Public comment: Our struggles are interconnected

Presenter: At the UO Board of Trustees March 18, a few selections from some of the public comments:

Brian McWhorter: I’m Brian McWhorter, professor of music at the University of Oregon since 2006, and faculty fellow at the Clark Honors College since 2019. As luck would have it, today is my 50th birthday. (Happy birthday!) Thank you, thank you. And while I’m sure you’d all love to sing the usual song, I must decline.

[00:00:26] You see, I did my graduate work at Julliard, a school that taught me to be a bit of a musical snob. But I did my undergraduate work at a place that taught me the meaning of community and collaboration. A school that showed me that as weird as I am, I belong. I’m a proud graduate of the University of Oregon, Class of ‘98.

[00:00:45] As a full professor, my salary is well below the national average. Even within the arts (a field my parents begged me to avoid), I earn less than my peers, but that’s not why I’m here today. I’m here for my colleagues, especially junior tenure track and career faculty who bear the brunt of growing class sizes, relentless service demands, alarming burnout, and pay that continues to lag behind our peers.

[00:01:10] For years, we’ve been asked to foster a sense of belonging among our students, and we do, but many of us on this faculty don’t always feel like we belong here ourselves and we should.

[00:01:21] What I learned here as a student, and what I have tried to model as a professor, is that collaboration is not transactional. It’s a shared responsibility. Faculty don’t just teach classes. We carry the weight of the institution’s mission.

[00:01:33] But right now, many of us feel overworked and undervalued. We are stretched thin and it shows—

[00:01:37] University of Oregon timekeeper: Thirty seconds. (But it’s my birthday!)

[00:01:40] Brian McWhorter: —in our energy, our retention rates, and ultimately in the experience of the very students we are here to serve.

[00:01:46] In moments of cultural instability like the one higher ed is facing today, it becomes even more critical to strengthen the bond between faculty and leadership. This moment isn’t just about wages or workloads, it’s about the long-term health and integrity of this institution. We need your commitment. We need your investment.

[00:02:03] We need to ensure that we as your faculty belong here, with the support this community deserves. There are very real challenges ahead, and we’re going to need to face them together. Thank you for your time. Thanks to all the students here today, and happy birthday to me. (Happy birthday.) Thank you.

[00:02:27] Hannah Robinson: My name is Hannah Robinson. As my graduation date draws closer and closer, I continue to feel shame and disappointment in the way this university has continually ignored its students’ demands for action.

[00:02:38] Over my years at the U of O, I have witnessed the University target students with the code of conduct and attack our rights to free speech. I have witnessed the University refuse to acknowledge or take action against the rapidly accelerating climate crisis or the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza in the West Bank.

[00:02:55] I’m here today to stand behind the Climate Justice League’s demand and urge you to implement the thermal transition option 2B as quickly as possible, and to take additional efforts to decarbonize our campus and reduce UO’s climate impact. The University of Oregon as a public institution has an obligation and responsibility to its students and faculty and the larger community to take action to mitigate its impacts on the climate crisis and to transition away from the use of fossil fuels.

[00:03:22] Over the past 10 months, the University has refused to bargain with the with student workers in good faith on essential. Demands, including wage increases, a proper grievance and arbitration process, and protected leave for workers. I have been a student worker for the entirety of my time at U of O and have experienced firsthand how student workers are a critically essential part of the workforce on campus.

[00:03:44] We deserve a contract that reflects this. (Thirty seconds.) I stand in solidarity with United Academics as they continue their fight for a fair contract for UO faculty. I also stand in solidarity with UO students for Justice and Palestine, and their demands for the university to disclose and divest their funds from the U.S.- Israeli war machine.

[00:04:01] I also stand with SJP’s demand for amnesty for student protestors, continuing to be persecuted by UO’s conduct code. Finally, I implore you again to implement thermal transition option 2B and take action for concrete change in the face of this climate catastrophe. Free Palestine. Thank you.

[00:04:16] Salem Younes: My name is Salem Younes. You’re failing all walks of life at this university. You sit here and hoard people’s money while you ignore all sorts of cries for help. Faculty can’t live, student workers can’t live. And if you don’t proceed with climate action fast, none of us in Eugene will be able to live either. You guys just again, continue hoarding money and continue repressing the students that are using their free speech.

[00:04:38] It’s insulting, not to mention the money that you love to hoard is funding an ongoing genocide of Palestinian people. Last night, the Israeli government unilaterally ended the cease-fire that they signed a couple months ago.

[00:04:51] Your money is killing my people. I come from two Arab immigrants from Palestine and Lebanon, and you are killing my kin. You are killing innocent people all over the world. And for what? And for what? Because you like sitting in this room with your friends. This is ridiculous.

[00:05:06] I stand firmly. I stand firmly with the demands made by student organizations and the people in this room. I stand firmly in solidarity with the demands of the Climate Justice League, Students for Justice in Palestine, United Academics, and UO Student Workers.

[00:05:19] University of Oregon timekeeper: Thirty seconds.

[00:05:21] Salem Younes: Free Palestine. Free Palestine. Free Palestine. Free Palestine. Free Palestine. Free Palestine. Free Palestine. Free Palestine. Free Palestine. Free Palestine. Free Palestine. Free Palestine. Free Palestine. Free Lebanon. Free Yemen. Free Syria. Free all of us from your guys’ greedy, greedy, greedy ways. Time.

[00:05:59] Efron Chudakoff: My name is Efron and I’m a member of Jewish Voice for Peace. Last night, bombs fell upon Gaza. The fire is yet to cease from the occupation. As long as colonialism continues and the continued repression of our voices, as I also have a code of conduct violation, I and others will continue to speak and continue and continue and continue.

[00:06:24] The kidnapping of Mahmoud Khalil from Columbia University is not in the name of Jewish safety, but McCarthyism-era tactics. I demand that UO release Mahmoud Khalil and declare UO a sanctuary campus. That is very easy.

[00:06:40] For every bomb that drops, your hands are bloody. Every day the occupation continues, all of your hands are bloody, and they will stay bloody forever. Karl Scholz, I’m looking at you, your hands are bloody. Marcia Aaron, I’m looking at you, your hands are bloody. Steve Holwerda, I’m looking at you, your hands are bloody. Tim Boyle, I’m looking at you, your hands are bloody. And the rest of the Board of Trustees, your hands are bloody.

[00:07:12] I’d also like to stand with Climate Justice League and with the thermal task force’s recommendation to implement the thermal transition option 2B.

[00:07:19] I am from Los Angeles and I’m a victim of climate fires. This has completely changed my life. You think it won’t happen to you, but it can and it will. And it will reach you and your money will not save you. You will burn with your houses and you’ll be like the rest of us… All of our struggles are deeply interconnected and I stand with everyone. Thank you.

[00:07:43] Presenter: Phia Dornberg:

[00:07:44] Phia Dornberg: I thought a lot about what I wanted to say to you all today after coming to this forum so many times and pleading with you through the only channel you’ve provided, and I have come to the conclusion that you are not worth the time of writing new words when you’ve not truly heard the ones I already spoke to you.

[00:07:57] So I will read the speech that I read you last time, and I will read it every Board of Trustees meeting until you change something and listen.

[00:08:04] I would like to speak to how disappointing it has been that this university at behest of this body has prosecuted students for speaking out against an ongoing genocide, which our tax dollars have funded 70% of.

[00:08:16] My grandmother is Palestinian. Her mother was born and raised in what is now Jerusalem, occupied Jerusalem, Al-Quds. I am only a handful of circumstances away from the family that I have in the West Bank.

[00:08:27] My niece, who is six years old and shares these family members, came to visit me last spring and she asked me if I thought she could go to a school here one day. I didn’t know how to tell her that like universities around the country, she would likely find this campus very hostile because of you. Because of this body.

[00:08:45] We are all grieving as we watch loved ones and strangers under the occupation of Israel. We bear witness to starvation, to bombing in the night, to children without families, to war crimes of white phosphorus and the targeting of aid workers and journalists, to the destruction of cultural landmarks older than the state destroying them.

We watch helplessly through our screens as olive trees are uprooted and children are orphaned. We watch helplessly and think: What can we do? What is the biggest institution I have access to? What is the biggest impact I can make?

[00:09:12] And this is why I am here talking to you. This is not the first time you have heard all of this, and for your lack of willingness, 30 seconds to stand with us, I can only assume that you’ve turned a convenient blind eye. It has been 530 days (since Oct. 7, 2023), nearly 100 days since I spoke to you last. What more do you need?

[00:09:27] Israel has resumed its siege on Gaza, killing more than 400 last night alone while they plan a total annexation of the West Bank. Women in Gaza have to use sand to wash their children. Israeli drones shoot children in Gaza deliberately, day after day. Fathers collect what’s left of their entire families in plastic bags just to give them peace.

[00:09:46] If you do not act upon our demands of disclosure and condemning political prosecution of student activists, the legacy of this board and you, Karl Scholz, will be one of complicity and genocide. Despite being a public institution by the people, for the people, you’ve denied the very basic demand of disclosure and financial transparency.

[00:10:05] F— you! (Yeah!)

[00:10:40] Presenter: A selection of public comment from the UO Board of Trustees meeting March 18.