COMMENTARY: Rutgers Faculty for Justice in Palestine supports union divestment referendum
Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP) at Rutgers consists of more than 200 faculty and graduate students on all three campuses. We are deeply concerned about the ongoing siege in Gaza and the fragile ceasefire in Lebanon. We call on our colleagues to vote yes on the joint union resolution on "Divestment from Genocide in Palestine." Here are a few reasons to vote yes on the Rutgers American Association of University Professors and American Federation of Teachers (AAUP-AFT) and the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union (PTLFC) resolution.
Trumpism and our work conditions
With the election of President-elect Donald J. Trump, all of us, whether in the humanities or in STEM fields, will soon likely find fact-based research targeted once again.
These impending threats also include retaliation against those of us working to end genocide, as mapped out in Project 2025's Project Esther. While we all face threats to our research and teaching, those most vulnerable include our BIPOC, LGBTQ+, anti-racist and Jewish faculty.
Rutgers' history of supporting anti-apartheid efforts
The call to divest from Israel, which came from Palestinian civil society in 2005 and is inspired by the South African struggle against apartheid, is rooted in non-violence. Rutgers has a history of supporting anti-apartheid efforts. Students and faculty at Rutgers conducted a successful divestment campaign for South Africa in the 1980s.
There is clear support on campus for the Palestinian divestment campaign now. Undergraduate students across all three campuses voted overwhelmingly in favor of divestment earlier this year.
Job security
Progressive sections of the U.S. labor movement have historically been at the forefront of the struggle against apartheid and for human rights across borders.
Recently, we have witnessed — and many of us have experienced first-hand — sweeping efforts to silence and punish faculty for speaking out, including through spurious accusations of anti-Semitism. For example, one tenured colleague at Muhlenberg College, Maura Finkelstein, said she had been dismissed after expressing her views on Palestinian rights.
Academic freedom
The crisis of academic freedom is most urgent in Palestine, and it demands our solidarity. During its siege in Gaza, Israel destroyed or damaged nearly all of Gaza's universities and has seemingly systematically targeted students and our colleagues there.
As of August, the UN has stated that more than 10,000 children and 411 educational staff have been killed, while more than 15,000 students and 2,411 teachers have been injured.
As in previous wars and genocides, scholars from across the humanities, social sciences and STEM fields have been murdered. The conditions created in Gaza are "incompatible with the mission of higher education," the litmus test the national American Associate of University Professors (AAUP) applies to determine the legitimacy of an academic boycott.
AAUP Guidelines around boycotts
In July 2024, the national AAUP released a statement that academic boycotts are "legitimate tactical responses" and that we can "legitimately seek to protect and advance the academic freedom and fundamental rights of colleagues and students who are living and working under circumstances that violate that freedom and one or more of those rights. In such contexts, academic boycotts are not in themselves violations of academic freedom."
