STATEMENT FROM THE CHAIR OF THE UCLA MASTER OF SOCIAL SCIENCE PROGRAM

May 4, 2024

I write in my capacity as faculty chair of the UCLA Master of Social Science (MaSS) program to condemn the horrific violence that has taken place on our campus this week as a direct result of the actions of UCLA Chancellor Gene D. Block. Alongside outraged faculty, staff, students, and alumni, I call for Chancellor Block’s immediate resignation, and I demand that the campus address the crisis of confidence in the competence and moral decency of those charged with leading our institution.

The events of the past days are now well-known, and the facts recounted here are not in question. On the night of April 30, our students were violently attacked by a vigilante mob. UCLA leadership sat by idly, allowing a brutal assault to rage for nearly five hours. The next day, UCLA leadership authorized police to violently overtake the Palestine Solidarity Encampment our students had built on Royce Quad and arrest hundreds of members of the UCLA community.

Rather than protecting students from violence, Chancellor Block bears responsibility for student harm that is a direct result of his reckless action, and shameful inaction. On April 30, Chancellor Block characterized the tactics of student protesters as “shocking and shameful,” denouncing students, without evidence, for their role in vaguely referenced “instances of violence.” On these specious grounds, Chancellor Block began mobilizing law enforcement against students while threatening them with expulsion. Just hours after Chancellor Block’s statements, a group of attackers entered campus armed with bats, chemical sprays, and other weapons. The attackers stormed the encampment and brutalized our students. Security officers hired by the university watched from the sidelines as students were beaten. Hour after hour the assault on students continued, but UCLA leadership was nowhere to be found.

The following day, students were in evident pain. Our entire community was in shock. Many students were injured in the violence of the night before. Where was Chancellor Block? Apparently working with police on a plan to dismantle the encampment by using weapons and brute force to subdue our students. The plan was executed on May 1. More of our students were injured. Hundreds were arrested.

In the hours and days since this astounding betrayal of our students, these events have been viewed around the world. The damage to UCLA’s reputation may be irreparable. If UCLA fails to act immediately in removing Chancellor Block, it will abdicate forever its claim to being a great university, a public serving university.

On behalf of all our students, I will not stand idly by as our institution is destroyed. Still, I can imagine at this very moment, just days after the brutal assault on our students, UCLA leadership is hoping this will all just blow over, that campus will return to business-as-usual. This will not happen—this cannot happen. Our students are deeply shaken. Their faith in UCLA has been shattered. Students cannot be expected to attend to their studies when their basic safety is not protected. And students should not be expected to bury their heads in books when they see their peers beaten for hours by an angry mob and then watch as fellow students are abandoned to the police.

The entire UCLA community is in pain right now. As chair of a professional master’s degree program that enrolls an exceptionally diverse student body, I know from personal experience how profoundly UCLA leadership’s failure has affected our students, particularly the most vulnerable in our community. Our program, like many at UCLA, includes a significant number of international students. Many of these students make unimaginable financial sacrifices to attend UCLA. Their families entrust UCLA to protect their students’ safety while studying thousands of miles away. UCLA has broken that trust, thrusting students into a terrifying condition of precarity in which they can no longer trust that UCLA is a place where basic rights will be protected. Other students in our program will graduate saddled with student loan debt they will be paying off for years and years to come. How will UCLA compensate these students for allowing their education to be called to a screeching halt because their basic safety cannot be assured?

I join with faculty across the campus in calling for Chancellor Gene Block’s immediate resignation. He is unfit for his position. I join further in calls for an immediate guarantee of amnesty for student protesters. Finally, I demand that UCLA immediately commit to covering all legal and medical fees incurred by victims of the mob violence and police assaults and arrests.

The road to recovery is long and uncertain. On behalf of our students, I remind you that there simply is no time to wait.

Yours,

Dr. Juliet A. Williams