Editor’s note: A group of faculty and librarians issued the following open letter, addressed to Tom Gribbons, chair of UNB’s board of governors, and Paul Mazerolle, president and vice-chancellor, on Friday, May 31. The letter came in response recent events at UNB, some of them previously documented by the NB Media Co-op, including a decision by UNB security to issue trespass notices to a doctoral student and a professor at a Palestine solidarity protest site. By the time of publication, the letter had garnered 82 signatures.
Dear Mr. Gribbons and Dr. Mazerolle,
Universities serve a pivotal role as centers of critical thinking, knowledge creation and education to the end of fostering a more just world order. The University of New Brunswick is no exception.
Israel’s ongoing genocidal war against the Palestinian people is being meticulously documented by the UN and numerous human rights organizations around the world. At least 36,000 people have been killed in Gaza thus far. The document Anatomy of a Genocide produced by the UN Special Rapporteur (on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967) provides just one account of the atrocities being committed; the actions taken by the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court provide further evidence.
We are writing as concerned employees of UNB about the ways in which we have seen the institution demonstrate complicity in this unconscionable violence and the measures we ask that the university take in response.
Most urgently, we must express our grave concern about the decision to issue a trespass notice to faculty and students at UNBSJ for having a tent on campus during the day. This notice threatens members of our community with police intervention for peacefully expressing their opposition to genocide. The prospect of inviting police into the university campus under these circumstances is a violation of our most fundamental responsibility to provide a safe learning environment to our students and working environment for employees. It is an understatement to call it unacceptable.
We also wish to register our dismay at the actions taken by UNB before and during the recent Encaenia ceremonies designed to suppress freedom of expression by students, staff and faculty. Some incidents on both campuses may amount to human rights violations and thus clearly warrant your attention and that of the AVP Human Rights at UNB.
The incidents we have heard of at and associated with Encaenia include: an irregular and uncalled for uniformed police and plain-clothes security presence; UNB security asking for the removal of keffiyahs and signs displayed in solidarity with the Palestinian victims of Israel’s genocide; the searching by security of hand bags of people entering the ceremonies, including, in at least one instance, the spouse of a faculty member who is also the parent of a graduating student; and banning – and threatening police intervention at – peaceful student encampments while referring to UNB land as “private property,” when it is in fact “unsurrendered and unceded traditional Walastoquey land” as UNB’s own land acknowledgement reads.
As faculty and staff, we on principle stand with and support our students’ right to assemble and protest against apartheid and genocide. UNB must make its stance clear in support of the right of members of the university community to protest Israel’s current actions and its longstanding occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people. Such a stance must include rejecting the IHRA definition of anti-semitism. Numerous scholars have highlighted in detail that this definition equates any criticism of the state of Israel with antisemitism. The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) rejected this definition in a unanimous vote in 2021. Many universities have echoed this action, including STU. UNB must as well.
UNB must also speak out and take concrete action as an institution. The UNB administration has voiced no criticism of Israel’s genocidal actions nor any support of the Palestinian victims. In sharp contrast, when the Ukraine war started, an email was sent to all faculty, staff and students by the President’s office with the headline “UNB stands with Ukraine,” offering sympathy and counseling services for those affected.
We call for the following actions:
- A statement condemning Israel’s current military campaign and the ongoing colonial occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people.
- A commitment to no longer criminalizing and treating with suspension students and members of the university that raise voices in solidarity with and as Palestinians.
- A refusal to be complicit in this genocide and the apartheid state by divesting from all investments in Israeli companies, all companies that do business with Israel, and all weapons manufacturers and other businesses whose products are being used in Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people.
- Cease all academic contacts with Israeli higher education institutions upon Occupied Palestinian Territories or those supporting the apartheid state.
Since October 7, all twelve universities in Gaza have been bombed and mostly destroyed. There is no work as usual or Encaenia ceremonies for the thousands of Palestinian students and 94 academics who have been killed and injured. As a fellow institution of higher learning, UNB must embrace peaceful tools such as Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, which are essential for bringing about a more just world.
Signed,
Thom Workman, Professor, Department of Political Science; Viqar Husain, Professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics; Matthew A. Sears, Professor of Classics; Brad Cross, Professor and Chair of History STU and Adjunct Faculty UNB; Tia Dafnos, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology; Sabine LeBel, Associate Professor, Culture and Media Studies; Tavleen Purewal, Assistant Professor, Department of English; Noah Pleshet, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology; Heather Marmura, Director Media Services, CETL; Nathan Kalman-Lamb, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology; Daniel Tubb, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology; Mike Nason, Open Scholarship & Publishing Librarian; Erik Moore, Liaison Librarian; Julie Morris, Collections Analysis/Bibliometrics Librarian; Michael Fleming, Assistant Teaching Professor, Department of Sociology; Celeste E. Orr, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Wendy J. Robbins Professor in Gender and Women’s Studies; Emilie Lacroix, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology; Catherine Holtmann, Professor, Department of Sociology; Barry A. Blight, Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry; Amy Parachnowitsch, Associate Professor, Department of Biology; Casey Burkholder, Associate Professor, Faculty of Education; Robert Gray, Professor, Department of English; Edith Snook, Professor, Department of English; Stephen Schryer, Professor, Department of English; Bryan Crawford, Professor, Department of Biology; Edward Wilson-Ewing, Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics; Sara Eisler, Professor, Department of Chemistry; Andrea Bombak, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology; Mahin Salmani, Teaching Professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics; Melanie Simoes Santos, Assistant Professor, Department of English; Carolyn MacDonald, Associate Professor, Department of Historical Studies; Abdelhaq M. Hamza, Professor, Department of Physics; Antony W. Diamond, Emeritus Professor, Department of Biology and Faculty of Forestry and Environmental Management; Rohan Ghatage, Assistant Professor, Department of English; Stijn De Baerdemacker, Canada Research Chair and Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry; Tabatha Armstrong, Staff, Dean of Arts Office, UNBF; Dylan Spicker, Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, UNBSJ; Sophie M. Lavoie, Professor, Culture and Media Studies; Karen Pearlston, Professor of Law (retired); Miriam Jones, Chair/Associate Professor, Department of Humanities & Languages; Justine Gauthier, Staff and Contract Instructor, Faculty of Science; Sue Sinclair, Associate Professor, Department of English; Noha Eshra, Staff, Faculty of Business, UNBSJ; Patti Chisholm, Staff, Faculty of Business, UNBSJ; David Bedford, Professor of Science (retired); Jon Thompson, Professor Emeritus, Department of Mathematics and Statistics; Christopher John (nob) Doran, Professor, Department of Social Science; Esam Hussein, Professor Emeritus, Mechanical Engineering; Leah McIntosh, Staff, Department of Biological Sciences, UNBSJ; Eleni Mavrogiannakis, Staff, Department of Biological Sciences, UNBSJ; Alexa Alexander-Trusiak, Visiting Research Professor, Department of Biology, UNBF; Triny Finlay, Teaching Professor, Department of English; M. Willis Monroe, Assistant Professor, Department of Historical Studies; Tracy Glynn, Part-time Instructor, Department of Sociology, UNBF; Biljana Stevanovski, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology; Lauren Cruikshank, Associate Professor, Department of Culture and Media Studies; Dr. Bob Whitney, Professor Emeritus, Department of History and Politics, UNBSJ; Nomaan X, Postdoc, Department of Mathematics and Statistics; Omar Faruque, Assistant Teaching Professor, Department of Sociology; Anna Hamling, Professor, Department of Culture and Media Studies; Andrea Belczewski, Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies, Faculty of Education; Vladimir Tasić, Professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics; Stephanie M. Cavanaugh, Assistant Professor, Department of Historical Studies; Alyssa Sankey, Teaching Professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics; Tariq Hasan, Professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics; Karim Meziane, Research Scientist, Department of Physics; Phil Taber, Librarian; Aya Bouchnak, Instructional Designer, TLS, CETL; Jeffrey Brown, Associate Professor, Department of Historical Studies; Joseph Galbo, Professor, Department of Social Science; Jack Gegenberg, Department of Mathematics and Statistics (retired); Heather Major, Associate Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, UNBSJ; Timothy Erickson, Associate Professor, Department of Biology, UNBF; Alex Goudreau, Librarian, UNBSJ; John C. Ball, Professor, Department of English; Emin Civi, Professor, Faculty of Business; Mostaq Hussain, Professor, Faculty of Businesses; Natasha Simon, Director, Mi’kmaq-Wolastoqey Centre; Alan Sears, Professor Emeritus, Faculty of Education; Ty Giffin, Media Design Coordinator, Media Services, CETL; Nicki Lyons-MacFarlane, Library assistant, Law Library; Nikki Tanner, Reference/Instruction Librarian, Law Library.