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Dear Colleagues,
We write to you as active organizers with and/or supporters of the Cops Off Campus Coalition, which extends across the United States and Canada, and is supported by Scholars for Social Justice on the upcoming May 3 Day of Refusal across Turtle Island. Many of you are involved in these and adjoined organizing efforts to link the scholarly work of the ASA to the dynamic and proliferating work of abolition, within and across multiple communities (including college and university campuses). Others of you are likely ready to be connected to this collective work, and have been contemplating how to get directly involved in a meaningful way. As your President, Past President, President Elect, and soon-to-be President Elect, we encourage our members to honor the May 3 Day of Refusal and urge you to participate in mobilizing your students, colleagues, and co-workers to do the same.
Such actions create differential vulnerabilities for students, (contingent and untenured) faculty, staff, and other members of the ASA community. We urge our members to carefully evaluate their vulnerabilities, and will state that the ASA unequivocally supports a principle of non-retaliation for all who participate in the May 3 Day of Refusal. We believe that protection from retaliation will require active efforts at the departmental, campus, and national scales, and ASA encourages its more institutionally privileged and secure members to adapt and circulate a message of non-retaliation as part of their organizing efforts. The ASA opposes any threat of retaliation that may come from campus administrations, and stand with our members in the struggle for justice, abolitionist security from policing and institutionalized antiblackness, and a demilitarized university environment for all.
The hyperlinks embedded in this letter offer a set of easily circulated (via email and social media) messages that will catalyze your collegial organizing efforts and provide information about the month-long series of actions known as Abolition May, which begin Monday, May 3.
Signalling the deep histories of labor and anarchist struggle generated by May Day, the May 3 Day of Refusal is a major national direct action by faculty and students who are supporting—and/or part of—a growing national movement to transform campus and public safety, abolish police violence/terror/presence, and create a vision for social justice that directly reflects the spirit, demands, and critical analysis of ongoing global movements against antiblack state violence and police killings. We ask you to honor the Day of Refusal with a spirit of peace, respect, and justice that actively reflects the ongoing, still spreading global abolitionist and proto-abolitionist resistance to antiblack policing and gendered racist state violence (including the growing Movement for Black Lives) while honoring those whose lives have been stolen by police violence.
The May 3 Day of Refusal is a one-day commitment to withdraw our work for the university. Calls for participation include:
- Joining a May 3 Day of Refusal (socially distanced) picket line and activities on or near your home and/or campus;
- Canceling classes;
- Calling in sick;
- Withdrawing from preparation of materials for asynchronous use;
- Refusing to engage in other forms of university-based labor, including administrative tasks, email correspondence, and faculty meetings (see this link for a sample automated email reply);
- Protecting any students, colleagues, and workers from retaliation (see this link for sample non-retaliation language);
- Attending a local walkout action.
We take the responsibilities of teaching and learning seriously, and are issuing this call for solidarity while encouraging our members to carefully navigate their and others’ differential vulnerabilities (professional, health, and otherwise). We believe the May 3 Day of Refusal represents an important learning opportunity for our broader ASA community, including students: there is no classroom experience equivalent to actively participating in a direct action that speaks to the historical record. We urge you to show your support by participating in the May 3 action, honoring the line of refusal, and participating in/holding space for the month-long actions that the Cops Off Campus Coalition has planned known as Abolition May.
Yours,
Dylan Rodríguez, President
Cathy Schlund-Vials, President-Elect
Scott Kurashige, Past President
Shana L. Redmond, incoming President-Elect
ASA National Council
