Quentin Williams, chair of the UCSC Academic Senate, distributed the following message to UCSC Faculty on behalf of the Senate Executive Committee:
"The Academic Senate fully supports the rights of members of the campus community to peaceful and civil protest. Indeed, universities aspire to be places in which passionate disagreement about complex issues can occur in a constructive and thought-provoking manner. However, over the last several weeks, we have seen behavior that has adversely affected the campus instructional mission. These actions jeopardize the freedom to teach and study of our faculty, students, and campus guests. They include: vandalism that has resulted in the ongoing lock-down of some buildings on Science Hill, preventing students from access to their professors; disruption of a systemwide Students of Color conference by protesters, requiring the intervention of police; targeting of UCSC faculty on protesters' website; and an unpleasant, potentially hazardous campus environment associated with protesters' public urination and garbage near academic buildings and a heavily used campus walkway. The Senate Executive Committee wishes to support the academic freedom to teach and study without disruption,and we condemn any actions that threaten the academic mission and environment of our campus.
"We urge faculty to engage those involved in such actions in a discussion of appropriate and non-counter-productive means of protest--surely, the UCSC community has the imagination to produce forms of protest that do not impact the academic freedoms, instructional mission, or environment of our campus."
