker 1: way I view the Palistine exception, because the Palestine exception
Speaker 1: to free speech is just the idea that there are
Speaker 1: these structures in society that have been formulated such that
Speaker 1: it makes it very difficult to engage in speech about Palestine.
Speaker 1: And the impact of that, of course is that if
Speaker 1: you can't talk about Palestine, then violence that's committed against
Speaker 1: Palestinians is something that's enabled facilitated by that lack of discussion.
Speaker 1: Like I don't have access to the conversations amongst you
Speaker 1: see the administrators, or between u SEE administrators and the
Speaker 1: main office of the president of u SEE, Like I
Speaker 1: don't have access to any of that information. In some sense,
Speaker 1: that's the black box part of it. But what we
Speaker 1: can see is kind of what's going in and what's
Speaker 1: coming out of that box, and so we can see
Speaker 1: the behaviors, the patterns of behaviors. And so as a physicist,
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, if we're going to look at the
Speaker 1: UC and say the University of California and say is
Speaker 1: this a place where the Palestine Exception of free speech
Speaker 1: is operating, then we were not going to be able
Speaker 1: to add access to the rooms in which that's planned,
Speaker 1: if it is being planned. But rather we can look
Speaker 1: at the pattern. And the really interesting thing about this
Speaker 1: report I cited all signed legal and the Center Constitutional
Speaker 1: Rights is they like that out very clearly. They lay out, Okay,
Speaker 1: the Palestine Exception of free speech is basically a combination
Speaker 1: of these kinds of behaviors. So they talk about things
Speaker 1: like accusations of anti Semitism, for example, and accusations of
Speaker 1: support for terrorism. So if you come to any rally
Speaker 1: pro Palestinian rally at UCST, there's always at least one
Speaker 1: or many counter protesters who are shared shouting exactly that
Speaker 1: that this is anti Semitic, that everyone here is supporting Hamas,
Speaker 1: you know, and when we say Hamas, you know, that
Speaker 1: just immediately goes to everybody's mind to terrorism. Yeah, all
Speaker 1: these kinds of behaviors on it they lay out are
Speaker 1: things that can be seen on you see wide campuses.
Speaker 1: But definitely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's important to consider, like as we enter
Speaker 2: a time where like repression of campus speech is at
Speaker 2: a height, Right, like the combination of this Palestine exception
Speaker 2: and the seeming desire to expel as many international students
Speaker 2: as possible, that this is contrary to the reason the
Speaker 2: university exists, as well as as you say, it suppresses
Speaker 2: opposition to genocide. To finish up, I guess we're not
Speaker 2: just doing this at the university because it's a place
Speaker 2: where we like to argue, or because students are particularly
Speaker 2: predisposed to radical politics, or for any other number of reasons. Right,
Speaker 2: the university is also part of the apparatus. Can you
Speaker 2: explain that little bit like the university is not neutral
Speaker 2: in this to begin with?
Speaker 1: Yes, that is certainly true, and I mean that happens
Speaker 1: in many different ways, some of the ways that we
Speaker 1: don't even know about. But there are many of those
Speaker 1: ways that primarily through student research, some faculty research. We
Speaker 1: have some ideas basically in UCSD and other cases, there's
Speaker 1: quite a lot of military related research. You know, some
Speaker 1: of the research is not directly related to the genocide,
Speaker 1: but as we all know, the US is supplying many
Speaker 1: of the weapons that are being used in the genocide
Speaker 1: and now Iran as well, and some of those weapons
Speaker 1: like drones. The aspects of them have been designed and
Speaker 1: worked on at UCSD. Kind of the hardware then, of
Speaker 1: genocide is very much a product of university research, part
Speaker 1: of which has been done in UCSD and other uc campuses,
Speaker 1: and part at other universities in the US and Israel
Speaker 1: as well. Another aspect of it, which I think we
Speaker 1: don't know as much about is software. So you know,
Speaker 1: there's a huge amount of research on artificial intelligence that's
Speaker 1: happening at UCSD, other UC campuses, of other university campuses.
Speaker 1: I mean, all that research came out of universities. You know,
Speaker 1: as we now know through credible journalistic investigations that the
Speaker 1: Israel is using artificial intelligence and it's targeting. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: apparently that's also happening in the US military as well.
Speaker 1: You know. So there's like another very direct connection. A
Speaker 1: third connection which is very strong at UCSD or so
Speaker 1: many other campuses, is that part of the creation of
Speaker 1: a discourse that legitimizes and justifies Israel's occupation of Colstein
Speaker 1: is archaeology. And I'm not an expert in this field,
Speaker 1: but I could just kind of cite what other people
Speaker 1: I've talked about, But there are many archaeological investigations that
Speaker 1: UCSD academics have participated in Israel that contribute to creating
Speaker 1: this story that the people running Israel and Israeli citizens
Speaker 1: are the rightful owners of that land and that the
Speaker 1: Palestinians came in at some late point, maybe a couple
Speaker 1: of decades before the founding of Israel, which of course
Speaker 1: is completely false and there's so much scholarship about that.
Speaker 1: But that's the purpose of those investigations, and so again
Speaker 1: that's connected to universities and the UCSD in particular. Well,
Speaker 1: it can't really are you that they're having a discussion
Speaker 1: about simplicity and jazz side is something that is not
Speaker 1: of interest to UCSD the definite ones.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, I have to happen at the university because
Speaker 2: it is about the university.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think they finish up.
Speaker 2: We have outlined why it's important, we have outlined how
Speaker 2: anti genocidal speech when it is about Palestinian people is
Speaker 2: treated differently, and we've outlined why there is a chilling effect.
Speaker 2: I understand some people, especially international students and non citizen faculty,
Speaker 2: et cetera, have real concerns and they want to respect
Speaker 2: those But for people who would like to they should
Speaker 2: continue to speak out right, like, we all lose even
Speaker 2: if we have if you somehow are unconcerned by genocide
Speaker 2: of fellow human beings, if the university becomes a space
Speaker 2: where certain things are oppressed, and what we can't stand
Speaker 2: up for each other. So, like, what resources would you
Speaker 2: suggest for those people? As new students are coming into
Speaker 2: university this year, they've lived the high school years through
Speaker 2: this genocide, I'm sure many of them will want to
Speaker 2: continue advocating. What would you suggest for them?
Speaker 1: Yeah, especially for students, I would suggest to connect with
Speaker 1: organizations that are already kind of doing this work. So
Speaker 1: you know, at UCSD there's Students for Justice in Palestine,
Speaker 1: but there's also quite a number of other student organizations.
Speaker 1: Like tomorrow we're having a major Earth Day rally where
Speaker 1: organizations Students for Justice Palestine, but also anti imperialist organization
Speaker 1: like Spark, and then other organizations like Green New Deal, Students,
Speaker 1: sustainability collectives. They're all coming together to talk about Palestine
Speaker 1: and the eco side Palestine and the genocide in Palestine.
Speaker 1: So I think that there are ways for students from
Speaker 1: a broad range of interest and background to get involved
Speaker 1: in organizing. You know, it's not like you have to
Speaker 1: start that from scratch. People are already doing that. It
Speaker 1: might be a little bit hard at your university to
Speaker 1: find those because of the suppression, but if you if
Speaker 1: you ask around, you will, or if you look on
Speaker 1: social media you will, you will find those folks. That's
Speaker 1: where I would start as a student. For faculty and
Speaker 1: staff especially, it's a little bit more difficult because we're,
Speaker 1: you know, as employees, we're very vulnerable. Faculty with tenure
Speaker 1: are less vulnerable. But you know, my case and other
Speaker 1: faculties cases are our examples of how tenure doesn't really
Speaker 1: protect you from this if they're determined. So I feel
Speaker 1: that there's again here. What we need to do is
Speaker 1: to kind of work collect so you don't want to
Speaker 1: fight the system on your own, but find other faculty
Speaker 1: who are doing this work and basically who can can
Speaker 1: work as a support network and kind of collectively find
Speaker 1: ways to speak out to support our students, which I
Speaker 1: think is in many ways our primary responsibility with regard
Speaker 1: to the genocide, and basically create spaces where where it's
Speaker 1: possible to talk about the genocide.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's really important. I guess I'll just say, like,
Speaker 2: if you're a student or faculty and you see someone
Speaker 2: involved in its advocacy, like, don't feel afraid to go
Speaker 2: talk to them and ask either. Like university can be intimidating,
Speaker 2: especially when you're a new faculty member also undergraduate for
Speaker 2: that matter, Like it can be hard to meet people
Speaker 2: and talk to people, but I think most people would
Speaker 2: be happy if you did. Is there anything else you'd
Speaker 2: like to share with people before we'd wrap up?
Speaker 1: There is so much, so I do hope we can
Speaker 1: talk again sometimes, yes we will, But I also just
Speaker 1: maybe just want to say, you know, thanks to you,
Speaker 1: there aren't you know, a huge number of spaces where
Speaker 1: we can have these kinds of discussions. So so I'm
Speaker 1: really grateful. You know, I know that you're doing not
Speaker 1: just this kind.
Speaker 4: Of work, but also you know, really going out and
Speaker 4: reporting on stories that aren't being told, and so I'm
Speaker 4: grateful to you basically for doing that work.
Speaker 2: It's very kind. Thank you.
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