Editor’s note: This letter remains in the condition in which it was sent.
Letter to the UB Spectrum, 1 July 2024
From: Buffalo SUNY BDS** (**SUNY BDS is not affiliated with SUNY or NYS)
Contact: Maureen, sunybuffalo.bds@gmail.com
Tripathi and Weber need to resign now.
The UB President and Provost are either too incompetent or too lazy to continue to lead the University at Buffalo. This is clear, after recent results of the CAS faculty confidence vote showing a majority do not have confidence in Tripathi nor Weber. The atrocious mishandling of recent protests on campus only proves this point further. The shameful and horrific police violence that occurred on May 1st against pro-Palestine, anti-genocide protesters, is not something we can let the administration shirk responsibility for. After UB’s gross mishandling of the May 1st protests, our campus community publicly condemned the administration: the Faculty Senate passed a resolution denouncing the police violence, as well as a condemnation from UB Law School Faculty, the editorial board of the Spectrum, a group of alumni, and individual faculty, staff, and students.
After months of protesting, and trying our best to reach the UB administration, all we got from them was a statement about not even considering divestment. The day before the May 1st protest, administration changed the rules regarding what could and could not take place during campus protests; it was clear what voices they did not want people to hear. The administration set up a situation where we’d either have to give up our right to meaningfully assemble or face a possible police response. Most non-Palestine protests that have taken place on campus over the past couple of years have lasted past sundown. Buffalo SUNY BDS has many people in its leadership who have also organized those protests, and not once was the issue of past sundown protests ever mentioned. Now that we are protesting the UB administration, rather than speakers or clubs, we face these issues.
It is absolutely fascistic behavior displayed by the UB administration (with their police tools carrying out their orders) against people exercising their right to express themselves. Campus protests are as old as campuses. If college administrators don't know how to handle this, they must go. The UB president has not once entered into a dialog with the students who have been advocating for divestment from “Israel” for over 6 months! Instead, Tripathi reaches for the phone to call his goons in to brutalize and intimidate.
UB President Tripathi and Provost Weber can no longer claim the institution they run is a place for open communication and dialog. They can no longer claim it’s inclusive or welcoming to all.
To Tripathi and Weber: Stop using the excuse of the “outside agitator” trope, the language of white supremacy, applied to almost every righteous campus movement in history, because you do not have the motivation, nor the desire to meaningfully engage with students who have real and compelling concerns. Students do not want their school to contribute to a genocide.
Although many charges have been dropped, UB refuses to drop all of them. For Buffalo SUNY BDS, the looming threat of this happening again will follow us into the Fall semester, but we are more determined now than ever. Your suppression will not stop us from speaking out in support of the Palestinian people.
Step down NOW, UB President Tripathi and Provost Weber!!
**SUNY BDS is not affiliated with SUNY or NYS
