October 2024 Statement

Dear USF Administration and Board of Trustees,

We are members of the University of San Francisco (USF) community (faculty, librarians, and staff), and we write this statement, both collectively and as individuals, to speak out against the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the recent attacks in Lebanon, Yemen, and Syria. We write to urge USF to hold true to its mission to create a humane and just world; standing against genocide is our moral obligation and not doing so is a betrayal of our humanity. 

Yesterday, October 7th, marks the one-year anniversary of Israel’s ongoing genocidal campaign on Gaza. In the span of a single year, the Gaza Health Ministry estimates that 41,788 Palestinians have been killed and at least 1.9 million people, 90% of the population, are internally displaced. Credible estimates by the Lancet and others put the number of the dead at closer to 200,000 or even higher. 300,000 residents in northern Gaza are in danger of imminent death by starvation, according to the UN. This brutality can also be seen in the occupied West Bank as settler violence increases. 

Since late September, the suffering in Gaza has been extended to Lebanon with well over two thousand deaths and over one million displaced by Israeli threats and use of bombing campaigns. Recent events indicate that similarly massive violence and death may spread to Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Iran in the coming weeks and months. In short, we are standing on the precipice of Gaza’s genocide continuing and becoming the fate of millions, there and beyond. The suffering caused by the genocide ripples through our community; people with family and friends abroad go about their days terrified for their loved ones as Israeli aggression continues to escalate. 

For USF to fail to speak out against such dangers is simply untenable. USF leadership has failed to call for a permanent ceasefire, an end to the Israeli occupation and colonization of territories seized by force, and the dismantling of the apartheid system imposed upon those in the occupied territories. This failure of leadership has led many to question the administration’s commitment to human rights and international law - principles which are fundamental to USF’s stated commitment to social justice. 

Previous USF administrations have stood strong on our social justice mission. At a public forum in Fall 2001, then-USF President Stephen Privett presciently offered words of caution about the hysteria generated by the media and the Bush regime. The current administration’s failure to emulate Fr. Privett’s courage to defy the warmongers, and to adhere to the faith traditions of the Church and the Jesuit Order which Fr. Privett invoked, is nothing short of shocking. Given the risks of a regional conflagration that could unleash the so-called “Samson Option,” the well-being and the very lives of our students–of all of us–are in jeopardy! Given that Israel has allegedly used depleted uranium munitions in Lebanon, we have arguably already entered a nuclear conflict.

USF’s silence on the genocide and its handling of the student encampment have created an environment of fear and distrust for all members of our community. The University has not protected USF students, faculty or staff, and has alienated alumni. Palestinian students and their allies speaking up about the ongoing genocide have been doxxed and suspended for practicing their First Amendment rights. Professors fear retaliation for supporting students and speaking up about Israel’s occupation of Palestine and its current genocidal campaign. Staff, whose role it is to support our students navigating grief and helplessness, avoid the subject entirely in the absence of guidelines and protections of their own. Alumni, increasingly angered by the lack of institutional response, grow distant and repulsed by their alma mater. With the California’s legislature’s passage of SB1287, which aims to limit student protests at the campuses of the CSU and UC systems, it is now more important than ever for USF to model to other academic institutions that a bold commitment to justice is possible by protecting and defending the rights of its students, faculty, and staff to speak up for human rights.

In November of last year, members of the USF community released a statement calling for a ceasefire. It has since garnered nearly 1000 signatures by faculty, staff, students, and alumni, and yet the administration never responded to the statement. The time to speak up was a year ago. Silence is indefensible during genocide. We again make the call on the University to condemn the genocide and ongoing violence against Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. 

We implore the USF administration to uphold our institutional commitment to creating a more humane and just world. Do not follow the Palestine exception when it comes to our social justice commitments. Honor the Jesuit traditions of our University by denouncing the genocide in Palestine and protecting the rights of students, faculty, and staff to protest against injustice. As Father Ignacio Ellacuria, S.J., professor of Theology and Philosophy at the University of Central America in El Salvador, once said: a Jesuit University “is inescapably a social force: it must transform and enlighten the society in which it lives.” USF, change the world from here.

Respectfully,

USF-Educators for Justice in Palestine (EJP)

EJP is a collective of more than 80 faculty, librarians and staff at USF and operates with a core executive committee that drafted this letter with input from the membership.