Palestine is a Labor Issue: Vote for Colleen

FSJP encourages all PSU-AAUP members to vote in the current Presidential election. Ballots were sent out on May 9, 2025 in an email with the subject line “Vote now: PSU-AAUP - 2025 PSU-AAUP President Special Election (re-issued ballot)”. Voting remains open until Friday, May 23 at 5:00pm. 

What is at Stake in PSU's AAUP Presidential Election?

Colleen brings  over two decades of experience in community organizing and teaching community organizing. She is a seasoned organizer who has articulated concrete and specific strategies for encouraging rank-and-file member participation. She has emphasized the goal of a democratic, transparent Executive Committee, with higher levels of member engagement. And, perhaps most importantly, she understands that labor is political, and that the labor movement has historically been instrumental in struggles for social justice globally. Labor is not separate from issues of race, gender, and colonialism.

Disappointingly, Bill Knight has been a central member of the past Executive Committee, which consistently refused to work with other unions on campus to reassure AAUP members that their academic freedom, specifically when it came to speaking out about the genocide in Gaza, would be protected. In forums this week, open to the community, he glossed over the former EC’s cold and avoidant response to members who approached the EC, legitimately concerned about whether the local would protect them. The EC consistently refused to name Palestine and scholarship and teaching around Palestine as issues they would protect. As far back as February 2025, the EC created an “Ad Hoc Committee on Academic Freedom in the Middle East” (note the refusal to name Palestine here), in response to PSU FSJP’s request to issue a statement in solidarity with other unions on campus. The ad hoc committee restated a broad general commitment to academic freedom, with no reassurance for faculty working and teaching specifically on Palestine that this union understood the specificity of their concerns. Bill Knight was the chair of this ad hoc committee.

In the current political climate, we need leadership who will go to bat for faculty. Threats to teaching and scholarship that incorporate diversity and inclusion as fundamental are only truly protected if we can also speak out against settler colonialism, apartheid, and genocide. Palestine is a true measure of how free our academic freedom is! Vote for a change in PSU-AAUP! 

Historically, PSU-AAUP leadership elections are won on very thin margins (less than 20 votes). Genuinely, every vote counts. Find your ballot and vote now! Again, ballots were sent out May 9th in an email with the subject line “Vote now: PSU-AAUP - 2025 PSU-AAUP President Special Election (re-issued ballot)”. Voting remains open until Friday, May 23 at 5:00pm. 

FSJP Upcoming Events May 19-22nd

May 15th marked 77 years since the start of the Nakba, or Catastrophe, the ethnic cleansing and violent expulsion of three quarters of all Palestinians from their homes. The 77-year-long campaign of massacres, land theft, siege, forced expulsion and ethnic cleansing has not ended. The struggle for Palestinian liberation is not defined by the Nakba but by Palestinian’s resistance to colonization, imperialism, and the zionist project.

Below is an image from PSU SUPER’s Nakba Day Memorial & Vigil. Free Palestine!

As noted in our previous issue, two beloved PSU employees and valuable members of our PSU community were suddenly terminated in late April, both of whom were advocates for Palestinian rights. One of these community members was the Director of the Women’s Resource Center and FSJP member, Dr. Nic Francisco Kaho’onei. In a recent letter to the editor in the Vanguard , Nic wrote,

At the May 5th faculty senate meeting, presiding officer Jill Emery shared that Nic’s termination by OAA, “may have implications for academic freedom and freedom of speech. This situation has led to all sorts of worrying impacts beyond WGSS [a program with close ties to the WRC who was not consulted on or informed about the decision].” It was also shared that WRC staff have been told all messaging now must by approved by the administration. The unexplained termination sends a chilling message to the campus community.

There is an active campaign to demand answers from the administration and the reinstatement of Dr. Nic Francisco Kaho’onei to their position. We are amplifying three calls to action:

PSU Board of Trustees Seem Poised to Vote for a model of “Institutional Neutrality,” Despite the Findings of the Committee on Socially Responsible Investment and Partnerships

MORE EVENTS + LINKS

• The Palestine Exception is screening at the Clinton Street Theater Thursday May 29th. All proceeds from the screening will go to the American Friends Service Committee’s Gaza Relief Fund.

• The Jewish-Palestinian Alliance of Oregon is holding a Benefit Concert for the People of Gaza on May 30th.

• Read the ACLU’s Open Letter to Universities and General Counsel’s Regarding Harboring Liability and ICE Administrative Subpoena’s.

*Please share this newsletter with those who think may be interested.

Feedback? Questions? Have a tip for us? Contact us at: pdxfsjp@protonmail.com