Radical Teacher

Dispatches from the Encampments and Beyond: Teaching and Student Protests for Palestine

2024-11-17T17:05:34-05:00

Taking up Space and Making Demands: Portland State University Students Construct the Free and Autonomous Refaat Alareer Memorial Library

2024-10-14T16:05:51-04:00

Student campus protest has been a hallmark of US social movements for decades. Edited versions of these movements are lauded in university courses on historical social change. Yet a variety of commentators in traditional media, campus administration, and political administration display a calculated confusion when it comes to contemporary campus movements, particularly around Palestine. This article aims to clear up that confusion, outlining the protests and occupations that took place in spring 2024 on the campus of Portland State University and in its renamed Refaat Alareer Memorial Library, setting them in their national (and international) context, and outlining the violent responses from university administrators, campus police, and the Portland Police Bureau against students and community members who participated. We touch on the conventional scolding narrative, discuss creativity inherent in constructing liberatory occupations, and note the basic contradictions of a capitalist liberal free speech regime.

Fighting for Palestinian Justice at a Hostile Univerisity

2024-07-15T16:30:54-04:00

In this dialogue between a professor and a group of students involved in the Gaza solidarity encampment on the UNC Charlotte campus in April and May of 2024, participants discuss the teaching and learning that happened in and around the encampment, analysis the issue of safety around encampments, and consider the future of the universities as sites for collective liberation.

Islamophobia, Dirty Water Tactics, and Student Encampments for Gaza: Threats to Free Speech at San Jose State University

2024-12-06T14:32:15-05:00

This essay is an attempt to describe some aspects of the San Jose State University student encampment from my perspective as the only faculty member who camped with the students and openly supported them in the news media. I detail how both liberalism and the neoliberal university system enabled the silence about the Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people through its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Program and how the Office of the President promoted Islamophobia toward the Muslim student encampment and suppressed free speech at SJSU.

Decolonized Worldmaking: Campus Encampments for Civic Engagement

2024-10-16T14:27:29-04:00

Despite university administrators’ stated support for free speech, the violent suppression of peaceful, anti-genocide encampments supporting Palestinian liberation across Southern California campuses has shown otherwise. Global solidarity protests that re-emerged in the spring of 2024 received increasingly negative media coverage. Furthermore, university officials and elected leaders openly criticized and sought to dismantle these encampments. This essay serves as a counter-narrative, contextualizing these SoCal Gaza solidarity encampments as acts of decolonized worldmaking in resistance to genocide and in support of Palestinian liberation. These encampments demanded institutional transparency and divestment from financial ties to Israel and arms manufacturers. We argue for recognizing the historical significance of these movements, akin to the anti-apartheid protests of the 1980s and Vietnam War activism of the 1960s. We hope this work contributes meaningfully to the ongoing discourse and knowledge creation around solidarity movements.

Notes from the People’s Circle for Palestine

2024-10-14T14:17:36-04:00

The People’s Circle for Palestine at the University of Toronto (UofT) was a complex and messy place with opportunities for learning, community building, and enacting a more just world. This piece explores the encampment from a student perspective. I offer personal reflections, learnings, and questions that arose from my experiences as an encampment participant

What Encampments for Palestine Teach Us About Epistemic Justice

2024-10-16T15:09:27-04:00

From the Land to the Seeds: Pedagogies of Liberation

2024-11-08T15:59:55-05:00