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Dear Colleagues,  

I know many of you are as horrified, hurt, and angry as I am as police officers continue to abuse their authority and murder Blacks for simply living their lives.  

The COVID-19 pandemic coupled with brutal attacks and state violence resulting in the murders of Black people have brought white supremacy, anti-Black racism, and systemic racism back into the public gaze. But this time it is different and it must be different. Across the country and throughout California, the call is loud to end – once and for all – white supremacy culture, systemic racism, anti-Black racism, and killing of Black people.  

As a follow-up to CFA’s statement on the murder of George Floyd, the union is laying out a set of demands and justifications for those that center on redress for systemic anti-Black racism in the CSU.  Read the calls to action here.  We are purposefully centering demands around Black issues.  However, we want to make clear that as we deepen and extend our Anti-Racism Social Justice work, we will attend to the specific needs of the particular communities we serve rather than subsuming these under a general category like “people of color.”  We will continue to work in this vein, drawing upon the wisdom and voices of CFA’s Caucuses that are associated with the Council for Racial and Social Justice to address their particular conditions and needs.    

CFA is calling on all of us to seize this moment to begin the work for the systemic change that is needed:
  • Value Black lives.
  • Uphold rights to protest anti-Black racism.
  • Protect Black LGBTQIA+.
  • Defund and remove armed, militarized policing from our campuses.
  • Support the Ethnic Studies requirement Assembly Bill 1460.
  • Resource/establish Black Studies Departments and Black Student/Resource Centers on each campus.
  • Provide free tuition for Black, Native, and Indigenous students.
  • Prioritize resources for mental health counseling, including Black counselors.
  • Establish and resource programs for criminal justice system-impacted students.
  • Implement racial pay equity.
  • Recognize and reward the scholarship/creative works of Black faculty.
  • Relieve cultural taxation of Black faculty.
  • Transform the leadership of the CSUs so that it is truly representative of the communities served by the CSU.    

This document, composed by a dozen member leaders with substantial engagement by Black officers and leaders, is intended to further and deepen CFA’s Anti-Racism and Social Justice Transformation in this historic moment when a spotlight has been cast upon systemic anti-Black racism, the brutality of state violence against Black people, and the deadly persistence of white supremacist hatred of Black people.    CFA is firmly committed to our program of anti-racism and social justice; there is no going back.  

It’s time to rewrite and then honor The Social Contract. We look forward to your support and your actions in doing so.    


In union,

Charles Toombs, Ph.D.
President, California Faculty Association
Professor
Department of Africana Studies
San Diego State University