Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
College of Liberal Arts
Women’s & Gender Studies Department
4/19/18
To the Campus Community:
Teaching, learning and doing in the Women’s and Gender Studies Department at Cal Poly is designed to
promote scholarly inquiry, education and activism. On behalf of the Women’s & Gender Studies
Department and Triota – Cal Poly’s Womxn’s & Gender Studies Honor Society and Feminist Activist
Community – we write to share the Solidarity Statement released by the National Women’s Studies
Association (NWSA) in January 2015 and to affirm our commitment to, as the NWSA describes in this
statement, “an inclusive feminist vision that is in solidarity with Indigenous peoples and sovereignty rights
globally, that challenges settler colonial practices, and that contests violations of civil rights and
international human rights law, military occupation and militarization, including the criminalization of the
U.S. borders, and myriad forms of dispossession.”
As scholaractivists in Women’s & Gender Studies we stand in solidarity with the BSU and the Drylongso
Collective. We write to publicly commit to amplifying the voices, experiences, and knowledge of students,
staff, faculty, and alumni of color in our social change work at Cal Poly and in the San Luis Obispo
community. We further publicly commit to centering the work of scholaractivists of color in Women’s &
Gender Studies as a field, and, specifically, in all components of Women’s & Gender Studies at Cal Poly.
Finally, we publicly commit to supporting all actions necessary to create a more just and equitable Cal
Poly and world.
Leilani Hemmings Pallay (she, her, hers)
President, Triota
Katie L. Ettl (she, her, hers)
Vice President, Triota
Dr. Elizabeth Adan (she, her, hers)
Interim Chair [Winter/Spring 2018], Women’s & Gender Studies
Professor, Art & Design
Dr. Jane Lehr (she, her, hers)
Chair [on sabbatical Winter/Spring 2018], Women’s & Gender Studies
Professor, Ethnic Studies
National Women’s Studies Association Solidarity Statement
January 19, 2015
Available at: https://www.nwsa.org/statements
The National Women’s Studies Association releases this statement:
● In light of endemic racialized state and extrajudicial violence within the U.S. and at its
borders;
● Following on the 2014 NWSA conference in Puerto Rico, an occupied territory where
sovereignty struggles continue; and
● Following on the conference plenary on Palestine, [1] wherein there was a strong show of
support by a majority of more than 1,000 plenary attendees for the boycott, divestment,
and sanctions (BDS) movement, and for including injustices in Palestine among the
issues we study and teach about.
As the largest feminist academic organization in North America, NWSA is dedicated to leading
Women’s and Gender Studies, a transformative and critical field animated by the recognition that
systems of oppression are interlaced and must be thought through and addressed together. Our
members actively pursue a just world in which all persons can develop to their fullest potential: as
feminist scholars, educators, and activists, for example, we advance critiques of misogyny, gender
violence, settler colonialism, homophobia, Islamophobia, ableism, classism, and all forms of racism,
including antiSemitism and antiArab racism.
NWSA members have long challenged multiple forms of oppression and violence, including racialized
state violence and sexual and genderbased violence, that disproportionately impact disenfranchised
groups and communities within the U.S. and transnationally. NWSA members have also long been
committed to solidarity politics as a means to contest and dismantle multiple systems of domination.
NWSA is thus committed to an inclusive feminist vision that is in solidarity with Indigenous peoples and
sovereignty rights globally, that challenges settler colonial practices, and that contests violations of civil
rights and international human rights law, military occupation and militarization, including the
criminalization of the U.S. borders, and myriad forms of dispossession.
As an organization that seeks to promote scholarly exchange, research and teaching collaborations,
and educational opportunities for all, NWSA issues this solidarity statement. In so doing, we distinguish
between institutional critiques and critiques of individuals working within those institutional contexts.
Furthermore, we acknowledge Israeli and Jewish scholars and students who are critical of Israeli state
policies that systematically discriminate against Palestinians and that violate international law. Finally,
NWSA recognizes that systemic forces continue to negatively impact Palestinians’ political and human
rights and educational opportunities and that the U.S. plays a significant role in the Israeli occupation of
Palestine and the expansion of settlements and the Wall.
Given our longstanding commitments to eradicating injustice as feminist scholars, educators, and
activists, and in recognition of resonances and connections across borders and contexts, NWSA
reiterates its support of academic freedom, political dissent, and the pursuit of education and research
without undue state interference or repression.
[1] “The Imperial Politics of Nation States.” NWSA Annual Conference, San Juan, Puerto Rico:
Saturday, November 15, 2014. Featuring Angela Davis, Islah Jad, and Rebecca Vilkomerson with
Chandra Talpade Mohanty as chair/moderator. The idea of a solidarity statement was also raised at the
Membership and Delegate Assemblies and subsequently discussed by the Governing Council and the
Executive Committee (which, in response, worked collaboratively to issue this statement).