Dear Chancellor Reyes,
Firstly, the University of Massachusetts Young Communist League would like to extend a sincere congratulations to you for your inauguration as chancellor of UMass Amherst. As you eloquently put in your remarks at the ceremony, this event didn’t just mark your official assumption of the role but was also symbolically “the inauguration of the next chapter of our university … start[ing] the journey toward what our next decade looks like.”
We couldn’t help but notice that your inauguration ceremony featured an acknowledgement of the fact that UMass was built on the land of Indigenous peoples, and you take pride in the fact that our campus is now home to the National Science Foundation’s Center for Braiding Indigenous Knowledges and Science. Understanding that UMass operates on stolen land, possessed by the state of Massachusetts only by right of military conquest and genocide of Native Americans, we question why you are so hesitant to engage with the Popular University for Gaza’s politics of decolonization and right of return.
Of course, hesitancy is not exactly the right term for how your administration responded to the Popular University — aggression would be more accurate. Shortly after the encampment was established, administrators notified organizers and participants that it had to be disassembled or face forced dispersal and potential arrest by police, as well as University-level sanctions for violation of the Student Code of Conduct. In your email, you framed this as participants “peacefully dismantling” our own demonstration.
Considering your administration is marking a new chapter at UMass, we feel it is necessary to remind you of some events that took place in our previous chapters before your appointment as our new chancellor. Last year, our campus was filled with anxiety about housing; hundreds of students who requested housing appointments were notified that the University could not grant them accommodation. On top of this was the construction of the Fieldstone apartment complex, which is billed as “student housing,” but charges market rent paid to property development and management companies, not UMass. There were several other reasons for this discontent, which continues to this day — this is why universal housing and a housing guarantee was included in the demands of the Popular University encampment.
To demonstrate this unrest and what the future of housing might look like if UMass doesn’t expand and improve its on-campus residential infrastructure, student organizations including the Young Communist League, Young Democratic Socialists, Prison Abolition Collective and more came together and built the first Campout for Housing. Last year’s campout was not authorized in any way, shape or form by UMass administration, and yet it was a completely peaceful overnight demonstration with a community forum and live music. For many students it was a highlight of their time at UMass, showing what our student community can look like when we take this campus into our own hands.
It must be emphasized that at no point did the UMass Police Department order last year’s encampment to disperse. Police certainly showed up in notable numbers, patrolling the lawn and speaking with police liaisons; in fact, officers expressed sympathy for the demonstration, understanding the difficulty of the housing situation. Of course, we are not allied with UMPD, but they established a precedent. Again, this precedent was set as recently as last year (not to mention the numerous protest occupations that have taken place without this level of repression in past decades). Police did not intervene, and the encampment carried out in peace. In fact, organizers began planning a second encampment for April 2024 shortly after the 2023 encampment wrapped up because it went so well.
Two things are different in April 2024 than in April 2023. Firstly, we have a new administration. Not only do we have a new chancellor, but many administrative positions — from vice-chancellors to deans to everything in between — have been filled by new hires. It goes without saying that this administration clearly has a different attitude to unauthorized land use for political reasons than the Subbaswamy administration, and other previous ones did.
Second, the 2024 encampment was not just established to protest the housing crisis. This year’s encampment, in addition to building off the Campout for Housing, was an iteration of the Popular Universities for Gaza which are currently sweeping university campuses across not just the United States, but the whole world. The demands this time were not limited to a single crisis; at the top of the list in 2024 is divestment, which the University has already explicitly refused to accept.
The experience of two encampments on the same lawn, one year apart, could not be more different. In 2023, the police stood at arm’s length, and in 2024, with Palestine at the forefront, administrators and police were almost immediately brought in to coerce the encampment into dispersal. Chancellor Reyes, how can you not see this hypocrisy? When you speak of your administration being “the next chapter of our university,” what do you want this chapter to look like? Do you want students to be free to practice the revolutionary legacy this University claims to treasure, or do you intend to write your legacy as one of repression?
We urge you to reflect on how your administration has approached the movement for Palestine at UMass and, in particular, to allow the Popular University for Gaza to re-establish itself — tents and all — on the campus pond lawn. This demonstration has roots going back beyond the ongoing genocide in Palestine and beyond the current crisis of free speech taking place on university campuses in the U.S. Since 1948, the people of Palestine have faced forced displacement, occupation and apartheid; commitment to the cause demands a level of engagement which acknowledges the severity and urgency of their struggle.
Last year, student organizers proved that we could hold a peaceful encampment where our cause is visible for all to see. We have a proud history of civil disobedience, and this tradition will not end with us. As the struggle for a free Palestine continues, so do our struggles for housing, accessibility, affordability and importantly, democratization.
This is how students have chosen to use our voice; do you want to be the chancellor who silences us?
Signed,
UMass Young Communist League
