The UC FSJP supports staff and faculty across all campuses at the University of California who are advocating for Palestine and against genocide, occupation, and apartheid. We stand together. We support one another through mutual aid practices as we have been taught by feminist solidarity economy activists the world over. Law scholar and trans activist Dean Spade has explained that “Mutual aid is the radical act of caring for each other while working to change the world”.

Dr. Tiffany Willoughby-Herard, an internationally renowned scholar and faculty member at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), is under attack for protecting the free speech rights of her students as they advocated for Palestinian human rights. We are raising mutual aid funds to support her as she resolutely defends Palestine, her colleagues, and herself.*

For a year, the University of California and UCI have engaged in widespread repression of students, faculty and staff who have spoken out in support of Palestinian life and in criticism of Israel’s violence in Gaza, which has been characterized by countless educators and legal experts around the world and Israeli scholars as genocide. Israel has murdered over 16,000 children, bombed homes, tents, schools, universities, and hospitals, and is imposing starvation on over 2 million Palestinian people. UCI faculty, staff, and students who have publicly voiced their commitment to the rights of Palestinians have had their First Amendment rights and academic freedom violated repeatedly and most violently, on May 15, 2024, when the UCI leadership summoned hundreds of armed riot police to repress a peaceful demonstration.

Dr. Willoughby-Herard is facing multiple misdemeanor criminal charges. Far-right political groups have targeted her with rape and death threats and public doxxing, even on the UCI campus while the UCI leadership does nothing to protect her. Dr. Willoughby-Herard is an Associate Professor of Global and International Studies at UCI. She is the author of Waste of a White Skin: The Carnegie Corporation and the Racial Logic of White Vulnerability, a groundbreaking book that examines how powerful philanthropic foundations used higher education and universities to augment racial apartheid in South Africa.

Following in the tradition of civil rights leaders before her, Dr. Willoughby-Herard fulfilled her affirmative duty to her students. She accompanied them as they non-violently advocated for Palestinians' lives and freedom. Dr. Willoughby-Herard is being persecuted like other educators for acting in accordance with the same values and principles that she was previously lauded for. Dispossession and genocide cost lives across generations. From the architects of memory and healing in South Africa’s District Six and the proposed Al Kaaf Palestine Human Rights Centre like Dr. Anwah Nagia to Bree Newsome to the activists who launched the Chicago Police Torture Memorial we will work toward a world worthy of all of us.

“Being afraid of a student-led teaching and learning experiment like the Free Palestine encampments is like being afraid of the mission of the university itself. We are not criminals for saying so aloud and in public.”--Dr. Tiffany Willoughby-Herard (October 2024)

We appreciate your support of our beloved and righteous colleague, Tiffany Willoughby-Herard

In solidarity,

UC FSJP

You can read and watch more here:

A video recording of Dr. Willoughby-Herard's violent arrest was aired on ABC 7 on May 15, 2024 and shared widely.

Letter of support for Dr. Willoughby-Herard

https://www.trtworld.com/opinion/what-ive-learned-about-the-future-of-palestinian-solidarity-in-the-us-18165297

US professors face discipline and investigations over Palestine support

*Transparency and disclosures:

Donations are not tax-deductible
Donations will be used for personal expenses related to the impacts of this repression like healthcare costs, other bills, technology and anti-doxxing software, and travel costs incurred for fighting this injustice.
We will launch mutual aid funds for others, as needed, in the future.
We are raising legal defense funds elsewhere.
Funds will be withdrawn as needed and excess funds will be used for other UC staff and faculty who experience severe repression
This fundraiser will be closed at $18,000

UC FSJP Mutual Aid Fundraiser--Defend Tiffany!

End Racist Repression and Free Palestine