From Rhea Chappell, University of Michigan undergraduate student worker
I started working as an employee for the University of Michigan almost a year ago in the Event Setup Team for one of the university buildings. Though the work could be difficult at times, the people I met working there and the satisfaction I felt from doing my job well as well as the knowledge that I played such a pivotal role in so many different events from club meetings and academic conferences to department commencement ceremonies and even weddings made the job an enjoyable one. All of this ultimately meant nothing when the University fired me for speaking out against its involvement in the ongoing genocide of Palestinians.
Students, workers (union and non-union), and community members have been organizing in the TAHRIR coalition for divestment from Israel since last October, including groups like Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, Young Democratic Socialists of America, and the Graduate Employees Organization #3550. Last November, I participated with TAHRIR activists in a sit-in at the President’s office, hoping to meet with him to discuss divestment from companies profiting from Israel’s genocide of Palestinians. I was arrested along with around 40 others and issued a trespassing warning. In the intervening months, University of Michigan police requested charges against participants, most of which the Washtenaw County Prosecutor did not move forward with. However, in response, the University turned towards internal measures to retaliate against these students such as using its internal interpersonal conflict resolution process to attempt to discipline protestors, and most recently turning to workplace retaliation.
On August 14th, almost 9 months after the sit-in, I received a letter from the Associate Director of Staff HR over the entire university informing me I was to attend a meeting with her to discuss my conduct in this sit-in. In the meeting, I was suspended from my job while the case was looked over and a week later I received notice that I was being terminated from my position and made ineligible for rehire at any University of Michigan position. This story continues with several other participants in the sit-in receiving letters that unilaterally barred them from rehire at UMich positions, without even getting a meeting such as mine. These terminations and hiring bans amount to blacklisting of student protestors who speak up about their employer’s involvement in Israel’s occupation of Palestine and the broader military-industrial complex.
The firing has had a large impact on my livelihood. Though my tuition and rent were covered by student loans, money for groceries, healthcare, clothing, and other bills as well as just daily life all came from this job. My ability to get my prescriptions and put food on the table was thrown in the air as I had to scramble to secure temporary funds while I had unexpectedly started searching for a new job on top of schoolwork and organizing. Additionally, the move threw my future into disarray as it made the largest employer in the place I live suddenly impossible to work for.
This all speaks to a larger trend of an attack on higher education as a center for academic freedom and organizing for progressive causes. University campuses have historically often served as a hub of social movements pushing for a better world, against the wishes of administrators who have sought to turn these institutions into arms of capital, hedge funds invested in the control of land, resources, and people with some inoffensive classrooms attached. The people who make up the University, the students, faculty, staff, and local community members are entirely disregarded and squeezed for whatever labor or money can be taken from them, whether it be through low wages, higher tuition costs, and fees, or inflating rents and other costs of living.
Administrators view the actual University community as minor elements, meant to stay in their place and not actively participate in the running of the place they live and work in and they use surveillance, police violence, and union-busting to enforce it. My and other students’ blacklisting is but one example of university administrators seeking to stamp out attempts at pushing back against this financialization of the university. However, it also shows that they fear what an organized mass movement backed up by labor could do, which is exactly what many seek to create.
Neither I nor any other students hit with this employment ban were represented by a union, and this is what made us vulnerable to this sort of retaliation. Right now, many of us are attempting to appeal the ban through the university’s internal grievance system, however, regardless of that process’s outcome, it is only by organizing together that we can defend ourselves and fight for our interests in the workplace. Already, undergraduate workers have begun to unionize, such as the RAs, and that momentum will continue, especially as the administration continues this reign of repression of pro-Palestine student activists. I’ve already begun to talk with my former co-workers about my firing and what sort of response can be mounted. The actions of administration may prove to be the spark that ignites a united campus labor movement, all fighting for the future of the university, to ensure it becomes the institution we aspire it to be.