California Faculty Demands Free Tuition For Minorities

The California Faculty Association is requesting California State University make tuition free for minority students and remove police from campus, among other reforms.

A statement issued by the CFA condemned the violence against people of color and specifically cited the cases of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery.

“George Floyd’s public execution is shocking, but not surprising given the persistence of anti-Black racism and white supremacy that dehumanizes Black people,” the statement reads. “It is not enough to condemn this public execution that calls lynching to mind.”

Among the CFA’s demands are CSU’s need to incorporate in order to effectively fight racism, including “free tuition for all Black, Native, and Indigenous students” and “increasing enrollment and retention rates for marginalized students, particularly Black students.”

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Police, CFA argues, has “racist roots” leading to the “dehumanization of Black people.” They’re also calling for the “full abolition of the police.”

Furthermore, the organization says the university needs “racial pay equity” because of a past of “patterns of race and gender disparities that we refuse to accept any longer.”

“Black women faculty carry the highest levels of student loan debt, they face a double burden when this is compounded by structures of gendered racism,” the statement says. “Workload is also higher for Black faculty given that CSU faculty are majority-white, and CSU students are majority of color resulting in ‘cultural taxation.’”

It continues: “Black faculty are too often hired as Lecturers and therefore, are doubly disadvantaged by the pay inequity of ‘teaching while Black’ and ‘teaching as a Lecturer.’ Pay equity is urgent if the CSU is to not only recruit, but also retain, Black faculty. Retention without equity will not hold.”

Finally, CFA says universities should also expand their Ethnic Studies curriculum, create Black Student/Resource Centers, and form “unconscious bias” training that would be mandatory for faculty members.

Read the full statement here.