AAUP–Penn strongly endorses the faculty request, signed by more than 150 colleagues, that Penn support our international and especially Chinese/Chinese American colleagues facing racial profiling by the U.S. Department of Justice under the China Initiative. The increasing restrictions on international scholars’ and students’ visas and on international scientific collaborations as well as the unfounded accusations against U.S.-based researchers all pose threats to Asian and Asian American faculty members’ research, employment, and safety. (See, for example, the fabricated charges against Temple University professor Xiaoxing Xi.) 

On February 8th, AAUP–Penn’s Executive Committee asked the Faculty Senate to agree to present the Penn Faculty Letters on the China Initiative to the University administration on behalf of the entire Penn faculty. Members of Penn’s central administration have now agreed to meet with the letter’s primary authors to answer questions. We hope that a more public statement of the University’s support of the seven requests outlined in the letter to the Faculty Senate will follow, since Penn’s response to the China Initiative is a matter of concern to our entire community. Our colleagues deserve the full support of the University, and we encourage all members of the Penn community to voice their own support by signing and sharing these letters.

We also encourage all our colleagues and students to read this article in the Daily Pennsylvanian about the faculty letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland calling on the DOJ to overturn this highly discriminatory and harmful policy.

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UPDATE (12/4): Compounding their previous withholding of wages and stipends, Columbia University’s HR Department sent an email on December 2nd to striking student workers in SWC threatening to withhold their teaching and research appointments or replace them permanently if they do not break the strike by December 10th. AAUPPenn stands in solidarity with Columbia’s student workers against this shameful (and likely illegal) threat of retaliation by the Columbia administration, and we support the 3,000+ SWC members holding the line into the sixth week of their strike—the largest strike in the U.S. at this time.

We are heartened to see colleagues at Columbia responding to the University’s threat by organizing a faculty-led walkout and rally on Monday, December 6th at 12:30pm at the Sundial (see below), and we continue to urge faculty to join the picket line and take a stand against these retaliatory tactics.

Since student workers already struggled to pay rent on earnings from Columbia that are well below the living wage in New York City (the lowest grad stipend, adjusted for cost of living, of 10 of Columbia’s peer institutions), and those on strike are facing withheld wages and threats to their livelihoods, we urge all colleagues who can afford it to contribute to SWC’s Hardship Fund.

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ADDITIONAL UPDATE (12/7): In response to Columbia’s retaliatory threat (in violation of the National Labor Relations Act; see 29 USC §163) against student workers engaged in protected concerted labor action, SWC members are asking all supporters (including those at other institutions) to sign this letter to save Columbia teachers’ and researchers’ jobs. We encourage our colleagues at Penn and everywhere to sign and everyone in the area to join the picket line and support student workers’ strike for a fair contract.

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AAUP–Penn warmly congratulates our friends in Penn Museum Workers United on winning their NLRB election and gaining certification for their union in August 2021. Non-professional Museum employees in PMWU voted in favor of joining AFSCME District Council 47, together with the recently formed Philadelphia Museum of Art Union in the Museum and Cultural Workers Local 397. We wish them all the best!

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