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
Neeraj Rajasekar
Missy Thibodeaux-Thompson
Heather Bailey
Peter Shapinsky
Holly Kent
Elise LoBue
Michael Miller
Hanfu Mi
Amanda Hughett
Donna Bussell
Patricia Byrnes
Jennifer Manthei
Sheryl Reminger
Stephen Schnebly
Ali Nizammudin
Jay Gilliam
Ryan Williams
Livia Woods
Brooke Depenbusch
Pamela Twyman Hoff
Lan Dong
Lynn Fisher
Martin Martsch
And an additional 9 faculty members who support this letter but wish to remain anonymous at this time.
