Dear DFA members,
I hope you are all doing as well as possible during our stressful and unsettling times. We professors are undergoing an unprecedented assault on our financial stability, our civil liberties, our freedom of speech, our intellectual freedom and our basic security. We are living under nothing less than a full-fronted assault on our university system. It seems every morning we wake up to another punch in the gut from those whose goal it is to destroy higher education in this country. We are fighting back, however, and through collective action and the hard work of many of us we are managing to claw back some of what has been taken away. University professors across the country are strategizing and organizing a nation-wide fightback against those who seek to defund our research, deport our students, and deny our intellectual freedom. I know many of you are on the front lines of these efforts and I applaud those of you who have contributed to keeping higher education alive. But we have much work to do.
Some of what the DFA has been up to:
- The DFA participated in lobbying efforts in Sacramento to educate our representatives of the value our university provides to the State of California.
- The DFA held a symposium on Know Your Rights in collaboration with the UC Davis Law School to learn some strategies for fighting back against Washington’s assault on our international students. The Davis Enterprise highlighted our recent Know Your Rights workshop on their front page, illustrating the turmoil and hardship caused by Trump administration attacks on our students.
- The DFA established a committee on research funding cuts at UCD. This committee is developing an understanding of the magnitude of the grant, contract, and fellowship revocations on campus and the ways in which UCD and UC are responding to these revocations. The committee is beginning to explore strategies that UCD faculty (in conjunction with other UC faculty) can use to aggressively fight back against the funding cuts. If you want to participate in the committee, write to DFA board member Don Palmer (GSM) at dfapalmer@gmail.com.
- The DFA has ramped up efforts to coordinate with our umbrella organization, the Council of UC Faculty Associations (CUCFA) which unites us with faculty at all the UC campuses. We are coordinating more closely with the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), who are doing an exemplary job in combating the Trumpian assault on higher education. The DFA is also in partnership with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), part of the AFL-CIO which connects us with millions of other workers across the USA. The DFA is also part of the Sacramento Central Labor Council, which brings us closer to working peoples’ organizations across the Sacramento Valley. We are poised to amplify our power as faculty and assert our rights as faculty members of the University of California, the largest employer in the State of California, in a state which has just been recognized as the fourth-largest economic power in the world!
These are only a few of the tasks we are working on to protect our university. There is so much more to do! What we need now is you!
We need you to get even more involved with the DFA! Get your colleagues to join the DFA! Join our Board! Regardless of what you thought of Kamala Harris in the last election, she did invoke words that resonate with me, as she implored, “DO SOMETHING!” In turn, I implore all of us to take action, and “do something.” No one is coming to help us, except us.
There are a few actions coming up I want to draw your attention to.
- The DFA is part of a May 1st (May Day) community/labor march through downtown Davis starting at 5PM on Thursday, May 1, meeting at Central Park in downtown. This is a great opportunity to create a closer town/gown connection with Davisites and re-spark the original intention of May Day, which is a labor holiday that started in the United States, but was blocked and repressed during the McCarthy period of the United States. Come join us! Click here for more information.
- Our co-workers in AFSCME 3299 and UPTE are once again going on strike this week in response to unfair labor practices by the UC, including the imposition of a systemwide hiring freeze. We encourage you to learn more about the specifics of their concerns here and here. We remind you that Senate faculty have a right to honor a picket line established by other university employees and to withhold their labor. UC may withhold pay for withheld labor, but it would be unlawful for the administration to dock additional pay or take other disciplinary action against faculty for exercising their protected rights.
- Coming up: Campus-wide Town Hall Meeting May 12, 1:30-3pm in Room 107 in the Art Annex Building (sometimes called the Technocultural Studies Building). We will be hosting a Town Hall meeting to discuss ways for faculty to come together, hear updates on some of the most pressing issues we’re facing, and build our power together. Help us build a bigger, stronger voice for faculty: share your concerns, connect with others, and join the fight to defend higher education. Plan to attend to meet with your faculty colleagues to strategize how we will protect this university and all that we do!
In other news media, the DFA helped media outlet Cal Matters interview some of our faculty members who described deteriorating conditions of our university infrastructure and helped explain our frustration over our dwindling economic support from the State.
There is much work to be done, and little time to waste. If you care about this university, engage with the DFA, help organize our colleagues, and let’s work towards making the UC system the jewel that California deserves.
Share this message with co-workers who may not be DFA members!
Thanks!
Jesse Drew
Chair, DFA