NEWS: April 22 2024 — FJP-YALE LETTER TO ADMINISTRATION Read our letter
Excerpt:
Over the last few weeks, students on college campuses across the nation have spoken loud and clear: they don’t want their educational institutions funding genocide, apartheid, and war. They are putting their bodies and academic futures on the line, risking the disproportionate responses of administrators and law enforcement, in order to affirm this message. In the face of violence, arrests, and being made to feel unsafe and unheard on their own campuses, they double down.
As faculty here at Yale we have witnessed our students’ ethical praxis, their community care, their dedication to education, and their steadfast commitment to ending the genocide in Gaza, despite accusations that falsely conflate support for Palestinian lives with antisemitism. Students across racial, ethnic, and religious lines have come together on this campus, day after day, to tell the institution they have been told is their home, that they do not approve of its investments in machines of death. As they join a nationwide student movement, they are watching us–faculty, staff, and administrators in whose care they’ve been placed–to see if we will choose to side with perpetrators of genocide, or break the mold and refuse to be complicit any longer.
We urge you to meet the students’ demands and take a leadership position in the inevitable divestment from genocide. As was the case with global student-led protests in the 1980s against investment in South African apartheid, students across the country are telling us they will not be moved until universities divest.
Statement of Unity
FJP-Yale (Faculty for Justice in Palestine-Yale) is a faculty collective of Yale University who support the cause of Palestinian liberation. We define ‘faculty’ broadly to refer to those involved in making education available at Yale, including both tenure and non-tenure track faculty, staff, and graduate employees.
FJP-Yale holds that all systems of oppression are intertwined, and we stand against all forms of colonialism, racism, and apartheid. We understand the struggle for Palestinian freedom to be aligned with anti-colonial movements and struggles in many parts of the world. These include movements for demilitarization, refugee rights, Indigenous sovereignty, Black liberation, gender and sexual freedom, and movements for a liveable and sustainable planet. FJP-Yale pledges support to all of our students and colleagues who are using words, research, music, social media, and civil disobedience to actively protest the war on Gaza and struggle for justice in Palestine.
We commit ourselves to the following:
We support and amplify the Palestinian civil society call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions, and for an end to Israel’s occupation and colonization of Palestine. We insist on the fundamental rights of Palestinians to self-determination and legal and substantive equality, and we pledge to respect, protect and promote the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and lands.
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We support and amplify the work of SJP and other pro-Palestinian student groups.
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We reject the conflation of support for Palestinian liberation and antiSemitism, and we stand against racism in all its manifestations.
3
We engage in education, advocacy, and action. We will maintain curious, critical, open spaces for students to learn, not only in our classrooms but all around campus.
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We commit to a practice where the most securely employed among us protect more vulnerable members.
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Get in Touch
Join FJP-YALE
To join FJP-Yale, please create a (free!) proton email at www.protonmail.com and then let us know your name, your affiliation with Yale, and your Yale NetID on this form.
To be an ally, and hear about events and announcements, please sign up here.
Documenting Harassment
FJP-Yale has begun documenting instances of harassment and intimidation towards Palestinian, Muslim, and all other pro-justice in Palestine students across Yale. If you have something to share, please fill out the form, or email us at: yalefjp@proton.me.