Send an e-mail to demand that UCSD drop the charges
Please read through this e-mail, fill in the form below the e-mail to personalize it, and then click submit to receive links that will open a compose window in your e-mail client, or your browser version of gmail. Please distribute this link to your trusted networks. thank you!**If you use gmail in your web browser, you must first log in to gmail before proceeding**
Pradeep Khosla, Chancellor
Elizabeth Simmons, Executive Vice Chancellor
William M. Mceneaney, Chair, Privilege and Tenure Committee, Academic Senate
I am writing as a concerned [faculty member//student/parent/donor/alumnx] to demand that you drop all charges against Professor Lily Hoàng and Professor BT Werner who are being punished for standing with students at UCSD’s Gaza Solidarity Encampment in May 2024.
Your efforts to criminalize these two lifelong educators are deeply misguided. Faculty concerned about student safety have historically shown up at sites of campus protest to protect students in situations made volatile by the deployment of hundreds of police in tactical riot gear, trained to enact violence. Furthermore, the UC San Diego Gaza Solidarity Encampment was a collective response to institutional silence and repression in the midst of the genocide of Palestinians. These students exhibited great moral clarity, leading the way with their courageous rejection of UC complicity in a U.S.-backed genocide that has now, as we have seen, spiraled into an Israeli-U.S. war against Iran. Like people of conscience the world over, professors and students on this campus protested the unleashing of unrestrained genocidal violence against the Palestinian people.
Your punishment of Professors Hoàng and Werner – two years after the massive police raid and arrests and after the San Diego District Attorney declined to pursue charges of those arrested – exemplifies what American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and Palestine Legal have condemned as the Palestine exception to academic freedom and free speech. Beyond the immediate harmful consequences to Professors Hoàng and Werner, your punitive actions jeopardize academic freedom and free speech for everyone. In particular, students at this public university will be impacted by the chilling effect of this ideological suppression of faculty who were exercising their right to free speech. Consider your actions' effects: what critical inquiry will be allowed, and what will be sanctioned and policed? There is no clawing back from the repercussions.
Lastly, it is inappropriate for the deliberations over Professors Hoàng’s and Werner’s cases to be held in a closed Senate hearing, not only because their careers hinge on the outcome of those discussions but also because matters on which there is considerable disagreement among faculty, students, staff and the broader community (1, 2, 3) should be discussed openly to the point of consensus, rather than behind closed doors using individuals and their careers as pawns in an ideological struggle.
[Optional additional paragraph]
Please drop the charges of Professors Hoàng and Werner immediately.
Sincerely,
[Your Name], [Your Title]
[Your Institution or City]
1. https://adminrecords.ucsd.edu/Notices/2024/2024-6-7-2.html
2. https://adminrecords.ucsd.edu/Notices/2024/2024-6-20-3.html
3. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/27/us-citizens-support-for-israel-at-historic-low-over-gaza-genocide-poll
