From Monday to Thursday, the California Faculty Association chapter will hold a series of events in preparation for a national protest on April 17.
In an email to faculty, Brad Erickson, president of the CFA’s San Francisco chapter, urged people to participate and wear red to show support. Organizers will be in the Quad to raise awareness about the April protest, while various workshops will be held around campus addressing topics such as closing prisons and organizing strategies.
“If you think it’s chaos now, imagine another 7.95% cut from our budget,” Erickson said. “That’s what the Governor proposed, and if history had already been written, that’s what will have happened.”
Erickson also criticized the California State University system for having over $7 billion invested instead of used directly for educational purposes.
“I understand if you’re scared or demoralized,” Erickson said. “So am I. But I don’t think you’re ready to give up. I believe that you still respect yourself, your co-workers and your students. And I still respect and believe in you.”
The four-day event follows the union’s “United to Defend Public Education” conference last month, where members ratified organizing platforms.
“We have to be prepared to be more radical,” said CFA Vice President Margarita Berta-Ávila at the conference. “The Chancellor’s office, the management here, they’re counting for us to be fearful, to be overwhelmed, to retreat into ourselves. But we refuse to do so.”
During the statewide conference, Berta-Ávila and other CFA members stated that the faculty union is planning to organize a large protest in Sacramento on April 17 as part of a national protest to defend public education.
According to the Day of Action for Higher Ed website, the nationwide event is being organized because public education at all levels is under attack.
“Politicians and right-wing organizations are pushing educational gag orders that prohibit the teaching of subjects, concepts and books in both higher education and K-12 schools,” the website stated. “They are rolling back historic advancements in diversity, equity, and inclusion. The majority of jobs in higher education are now low-paying, part-time and precarious, rendering academic freedom and shared governance increasingly hollow. Students bear a crushing debt load that limits their future for decades.”
Erickson’s email also mentioned other issues.
“On top of that, we face the erosion of free speech, academic freedom and pedagogies of liberation,” Erickson said. “AI could undermine our teaching and learning conditions before we even understand it; nationally, immigrant and Palestinian students are being abducted and trans students are threatened with erasure from humanity.”
Brian Yan is a media liaison for the SFSU Student Union, which helped organize the February conference. Yan shared why he believes the “Red 4 Ed Week” is important.
“As the CSUs face massive cuts with Sonoma State, CSU East Bay, Dominguez Hills and many more being gutted and Governor Newsom passing down a 7.95% cut to the CSU system despite billions in state reserves, it is necessary that the faculty, students and workers of the CSUs organize resistance to these cuts,” Yan said. “As our tuition goes up, our schools gutted and professors laid off, it’s clear that our learning conditions are our professors’ working conditions and that it will take all of us united and fighting in solidarity with each other to beat the destruction of our public education system.”
A schedule of the week’s events can be found on the conference website.
