An open letter from two U of A PhD students resigning from the U of A after violent sweep of anti-genocide protest camp

 

To Bill Flanagan, the University of Alberta Board of Governors*, and the Administration of the University of Alberta.

We, the writers of this open letter, are both Métis people pursuing our PhDs at the University of Alberta. In our time as graduate students, we have held leadership roles in our faculty’s Graduate Student Association and have acted as both official and unofficial supports for our peers, helping them navigate the University’s academic and labour processes to be successful. We have further supported both faculty members and undergraduate students in our roles as Research and Teaching Assistants. We have also supported our faculty by developing, contributing to, and teaching new courses geared to both University students and to the broader public. And we have supported the University by producing our own academic research and writing, representing the University at conferences, public presentations, guest lectures, and within the Métis community in Alberta and beyond.

Throughout our years at the University, we have been more than willing to give our time, labour, tuition dollars, and cultural and academic knowledge to an institution that claims to have a commitment to decolonization, justice, and building meaningful relationships with marginalized communities.

For months we have watched, from our screens, the atrocities being committed against the people of Palestine: families buried under the wreckage of their own homes, children carrying pieces of their siblings in bloody backpacks to what few hospitals remain in Gaza, people testifying to their terrible experiences in Israeli torture facilities, parents begging for money to escape with their babies out of Rafah before Israel’s next refugee camp bombing. Every day, our hearts break as we witness this unspeakable colonial violence. Yet every day we are inspired by the unbreakable spirit of resistance of the Palestinian people in the face of this genocide.

As Indigenous Studies students and researchers, the commonalities between Israel's current actions and Canada's past ones are unmistakable, as are the responsibilities that the University holds to do what it can to end this genocide.  (more...)

An open letter from two U of A PhD students resigning from the U of A after violent sweep of anti-genocide protest camp