Employee Fired for Holding Hours in the Library

I was hired by Portland State University in February and fired in May. During my short time as an employee I engaged in decolonizing praxis: the team I was on was in community around a piece of writing that spoke about the decolonizing of students that can happen inside our university systems even though the system is steeped in white supremacist settler colonialist roots and practice. As a queer woman of color with disabilities and an alumnus of PSU, this made me feel at home: during my interview to work for PSU I spoke about my commitment to the liberation of all people of color - whatever it takes. The people who eventually hired me seemed to be on board with who I am and what I stand for and were showing it by engaging in anti-racist work.

Hi, I have not met a lot of you but I wanted to reach out to offer my support. I understand what is happening on campus is necessary and follows a long history of student protests for the greater good of our society. We are watching a genocide in real time happen before our eyes and have been for months. I am proud to be a part of the Portland State Community of students and faculty that stand against the genocide of the Palestinian people and have spoken up. I condemn President Cudd's actions and unwillingness to meet the demands of the protestors. 

So when I sent this email to the students I worked with, I thought it would be seen as supporting the students assigned to me (I had already attempted to support students that were struggling due to the Genocide happening in Palestine in my previous appointments). I, naively, thought it was worth the risk, as surely I would have my direct management and union behind me to advocate for me in the case of disciplinary action. Besides, I am my own person and have the right to speak out against something as obviously atrocious as Genocide and the criminalization of the students in the Refaat Alareer library.

Shortly after I sent out the email I was asked to an impromptu Zoom meeting by the director of the department. The director told me that they saw my email because a director from a different department received a valid concern from a student about meeting in the library being risky for them. I asked my director if the person who received this concern resolved the issue by telling the student they can schedule a virtual or phone appointment. My director then told me the email was "interpreted differently than how I meant it" and that "I should have run the email by them at least to reword it." I told the director I did not want to reword it as I felt it served the purpose I needed it to; students started booking more and more appointments with me and sending me emails thanking me for the support. The director then asked me if I was in the library the week I sent the email out, I responded yes.

One week later I was fired over Zoom by the VP of my department. There was no emotion in the VP's voice, no apology and nothing about management advocating for me or disagreeing with the decision. I later heard that the director told the team that, "They no longer work here due to personal reasons." Luckily someone corrected the director and told the team the truth. Management handled all of this poorly. I want to encourage management to take risks and advocate for your fellow employees and the students that depend on you. Especially students and employees of color because after all PSU is a "BIPOC majority" university, right?

I do not want the job back and I would send that email every single time because what matters is that Palestine WILL be free. It is critical that everyone do anything they possibly can to resist repression inside white supremacist colonial capitalist institutions like Portland State University - we cannot become complacent in the fight for a Free Palestine and the end to Genocide.

Dispatch From Portland State University

In faculty senate on Monday, president Ann Cudd spoke about the destruction of the “sacred space” of the library and about “vile messages.” In senate and then again in a subsequent email to the campus at large on May 7, Cudd said, “These words, slogans and epithets, while protected by the First Amendment, will not bring about a ceasefire in Gaza, but they can poison our community,” adding that we should not condone, normalize, or accept them. I don’t know what was written on the library walls but I do know that when powerful figures use very strong language to denounce something about which they remain vague or about which there is real contestation, then we are likely dealing with political repression. When there is a lack of clarity accompanied by a sense of fear or taboo, that is when speech is most effectively chilled — including political speech about oppression and injustice…. (continue reading)

Campus Repression

Social Work Graduate Students informed their building is not a “free speech zone”

On May 6^th of this quarter, graduate students in the school of Social Work set up a table to provide space for processing the events of the previous week (the week of the library encampment and the arrest of protestors on campus by the PPB). They set up some informational materials on the genocide in Palestine, tea and snacks, and provided space for visitors to write down some of the feelings they were having. According to one of the students, “the response was overwhelmingly supportive until Taylor (Burke, Associate Vice Provost and Dean of Student Life), arrived.”

According to students, at roughly 3:40 pm Taylor Burke came by, looked briefly at the table and then went to the Dean’s suite. After a few minutes, she returned, and explained who she was, claiming she was there in response to a complaint and claimed that the ‘demonstration’ violated several PSU policies. In response to students resisting the notion that they were demonstrating, Taylor informed them that they needed to follow certain procedures for a “tabling event” and that the Social Work floor was not an approved location for tabling (the 6th floor of the ASRC). Portland State “has the right to restrict students’ free speech with time place manner rules. This is not an area where free speech demonstrations are allowed.”

A second student describes that they were,

“Sitting in conversation and sharing educational materials, which is a common practice in the SSW. Taylor insisted what we were doing was clearly “tabling” (we had zones and signage on a table) and we needed to register with the school and choose an approved area for free speech such as the plaza or Smith building. They said we would need to partner with a student group for the process to be easier. I later came to understand that meant we would otherwise have to pay out of pocket for the privilege of tabling on campus.

I pointed out to Taylor that zines, flyers, magazines, and other materials are often shared on tables and surfaces throughout the 6th floor and students engage in discussion around them. I asked if we took things off the window what policies we would be violating. Taylor said that the floor and inside the ASRC was not a designated space for “free speech.” They referenced the right of the school to regulate our free speech.”

According to both students, Burke emphasized that PSU has to be consistent in enforcing free speech, using anti-abortion and anti-trans messages as examples. As one of the students expressed, “This is deeply troubling to me, that in the eyes of the school, hate speech is treated the same as objecting to genocide. Also troubling to me is that Taylor shared that they are an LCSW and I believe graduated from PSU. Their decision to call the police on protestors at the admin building recently seems to go against social work values, and the NASW code of ethics. Students were again brutalized at the hands of PPB and CPSO.” 

Taylor Burke did not respond to the students’ questions about who had complained, but at one point mentioned they were violating condo association rules, since a sign in the window was visible to the outside. But both students seem to think the complaint must have come from within the faculty or administration itself, noting that the Dean of Social Work had come by the table early in the day and inquired as to whether the students had “permission for their gathering,” and because they were told by a student staff member that the complaint had come from the School.