STATEMENT ON UCSB's ENCAMPMENT - May 15, 2024

STATEMENT ON UCSB's ENCAMPMENT

May 15, 2024

As activist scholars who teach and practice liberation, we express full support for the peaceful student protests at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Student activists’ ongoing organizing against the genocidal war against Palestine is consistent with Black Studies’ pedagogy and mission: to unveil the brutality of colonialism, defend the dead, and advocate for those still living, resisting, and fighting for liberated futures. 

While we maintain our commitment to teach for liberation in Palestine, Congo, Haiti, and beyond, we urge the UCSB administration to refrain from calling the police against peaceful demonstrators and to protect students’ freedom of speech in a context where protesting war has been criminalized while war itself is condoned. As a university committed to acting as a global institution, UCSB must honor its mission to be a center for critical engagement with pressing world problems and ensure that our campus is free from policing, repression, and intimidation. 
 
The group of concerned faculty in the Department of Black Studies authoring this statement will continue supporting student demands, monitoring the situation, and advocating for academic freedom, freedom of assembly, and free speech of all students, staff, and faculty. Cease fire now!
 
Urgently,
A group of concerned Black Studies faculty