Climate Science Research

  CALIFORNIA SCHOLARS FOR ACADEMIC FREEDOM https://cascholars4academicfreedom.home.blog  5 June 2020 JANET NAPOLITANO, PRESIDENT UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA  RE: Divestment from Fossil Fuel Industry  Dear President Napolitano,  We write as representatives of California Scholars for Academic Freedom*, a group of over two hundred academics and intellectuals with a commitment to defend academic freedom and first amendment rights of faculty and students in California’s institutions of higher education. We want to cordially thank the University of California for divesting from the fossil fuel industry. This move also supports scientists in their vital work on climate change and its human-made causes.  In these difficult times, we hope that the university will take similar ethical decisions in the future, especially in terms of boycotting any companies that profit from the colonization and oppression of other nations like the Palestinian one. In February of this year, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights published the names of 112 companies that illegally operate in Israeli settlements. We hope that the University of California will seriously consider divesting from any firm that directly, or indirectly, benefits from the occupation of the Palestinian territories. In addition, we urge you to pursue a non-austerity approach to labor conditions at the University of California and to support our graduate students, contingent faculty, and low paid workers in their quests for a living wage and better working conditions. Sincerely, Carole H. Browner Distinguished Research Professor Center for Culture and Health Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, Department of Anthropology, Department of Gender Studies University of California, Los Angeles browner@ucla.edu Nancy Gallagher Professor Emerita, Department of History University of California, Santa Barbara gallagher@ucsb.edu  Lisa Rofel, Professor Emerita, Department of Anthropology University of California, Santa Cruz LROFEL@ucsc.edu   *CALIFORNIA SCHOLARS FOR ACADEMIC FREEDOM (cs4af) https://cascholars4academicfreedom.home.blog is a group of over 200 scholars who defend academic freedom, the right of shared governance, and the First Amendment rights of faculty and students in the academy and beyond. We recognize that violations of academic freedom anywhere are threats to academic freedom everywhere. California Scholars for Academic Freedom investigates legislative and administrative infringements on freedom of speech and assembly, and it raises the consciousness of politicians, university regents and administrators, faculty, students and the public at large through open letters, press releases, petitions, statements, and articles.

Climate change is real. Ninety-seven percent of scientists working in the field agree on this. The global scientific community also agrees that climate change is due to human actions. Anthropogenic global warming has come about as a result of massive human extraction of natural resources and a model of unsustainable development, powered by the fossil-fuel economy. This human built economy directly threatens human societies, non-human species, and ecosystems.  People facing racial, neo-colonial and economic exploitation suffer the brunt of the damage, as do the multitude of species that have become extinct or nearly so. 

  Alarmingly, our current government has not only disinvested from scientific research on climate change, but has tried actively to suppress this research and deny its results.  Some of our academic institutions also have begun to remove funding from premier climate change research institutes. University of Alaska is the latest example. The Union of Concerned Scientists chart what they call the Disinformation Playbook that certain large companies in the fossil fuel industry use to discredit the well-established science regarding the role of fossil fuels in damaging our planet. 

As a group dedicated to academic freedom, we join scientists in challenging efforts to suppress and deny scientific research on anthropogenic climate change.  We support and defend the academic freedom of scientists who do climate change research. 

August 26, 2019

Governor Michael J. Dunleavy

Juneau, Alaska

Fax: (907) 465-3532

To Governor Dunleavy,  

 We write to express our concern about your proposed budget cuts to the University of Alaska. These budget cuts target important areas of research, specifically the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska–Fairbanks. If enacted, these budget cuts will destroy a crown jewel in your educational system. 

To cut research on climate change undermines the mission of the University of Alaska, which supports open inquiry into essential questions about the complex world in which we live. For all of us, but especially for the many communities in Alaska who have suffered from the environmental crisis (sea level rise, mass die-offs of ocean life, forest fires, melting permafrost, sustained drought), academic research on the effects of global climate change should be sustained and indeed enhanced. 

As California Scholars for Academic Freedom*, a group of over 200 academics, we are committed to academic freedom and first amendment rights of faculty and students in California, the United States and internationally. Academic freedom includes the freedom of professors to conduct and disseminate scholarly research, to design courses and teach students in the areas of their expertise, and to enjoy First Amendment protections for extramural speech. By undermining the mission of the University of Alaska, the budget cuts you propose represent a direct challenge to academic freedom.

Michael Mann,distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Pennsylvania State University, wrote recently in Newsweek:

In attempting to dictate how cuts are distributed, the governor is grossly overstepping his role. He’s not meant to serve as a one-man committee determining how the UA system manages its budget. In fact, in Alaska, the state constitution specifically invests in the Board of Regents—not the governor—the power to determine the university’s budget and, through that, its priorities.

Academic freedom also includes shared governance with university faculty. We understand that these budget cuts were offered without even consulting the faculty at the University of Alaska, who play a key role in decisions about research and teaching. They must be included in any decision on the allocation of financial and other resources for research across the university. 

We urge you to restore the University of Alaska to its preeminent position as a standard bearer   of academic freedom. 

On behalf of California Scholars for Academic Freedom,

Professor Rush Rehm,

Theater and Performance Studies, and Classics

Stanford University

Artistic Director, Stanford Repertory Theater (SRT)

mrehm@stanford.edu

Lisa Rofel,

Professor Emeritus

Department of Anthropology

University of California, Santa Cruz

LROFEL@ucsc.edu

Sang Hea Kil, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
“Justice” Studies Department
San José State University
Phone: (415) 390-6523
Email: sangheakil@gmail.com

Stephen Roddy

Professor of Modern & Classical Languages, 

University of San Francisco

roddys@usfca.edu

Nancy Gallagher

Professor Emerita

University of California, Santa Barbara

gallagher@ucsb.edu

Dennis Kortheuer

History Dept., Emeritus

California State University, Long Beach​

Dennis.kortheuer@gmail.com

Vida Samiian

Professor Emeritus of Linguistics

California State University, Fresno

vidas@mail.fresnostate.edu

Rabab Abdulhadi

Director and Senior Scholar

Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies

San Francisco State University

Ria55@sfsu.edu

*CALIFORNIA SCHOLARS FOR ACADEMIC FREEDOM (cs4af) defends academic freedom, the right of shared governance, and the First Amendment rights of faculty and students in the academy and beyond. We recognize that violations of academic freedom anywhere are threats to academic freedom everywhere. California Scholars for Academic Freedom investigates legislative and administrative infringements on freedom of speech and assembly, and it raises the consciousness of politicians, university regents and administrators, faculty, students and the public at large through open letters, press releases, petitions, statements, and articles.

cc: James R. Johnsen, President, University of Alaska ua.president@alaska.edu

Hajo Eicken, Director, University of Alaska Fairbanks International Arctic Research Center     uaf-iarc@alaska.edu