As a learning community committed to students’ inquiry and the many ways they engage the world around them, we are moved by our students’ request that CHID faculty and staff make a public statement in support of the student-led call to “end UW's involvement in the ongoing genocide in Palestine.”
In reply, and after departmental deliberations, we write here to express our unequivocal solidarity with our students’ efforts to denounce genocide and our University’s complicity.
Many of us have, individually, joined other statements, including those issued by the UW Department of American Ethnic Studies, the AAUP, UW chapter of the Faculty for Justice in Palestine, and the Statement of Jewish staff, faculty and students regarding UW President Cauce’s response to the Palestinian Solidarity Encampment. As a department, we have co-sponsored several public events, including those that center our students’ concerns about the urgent questions that Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza brings up, questions that extend to all regions of the world, including our own.
At the end of a challenging year, and during times of ongoing war and devastating loss of life, we offer this statement of solidarity to our students who, like students all across the country, have bravely and eloquently articulated their commitments for a better world. They have called on us to “do [our] share so that we can create a better future.” Acknowledging that call with this statement, we reaffirm our commitment to our students and to their right to question, protest, and dissent.