Open letter from UIS Faculty on Gaza & UIUC Protests

April 26, 2024

In the last 200+ days, 34,000 Palestinians have died as a result of Israel’s genocidal campaign against Gaza. Ninety percent of Gaza’s institutions of learning have been destroyed or damaged, and every one of its universities has been destroyed. Meanwhile, Palestinians in the West Bank continue to face violence and displacement as Israeli settlers, backed by Israeli forces, expand their acquisition of Palestinian land.

Here, in the United States, students are taking what they have learned in their classrooms and on their campuses to demand a more just world. Students within the University of Illinois, including UIS student activists, have called on the University System to divest from Israel and the war machines that uphold Israel’s apartheid regime and the Israeli government’s genocidal campaign against Palestinians.

We, the undersigned, support University of Illinois students’ right to protest. We lend our support to UIUC students’ demands that: the University System President and its Vice Presidents should acknowledge the loss of Palestinian life to date; the university System divest from all corporations that support the militarized occupation by the State of Israel; and the System join the boycott of Israeli academic institutions. We support a free Palestine.

Signed,

Meg Cass

Kristi Barnwell

Stephanie Hedge

Richard Gilman-Opalsky

Brytton Bjorngaard

Jennifer Martin

Sharon Graf

Michael J. Murphy

Lesa Johnson

Pamela M. Salela
Akash Belsare

Sara Lupita Olivaras