San Jose State University Professor Rochelle McLaughlin has resigned in protest and in solidarity with Gaza. Here is her letter of resignation:
Dear CSU Board of Trustees, Mildred Garcia, Cynthia Teniente-Matson, Jennifer Malutta, Mari Fuentes-Martin, Patience Bryant, Jahn1al Williams, Kristin Dukes, Jon Tucker, Mai Ma Cantos, Nnenna Abaeze, Vincent Del Casino, Ro Khanna, Zoe Lofgren, Ash Kalra, Alex Lee, Evan Low, Cindy Chavez, Omar Torres, Matt Mahan, Dr. Shillington, Dr. Masucci, Dr. Knepper, Dr.Smith, OT Department faculty, staff, and students,
Please accept this as my letter of resignation from SJSU effective December 20, 2024. I have been teaching here for the past 20 years and I can no longer ethically or morally consent to use my labor in any way that supports an institution that is explicitly manufacturing consent for the unrestrained, illegal, “apocalyptic” ongoing series of “calculated” genocides to destroy the people of Palestine. I believe that neither our tax dollars nor students’ tuition ought to be funding genocides. Over the last 14 months, SJSU students and faculty along with our local community have been trying to hold up a moral and ethical compass for our university to stand up for humanitarian law, to speak up against killing innocent people, and to disclose and divest from war and weapons. During this time, I have felt deeply saddened, pained, and disappointed in witnessing the university’s response in repressing and silencing repeated pleas from our faculty, students, and community to end SJSU’s complicity and material support of the military-industrial complex and the Zionist occupation of Indigenous land.
As an alumna of SJSU and a faculty member of 20 years, 1 embraced and aligned with SJSU’s vision of being “an intellectual environment in which hands-on, transformational learning experiences help students, faculty, and staff collaboratively address co111plex issues in global communities.” This historic anti-genocide and pro-Palestinian global student movement, where our very own SJSU students and faculty have been putting their bodies and careers on the line, upholds and fulfills this very promise. I am shocked and outraged by my university’s restrictive and punitive response to our community’s urgent public outcry for human empathy, understanding, integrity, and accountability. The hypocrisy in SJSU’s mission statement proclaiming to “nurture leaders to thrive and transform our community…and the world” while simultaneously punishing them for doing exactly that is abundantly clear. The hypocrisy in SJSU having a massive anti-apartheid statue in the heart of campus, presenting itself as a university at the epicenter of justice and equity, while simultaneously suspending and wrongfully maligning Dr. Sang Hea Kil, a lustice Studies professor. and Faculty Advisor for Students for Justice in Palestine will be remembered by historical records forever.
As I resign from SJSU, I call upon the institution to look at Sacramento State and San Francjsco State which conducted peaceful negotiations around divestment issues after their anti-genocide encampments. SJSU must learn from these universities, apologize to Professor Kil, end her suspension, and lead with ethical and moral standards of behavior instead of aiding the U.S.-lsraeli genocide by manufacturing impunity for the perpetrators. It is a gross injustice to see SJSU’s administration push the propaganda of conflating Zionisn1 with Judaism and villainize anti-genocide speech as antisemitism because this is precisely what has sustained decades of human rights violations in Palestine. I join with the United States Human Rights Leahy Laws. rulings of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Human Rights Watch.
Amnesty International. B’Tse!em. The Lancet. eyewitness members of civil society. Haaretz. Israel’s Former Defense Minister and IOF Chief of Staff, the voices of the SJSU’s Associated Students. renowned SJSU faculty. and The Oxford University lJnion all of which expose SJSU’s complicity in the U.S.-lsraeli genocide that is jn the service of racist apartheid. which, according to ICC chief, Judge Akane, as stated on December 2. 2024, puts “the future of humanity under threat”.
Ultimately, Palestine is an issue of values. Do you value life, SJSU? Do you value humanity, SJSU? Are you going to continue to engage in anti-Pa!estjnjan racjsm while the U.S.-Israeli government continues starving, murdering, and terrorizing tens of thousands of children? Will you continue to provide an institutional cover for and collude in the imperialist violence as was described in detail by the UnjyersH;y of CaHfornja People’s Tribunal? Or will you use the privilege of your institutional power to do what you can to stop this horror through boycotts. divestment. and sanctions once and for all?
If you continue your complicity, you will continue to participate in the laundering of our tax dollars into the hands of stakeholders of the U.S. Military Industrial Complex. If you don’t like your propaganda and complicity to speak for you, then give us actions that speak louder. What kind of future could you possibly hope for your students as UC Irvine Professor. Tiffany Willoughby-1 lerard. bravely expressed? The future of your students and faculty is on the line, while the lives of Palestinian children, educators, journalists, healthcare, and aid workers are being gleefully starved, butchered, and slaughtered en masse while being live-streamed, in broad daylight.
As Josh Paul, former director of the U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Political-Military Affairs stated, “If we want a world shaped by what we perceive to be our values, it is only by holding our partners, and above all by holding ourselves, to those values, that we will see it.”
It’s time to do the right thing SJSU. Follow the lead of Sacramento and San Francisco State Universities. Apologize to your anti-genocide faculty and students you have harmed. Move forward on the right side of history. Publicly condemn U.S.-lsraeli violence by calling for immediate intervention to punish the perpetrators of the genocide, including an arms embargo, divestment, and severe sanctions now to save the Palestinian people, the future of your students and faculty, and humanity itself.
Sincerely,
Rochelle McLaughlin, December 5, 2024