By the Faculty of Trinity College
We the undersigned Faculty of Trinity College stand with the students at Trinity who have voiced their support for the people of Gaza. We are aware that on campuses across this country students motivated by compassion for the suffering of others and exercising their right to peaceful protest have had their words and actions illegitimately demonized as a threat to public order. Recent events at protest encampments have laid bare the devastating consequences of academic leadership capitulating to external pressure and betraying their core values of free speech and the right to peaceful protest by calling on police to arrest their students.
It is against this horrifying backdrop that we the undersigned Faculty of Trinity College are thereby reminded of our own power and our responsibility to exercise that power with the utmost moral clarity and courage, and we support the demands of our students.
We celebrate the ethical responsibility and extraordinary leadership of our students who have mobilized to initiate a robust dialogue about the war in Palestine on our campus. We stand united with and for our students who engage in any and all forms of peaceful protest and civil disobedience. We stand united with and for our students who risk personal safety and comfort to fight for the ideals of peace and justice. We collectively pledge to support and defend them.
At Brown, Middlebury, and elsewhere student encampments have culminated not in police violence but with mutual commitments to ensure that college investments are not contributing to violence. It is in this spirit that we, the Faculty of Trinity College, call on the Board of Trustees, President and Dean of Faculty to continue to proactively engage in the dialogue that our students have initiated and to emphatically recognize the moral legitimacy of their actions and engage with them as equals. In particular we urge the administration to stand with the faculty in proactively supporting the following student demands:
- Disclose information pertaining to the Trinity endowment, and whether it is currently invested in companies producing weapons being used by Israel and other military powers;
- Arrange a student meeting with the Board of Trustees to discuss the next steps towards divestment, starting as soon as possible (but not later than the Fall trustee meeting); and we request that faculty representatives also be included in these important discussions;
- Protect students, faculty and staff free speech, ensuring no penalties for protesting genocide.
Sincerely,
- Dr. Janet Bauer, Professor, Emeritus
- Dr. Isaac Kamola, Associate Professor
- Dr. Blase A. Provitola, Assistant Professor
- Dr. Christina Heatherton, Elting Associate Professor
- Dr. Doyle Calhoun, Assistant Professor
- Dr. Aidalí Aponte-Avilés, Senior Lecturer
- Shane Ewegen, Professor
- Dr. Maurice L. Wade, Professor, Emeritus
- Dr. Diana Aldrete, Assistant Professor
- Dr. Jacob Kripp, Visiting Assistant Professor
- Dr. Stefanie Wong, Assistant Professor
- Benjamin C. Carbonetti, Director Human Rights Program and Senior Lecturer in Human Rights
- Dr. Jordan T. Camp, Associate Professor
- Seth Markle, Associate Professor
- Alyson K. Spurgas, Associate Professor
- Shunyuan Zhang, Assistant Professor
- Dr. Alex Helberg, Visiting Assistant Professor
- Dr. James C. Staples, Visiting Assistant Professor
- Dr. Gabriel Salgado, Assistant Professor
- Dr. Nhat-Dang Do, Assistant Professor
- Dr. Mary Dudas, Senior Lecturer
- Davarian Baldwin, Professor
- Dr. Mareike Koertner, Associate Professor
- Shaznene Hussain, Visiting Assistant Professor
- Dr Garth Myers, Professor
- Zayde Antrim, Professor
- Hilary E. Wyss, Allan K. Smith and Gwendolyn Miles Smith Professor of English
- Keavy McFadden, Postdoctoral Fellow
- Dr. Brianna Halladay, Assistant Professor
- Thomas Wickman, Associate Professor
- Ibrahim Shikaki, Assistant Professor
- Rob Corber, William R Kenan Jr Professor of American Institutions and Values
- Dr. Teri Incampo, Visiting Assistant Professor
- Diana Paulin, Associate Professor
- Joshua King, Senior Lecturer
- Francisco Goldman, Allan K Smith Professor of Creative Writing and Literature
- Dr. Ricardo Gabriel, Visiting Assistant Professor
- Jane Nadel-Klein, Professor
- Dr Shoshana Goldstein, Visiting Assistant Professor
- Cheryl Greenberg, Paul E Raether Distinguished Professor of History, Emerita
- Dan Lloyd, Brownell Professor, Emeritus
- Dr. Belén Fernández Milmanda, Assistant Professor
- Hernan Flom, Visiting Assistant Professor
- Juliet Nebolon, Assistant Professor
- Johnny E. Williams, Professor of Sociology
- Dr. Clark Alejandrino, Assistant Professor of History
- Katherine Bergren, Associate Professor
- Stefanie Chambers, Professor
- Natassja B. Gunasena, Assistant Professor of International Studies
- Cristian Padilla Romero, Visiting Lecture in History
- Luis Martinez, Associate Professor of Neuroscience
- Raul Zelada, Assistant Professor
- Hasan Comert, Associate Professor
- Kifah Hanna, Associate Professor
- Prakash Younger, Associate Professor
- Jenny Wu, Visiting Assistant Professor
- Laura Humm Delgado, Assistant Professor
- Ethan Rutherford, Associate Prof / English
- Reo Matsuzaki, Associate Professor of Political Science
- Godfrey Simmons, Visiting Lecturer in Theater and Dance
- Rebecca Pappas, Assistant Professor
- Jeffrey Bayliss, Associate Professor of History
- Anna Terwiel, Assistant Professor
- Stephen Valocchi, Professor Emeritus
- Dan Douglas, Lecturer in Sociology
- Catina Bacote, Assistant Professor
Come on Tripod team. This is not a “Trinity College Statement on Divestment from War and Protecting the Right to Peaceful Protest.” This is a statement from 66 faculty members, not the College. Your headline incorrectly leads readers to think this is an actual statement from the College itself. Really disappointing.
What about your students who don’t support the protests and divestment? Have you thought about how they feel sitting in your classrooms? Don’t you care about them too?
Yes, the title of the article is misleading, but so is the actual title of the letter. It shows “Faculty” capitalized, as if coming from the Faculty as a whole.
And it doesn’t.
There are over 200 full-time faculty at Trinity, and so far only 66 have signed (as of 5/11).
The ideas and sentiments expressed in that letter do not represent those of the entire faculty.
And about the statement: “We stand united with and for our students who engage in any and all forms of peaceful protest and civil disobedience.”
No, you don’t.
If a group of students stage a peaceful protest against trans athletes or Palestinian terrorists or illegal immigrants, you wouldn’t be supporting them. You would be criticizing them and asking the college administration to take action against those students.
You would, of course, claim that you are trying to stop hate speech. But then you really are not supporting “any and all forms of peaceful protest and civil disobedience”, are you?
You should then consider how some students and faculty feel when witnessing these campus protests and encampments, which from the start have fueled antisemitic, anti-Zionist, or anti-Israel narratives.
Also: “…are thereby reminded of our own power and our responsibility to exercise that power with the utmost moral clarity and courage”
Was that actually written by a professor?
Unbelievable.
If the administration didn’t tell these idiots to stuff their ‘demands’ they’re complicit. If you don’t like teaching at Trinity, I’m sure Columbia has a home for you. You can let your feelings be heard with peaceful protest, that is your 1st amendment right. But don’t demand anything where your existence is a privilege, not a right. Also, you think these large corporations that are making weapons of war actually care about your meaningless ‘investments’? Trust me, they couldn’t care less. Go back to school and get a job. Stop holding your breath while you stomp your feet with your fingers in your ears. Nobody cares.