On September 18, 2018, the affiliates of the University of California, Santa Cruz were informed that the chancellor of the university, george blumenthal, will be retiring at the end of the academic school year in light of a sexual scandal. On October 25, 2018, and again on November 9, 2018, we were notified that the UC Office of the President along with a hand-selected hiring committee will be conducting a search for the new chancellor on our campus. We the underrepresented and historically marginalized people of the university have come to the chancellor search committee meeting to voice our grievances and demands in the hiring of a new chancellor.
Our demands are as follows:
Transportation:
We demand free or at a very reduced price (less than $7) bus/van transportations across all UCs going to and from Northern California (UCD) and Southern California (UCSD), prioritizing undocumented students due to immigration checkpoints, during breaks and summer
Financial:
We demand a path to loan forgiveness, and an end to loans, for undocumented students since TPS/DACA aren’t permanent and not all undocumented students benefit from those programs generating a challenge for undocumented students to pay back loans
We demand an increase in alternative forms of financial aid that does not require a SSN for both graduate and undergraduate students such as but not limited to: scholarships (should not be extensive and intrusive), grants, access to in-state tuition regardless of AB540 status, emergency funding (should constitute a holistic approach), campus-wide hourly paid internships (e.g. the Professional Career Development Program or PCDP) not only limited through EOP
We demand the UC system allocate funds and resources for the Bulosan Center for Filipino Studies at UC Davis.
We demand the UC system to divest from the U.S.-Duterte regime which has currently murdered over 20,000 people through Duterte’s Drug War.
We demand that the UC divests from Israel. Militaristic, indigenous peoples
We demand the divestment of funds from Silicon Valley and an investment of funds to the local communities of Santa Cruz and Salinas County (i.e. Salinas, Watsonville, etc.) and a redefinition of the “Santa Cruz community.”
As students of this university, we demand full and free use of mainstage theater for the Pilipinx productions.
We demand the UC to divest from corporations notorious for production of weapons, forms of surveillance, and policing.
We demand more transparency and accessibility with the aid provided for undocumented students.
We demand permanent funding for the Student Initiated Outreach Programs that are used to target and expand the diversity of the student body.
We demand methods for non-White Supremacist non-SOAR affiliated people or organizations to receive funds from the SUA, SOFA, SFAC, CORE Council, CEP, and all other funding sources that exist for SOAR-affiliated organizations.
We demand that the University of California System divest all tuition dollars, investments, and stocks from the following companies that have violated the universal right “to life, liberty, and security of person;” “to education;” to “privacy, family [and] home;” and immediately divest from all corporations complicit in and profiting from the violation of Palestinian Human Rights, the prison industrial complex, and fossil fuels: Lockheed Martin, United Tech, Boeing, G.E., HP, Caterpillar, Ford, Hyundai, Cemex, Raytheon, 3M, Northrop Grumman, Perrigo Company, Atlas Copco.
We demand that the UC Regents thus terminate all investments in corporations violating Palestinian Human Rights that exist within the UC Regents’ Investment Funds.
Admission/Retention:
We demand mental health support professionals that have competent and empathetic experiences working with undocumented people.
We demand the investment of resources for undergraduate students to teach ethnic studies in local Santa Cruz high schools
We demand permanent funding for services and programs that help support and retain undocumented students
We demand that administration expand resources for undocumented Pilipinx-identified students--who under the current mediums of programming- are invisibilized.
We demand an investigation of the admission and retention rates of Afrikan, Black and Caribbean identifying communities, separate from the efforts made by the African American Resource and Cultural Center, Engaging Education through Destination for Higher Education, Umoja, and the minimal options available through the Education Opportunity Program.
We demand that the Ethnic Student Organization Committee become an institutional body with a budget that is funded by the Dean of Students. As well as having institutional power, we demand that ESOC have representatives in administrative processes with greater than, if not equal to, the power exuded by the Student Union Assembly. The membership of ESOC will not be limited solely to the Big 5 Ethnic Organizations, but will encompass all racialized identifying organizations.
We demand the administration establishes permanent full funding for outreach and retention programs.
We demand the hiring of permanent Queer & Trans-friendly Black psychologists to better assist in the well-being of ABC identifying students of the campus.
We demand the hiring of at least two full-time Queer & Trans-friendly, culturally competent, socially aware, Muslim community experienced, Muslim counselors at CAPS.
We demand the university to investigate the structure and functionality of CAPS and the Student Health Center.
We demand a year-round accommodation for students without meal plans to get meals on-campus.
Religion:
We demand the university to allocate a permanent prayer space on campus for Muslim identifying students at a central and accessible location for such identifying bodies.
We demand students observing Ramadan be able to receive dining hall Ramadan accomodations regardless of whether or not they have a meal plan.
Education:
Recognizing the academic and mental labor of students having to educate their own communities, we demand the university correct the underrepresentation of Pilipinx-identified tenure track professors.
We demand the incorporation of Palestinian focused classes that are critical of the Israeli occupation.
We demand the offering of Arabic, not just Quranic Arabic, classes up to the highest level. These classes should be listed officially under Language/Linguistic Studies (not just an independent study).
We demand the concentration in SWANA (South Western Asian and North African) studies under the History Major as its own, separate from Europe (NOT “mediterranean world”).
We demand the end of the Israel UCEAP Study Abroad program.
We demand the expansion of the UCEAP Study Abroad programs to include a critical and holistic educational program in Palestine.
We demand that the university designate CRES to be a permanent department. Under this department the following will hold true:
- A committee consisting of representatives from the respective communities that will hold administrative power to hire, fire, evaluate, and veto potential professors who are interested in teaching within the CRES department
- The committees will have the power to create our own curriculum and determine the style of education that is taught within the critical studies majors and minors
- Under the CRES department, the following Ethnic Critical Studies will be established and centers the voices and stories of the following marginalized communities: Black, South West Asian and North African, South Asian, Oceanian, Southeast Asian, Central Asian
We demand an academic and cultural boycott of Israel.
We demand the academic freedom for Pro-Palestinian professors without tenure.
Administration:
Recognizing historically that the chancellors of UCSC have been white, we demand a culturally competent and empathetic chancellor of color.
We demand the implementation of a diverse body of students be consulted in the administrative processes (included but not limited to: the hiring and firing of institutional positions) that are related to the successes and improvement of student life.
*Content warning:
We demand the university to investigate the structure, functionality, and timeliness of Title 9 processes.
*We demand professors be held accountable in regard to Title IX, and be immediately suspended without paid leave.
*We demand that the UC expand and increase resources for CARE (Campus Advocacy Resources and Education): hire more advocates, hire more trauma-informed therapists, expand advocacy for power-based personal violence including between friends and family (not just intimate relationship) and include emergency housing
Labor:
We demand that the University of California call AFSCME 3299 back to the bargaining table! Satisfy AFSCME 3299’s bargaining demands and grant them the contract they are asking for and deserve. Satisfy all other union contracts as outlined by their respective bargaining teams (e.g. UPTE, UC-AFT).
We demand that Student Housing West and any future UC or public-private partnership developments must only hire unionized workers.
We demand that hiring practices and job promotions are accessible and fair to non-English speakers.
We demand that workplace complaints presented to the university be taken seriously, be addressed, and be resolved by labor relations within the academic quarter they are initially brought up by workers or worker advocates.
Judicial:
We demand that neither University of California, police department, nor external police forces, will be present, allowed, or utilized at worker and/or student actions.
We demand that the university drop current student conduct charges related to actions. We demand that student conduct will no longer be utilized as a form of discipline, harassment, or terrorization in response and/or related to student or/and worker actions or demonstrations.
We demand that the University of California no longer utilize coercion tactics against workers, student workers, or students through emails, announcements, or any other forms that reinforce uneven power structures between students, workers, and the university.
We demand free legal immigration services (multiple full-time on-site attorneys/lawyers at every UC campus) with a 24-hour hotline available 7 days a week to students and their extended family who need legal services.
We demand no collaboration with the police, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, nor the Department of Homeland Security allowing them physical access to the university in any form (no access to buildings, dorms/apartments, dining halls, etc). Faculty, admin, managers, RA/NAs that are found to be collaborating with any of the above officials, must be fired immediately.
We demand thorough investigations and accountability of the white supremacist flyering that has been rampant on campus since the 2016 elections.
We demand the safeguarding of activism (UCD)
a. the work of student activism has a rich and important tradition at UC Santa Cruz, and it is the responsibility of the campus to ensure that this activism is safeguarded.
b. the recent spike in the rise of campus watch-lists including, but not limited to, Canary Mission, Professor Watchlist, etc. threaten the security of student activists, as well as create a toxic atmosphere of fear and paranoia among fellow students; thus infringing upon students’ ability to freely express their opinions.
c. Canary Mission in specific is a campus watch-list with a history of relying on student-given footage and material to target pro-Palestinian student activists; causing direct personal repercussions, including limiting their movement and employment opportunities.
d. certain Registered Student Organizations on-campus have been known to collect material on pro-Palestinian student activists, thus helping perpetuate the toxic atmosphere of fear, mistrust, and silence that these watch-lists seek to create.
e. student activists have advocated for their respective communities and the larger work of justice for decades, in the process helping building a more vibrant campus; that they have the right to be safeguarded from forces that threaten to intimidate or silence them, and by extension the communities they fight for.
f. release a public statement condemning the use of Canary Mission.
Housing:
Given the erasure of the “Carlos Bulosan” Floor located at Merrill College, we demand to reclaim historical housing for Pilipinx-identified students.
We demand guaranteed housing until graduation (flexibility of moving on and off campus without breaking housing contracts).
We demand that building 3 in Rachel Carson College be designated as an ABC house with a required application and be made available for non-guaranteed and re-entry transfers students.
We demand the University purchase a property located at or near the base of campus (High Street) to serve as a low-income housing cooperative for historically disadvantaged students.
We demand this property have 4 bedrooms with appropriate furnishings. This property will then be student ran and student-operated by ESOC. We demand a written agreement to fund this project by the end of the winter quarter.
We demand that we have SWANASA (South West Asian, North African, South Asian)/Muslim-Themed Housing (UC Davis has a floor like this). The RA(s) of such housing must also identify as SWANASA and/or Muslim to best accommodate the residents of this proposed housing.
