A California State University faculty union is demanding the university make tuition free for minority students and is calling for the “full abolition of the police,” La Corte News reported.
The California Faculty Association (CFA) issued the demands following the death of George Floyd, stating that “it is not enough to condemn this public execution that calls lynching to mind,” and that the university needs to fight racism by following a series of demands, which also include increasing enrollment for minority students, mandatory unconscious bias training for faculty, and creating a black student center to serve as “respite for black students”, according to La Corte News.
We’re happy our statewide union, California Faculty Association (CFA), released this statement calling out the police killing of #GeorgeFloyd, which includes the names of #BreonnaTaylor and #AhmaudArbrey. pic.twitter.com/jUrydkMblg
— California Faculty Association, Cal State LA (@faculty_la) May 30, 2020
“CFA heeds the voices of Black students across the country as they call for universities to divest from police institutions, for the removal of this deeply racist institution from our sites of higher learning, and toward the full abolition of the police,” the statement reads. (RELATED: 16 Children Have Been Shot, Some Killed, In Cities Across The US As Violence Spike)
The CFA claims that the infrastructures of universities are grounded in a “white supremacist colonial discourse and culture” and demands the college require at least one ethnic studies course as a graduation requirement because the current course content condones “spirit murdering.”
Tuition should be free for “Black, Native, and Indigenous” students due to the decades-long trend of declining enrollments among these demographics, the statement says.
To enact free tuition for all Black, Native, and Indigenous students, the CFA calls for the overturn of Proposition 209, which was approved in 1996 and prohibited California’s state institution from considering race, sex, or ethnicity in public employment, effectively banning affirmative action.
“Strategic plans should also ensure consistent campus wide training on unconscious bias for all university personnel who interact with students and faculty,” the statement continues.
It also demands the university recognize the “cultural taxation” placed on black students and faculty, who “are asked to speak for all Blackness on the campuses in committee meetings, as advisors for student groups, as well as in their classrooms” creating a “unique burden placed on ethnic minority faculty in carrying out their responsibility to service within the university.”