SFU students: Our University must call for end to the genocide in Palestine, divest from military assets

As students enrolled at Simon Fraser University, we are in support with and grateful to international growing campus movements organizing for a Free Palestine, post-secondary divestment from military assets – and against Israel and cops on campus.

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Settler colonialism is a violent ideology, and decolonialism is not a metaphor, it takes effort to dismantle the systems of power we resist.

“As a staff member employed by SFU, I strongly believe that student activism is integral to creating a just campus. I support their important efforts to resist SFU’s business-as-usual posture as it is currently reproducing global systems of oppression emblematized today in Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and beyond. SFU is complicit in this harrowing violence against Palestinians by, among other things, investing in genocide profiteers like BAE Systems, Booze Allen Hamilton, and CAE Inc., living up to its legacy as an extractive colonial institution. Students are right to find this unacceptable at the institution in which they live, learn, and work, and to take action to end this complicity. I whole-heartedly support these students acting in alliance with their conscience and with the conscience of all freedom-loving people in the world. End Israel’s genocide, dismantle Israel’s system of apartheid, and free Palestine!” – Kylie Broderick, Coordinator for the Centre for Comparative Muslim Studies

“As we witness daily, students and youth are leaders in the struggle for a free Palestine and in the movement for boycott of and divestment from companies and institutions that fuel the genocide and occupation. Students are also leaders in holding our universities accountable. As faculty members we must be in active solidarity with our students and stand up for their right to protest and their academic freedom as they apply and practice the critical thinking and analysis of power that we claim to hold dear.” – Dr. Kendra Strauss, Distinguished Professor, Labour Studies, SFU

We support calls from our own campus groups, such as Students for Justice in Palestine demanding SFU “divest university funds from war contractors.” Forever divestment from genocide is a bare minimum commitment.

Meanwhile, our institution has done little to ensure the safety of Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, Jewish, Indigenous and/or otherwise racialized students during this time of increased racist hate. So we also release this letter to affirm that as students, we value Palestinian life, the lives of our racialized peers, and are appalled by SFU’s inaction and institutional silence on an active genocide. We wonder how the silent administrators will live with themselves when they reflect on what they did to speak out during this time of violence.

“My Jewish father was a student activist who faced violent repression fighting for civil rights and integration. My Jewish grand aunt was a peace activist who stared down her interrogators on the McCarthy committee. Jews are part of the movement for Palestine across the United States and here in Canada. The attacks on students protesting a genocide, justified by hysterical and baseless claims of widespread anti-semitism, are transparent attempts to distract from and cover up one of the worst crimes of human history as it continues to unfold. We won’t be silenced, and we won’t allow our tuition to be spent supporting this genocide.” – Nick Gottlieb, PhD student, Department of Geography, SFU (read one of his related columns here).

“The genocide in Palestine – generated by over a hundred years of colonial violence funded by institutions across the west – has highlighted the colonial and racist “customs” on University campuses. Racialized students are devalued, dehumanized and spoken over, while administrators debate whether they think genocide is even bad. After killing more than 42,000 Palestinians in six months, there should be no question that continued investment in Israel is wrong.” – Anmol Swaich, MSc student, Faculty of Health Sciences, SFU

SFU has likewise been host and promoter to concerning, present-day colonial and carceral activity. This includes hiring investigators to spy on student activity; continuing to hire producers of copaganda; allowing and elevating research that collaborates with police forces; permits drug war professors to mistreat students without consequence, and is seeing the increased securitization of their campuses. SFU’s chief of “safety” is a former officer of the colonial Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who has spread this pro-police messaging abroad.

“When police are the enforcers of colonialism, permitting research funding and resources to flow toward their collaboration is an affront to academic freedom. By allowing and/or incentivizing inflation of the colonial project, institutions contribute to silencing anti-colonial resistance to violence. And here we are – an active settler colonial genocide is occurring in Palestine, and the University is passive and worse, laying bare the interconnected structures of violence they are willing to align with as an institution with international responsibilities.” – Tyson Singh Kelsall ਟਾਈਸਨ ਸਿੰਘ, PhD candidate, Faculty of Health Sciences, SFU

Universities are sites of struggle – and we pull from the history of student social and civil rights activism to know that we must all contribute to the work of liberation against imperial power to stop the violence. Solidarity with anti-colonial student movements everywhere.

“SFU students have long been leaders in our community, pushing for progressive change in creative and important ways. Students are also usually at the sharp end of the resultant repression and denials of academic freedom and political agency. This welcomed solidarity statement is one such chapter in this important history.” – Nicholas Blomley, Professor, Department of Geography, SFU

To add your name to the list of signatures below or for media inquiries, email our communications team: sfu2palestine@prontonmail.com

Signed,

Students

Ainsley Dinwoodie, student, SFU
Alya Govorchin, MSc student, Faculty of Health Sciences, SFU
Anmol Swaich, MSc student, Faculty of Health Sciences, SFU
Artin Safaei, BA Student, Department of Political Science, SFU
Ash Powers, BA Student, Department of History, SFU
Brendan Routh, BA student, Department of English, SFU
Brittany Schnell, student, SFU
Elyse Gawley, BA, Criminology, SFU
Emily R. Blyth, PhD candidate, Faculty of Health Sciences, SFU
Hannah Beram, MA Student, Department of Political Science, SFU
Harsh Trivedi, Graduate student, Global Humanities, SFU
Kiera Tsakonas, BA, MSc Candidate, SFU
Lisa Kim, BA, Political science & criminology, SFU
Maëve Leduc, MSc, Faculty of Health Sciences, SFU
Molly Beatrice, Research Assistant, Faculty of Health Sciences, SFU
Nabaa Radhi, BSc student, Health Sciences, SFU
Nebula Shen, BGS, Education, Minors in Indigenous Studies, English, and Social Justice in Education, SFU
Nick Gottlieb, PhD student, Department of Geography, SFU
Noor A. Ghazal, BFA, Visual Arts, School for Contemporary Arts, SFU
Omri Haiven, MA, School of Communications, SFU
Pravleen Shoker, BSc, Biology, SFU
Sahar Zaman, PhD student, Department of Political Science, SFU
Sarah Ahmed, student, SFU
Thomasina Pidgeon, MA Student, Department of Geography, SFU
Tintin Yang, MA student, Department of Geography, SFU
Tyson Singh Kelsall ਟਾਈਸਨ ਸਿੰਘ, PhD candidate, Faculty of Health Sciences, SFU

SFU alumni in support

Christa Ovenell, alumni, SFU
Conor Wilkie, Double minor in Indigenous Studies and International Studies, alumni, SFU
Cynthia Broderick, M.Ed., alumni, SFU
Helena Krobath, School of Communication 2015, recipient of Dean’s Convocation Medal, alumni, SFU
Irwin Oostindie, MA CMNS 2021, Dip URB 2023, alumni, SFU
Jade Cameron, International Studies and Sociology, alumni, SFU
Luke Galvani, MA 2019, School of Communication, alumni, SFU
Nathan Crompton, Department of History, alumni, SFU
Pietro Sammarco, MA 2016, School of Communication, alumni, SFU
Rachel Taylor, MPub 2019, BA 2015, alumni, SFU
Steven (Squire) Hall, BA majoring in Indigenous Studies and extended minor in Psychology (2020), Former Board member for the First Nations Student Association (aka. FNMISA), Former inaugural Research Assistant for Decolonizing Teachings Seminar Series with ISTLD, alumni, SFU