UNITY STATEMENTS

UNF stands in unity and solidarity with all members of our community, regardless of race, gender, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, disability, or country of origin. We are proud of the diversity in our students, faculty and staff.

We strongly condemn acts of hate and bigotry as antithetical to the university’s core values of mutual respect and civility. Actions and words that seek to deny human beings full membership in the broader moral community on the basis of arbitrary characteristics are intolerable. We stand opposed to violence in language or in action, and we see these as a threat to the mission of UNF as a public university that is committed to intellectual and cultural growth and civic awareness.

We pledge to stand with and for those who are the most vulnerable members of our community and to take actions that help our students and fellow employees feel safe and know that they are safe. We affirm UNF’s unreserved commitment to student success within a diverse, supportive campus culture. We seek to embody the ideals of a free and democratic society, and we fully support and value each member of our community.

Our chapter of UFF-UNF is saddened by the escalating violence and racially-motivated murders occurring within the United States. This escalation has occurred partially because of recent developments, including racist rhetoric surrounding COVID-19 and the ongoing trade war with China. In particular, we want to address and call attention to the 3,800 hate incidents targeting Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) that have been reported within the United States since March 2020 as well as the mass killing of 6 Asian American women in Atlanta, the murders of Vicha Ratanapakdee, Juanito Falcon, Angelo Quinto, and Christian Hall. 

We need to acknowledge that this racially-motivated violence against AAPI community members is NOT a recent occurrence and is rooted in a long history of violence, discrimination, and exclusion against individuals of AAPI descent within the United States. This history includes but is not limited to anti-immigration policies targeting AAPI individuals and internment during World War II. As an inclusive campus, we must work to challenge the erasure of AAPI people and the categorization of AAPI as outsiders.

Two-thirds of AAPI violence targets women, and we would be remiss if we did not further point out that the most recent murder of Asian American women is yet another instance of violence against women. In order to understand and respond to this horrific act, we need to understand and work to dismantle the specific types of racialized sexism and stereotypes that affect AAPI women in the U.S. It is incumbent upon us to examine how racism and sexism can intersect and amplify one another. This statement from UFF-UNF is in support and solidarity with our AAPI faculty, staff, students, and community members.

We recognize that words can only do so much and we acknowledge the experiences of faculty at the university. We urge UNF to continue to make a real institutional change by continuing an honest, open, and uncomfortable dialogue and revisiting institutional practices that reinforce structural racism and inequality.

There are many things that we can do:

• We urge you to educate yourself about current and historical hate towards AAPI community members.
• We urge you to broaden your spheres of influence to include people of different races. Use social media to follow non-White people on issues of racism or other issues in your discipline. Listen. Learn from them and cite them.
• Affirming the experiences of AAPI members of UNF in no way minimizes the experiences of any other marginalized group among us. And whether they are aware of it or not, white individuals benefit from racialized traumas and inequities that manifest in hurt, oppression, and discrimination across multiple ethnic communities. We must examine and challenge whiteness to dismantle racism. There is no way to do this work without feeling uncomfortable. That discomfort is a sign of the cognitive dissonance that is a precursor to genuine personal change and eventual institutional change. We all need to think of racism and social injustice beyond individual discriminative acts and shift our understanding of racism to a more structural and institutional view of systemic inequities.
• As your local UFF chapter, we are committed to champion and defend anti-racist faculty scholarship, pedagogy, and service and defend faculty academic freedom against censorship. This includes but is not limited to addressing the problems of biased and punitive ISQs as well as reevaluating the value ascribed to activities that are more likely to be undertaken by individuals from minoritized groups.

As the UFF chapter of UNF, we stand in solidarity with our AAPI  faculty, staff, and students and will use our guaranteed right to collectively bargain to make positive changes in the university.

3/18/21

In honor of LGBTQ History Month and in response to the deeply disturbing threats received by the UNF LGBTQ Center, we want to provide a statement of support and solidarity with LGBTQIA+ Faculty, Staff, and Students. 

Solidarity with LGBTQIA+ Faculty, Staff, and Students:

We were saddened and disturbed by news of the cancellation of UNF’s LGBTQ Center’s Pride Fest due to violent, threatening messages on the UNF LGBTQ Center’s TikTok account as reported in this Spinnaker article. We appreciate Interim President Pamela Chally’s statement to the Osprey Community affirming UNF’s values. UFF-UNF stands in solidarity with UNF’s LGBTQIA+ community and encourages our members to support the ongoing efforts of UNF’s LGBTQ Center to ensure that our campus is a welcoming and safe place for LGBTQIA+ students, staff, and faculty.

Reaffirmation of UFF-UNF Statements Against Guns on Campus:

The specific nature of the TikTok comments (threatening gun violence) as reported by the Spinnaker also call for a reaffirmation of UFF-UNF’s statements and reasoning for opposing guns on campus, alongside the resolution by UNF’s Faculty Association.

10/8/21

By now you have seen numerous statements come out from multiple institutions, including the University of North Florida, many of the colleges at the University of North Florida, and the United Faculty of Florida. As the local UNF chapter of UFF, we wanted to elaborate on these statements. While we recognize that words can only do so much, we must acknowledge the experiences of faculty at the university and begin an honest, open, and uncomfortable dialogue as the next step towards creating real institutional change.

• We ask you to consider the five people who most influence your opinions. Do they all look like you? Consider your mentors and proteges? Do they all look like you? These are our spheres of influence, and they are often racially homogeneous. Empirical data supports that contact is an effective way to reduce racism and encourage systemic change. Broaden your spheres of influence to include people of different races. Use social media to follow Black thinkers–on issues of racism or other issues in your discipline. Listen. Learn from them and cite them.
• Affirming the experiences of Black members of UNF in no way minimizes the experiences of any other marginalized group among us. Although experiences may be unique depending on marginalized status, we highlight specifically racialized trauma and inequities in this statement. And whether they are aware of it or not, white individuals benefit from racialized traumas and inequities that manifest in hurt, oppression, and discrimination. Dismantling racism and white supremacy will not only involve learning about Black history and experience–it also must involve examining and eventually challenging whiteness. There is no way to do this work without feeling uncomfortable. That discomfort is a sign of the cognitive dissonance that is a precursor to genuine personal change and eventual institutional change. We all need to think of racism and social injustice beyond individual discriminative acts and shift our understanding of racism to a more structural and institutional view of systemic inequities.
• Our members include people who have inherited multi-generation trauma from centuries of oppression, hate, violence, and ignorance. Sometimes this pain is visible, sometimes it is invisible. Those of us who are not Black–including other people of color–can never truly know the extent of the pain that our Black faculty, staff, and students have inherited or experienced personally.
• Some of these experiences, ranging from micro-aggressions to explicit anti-Blackness, have occurred at UNF. Our colleagues, students, and staff who are not white are more likely to not feel safe on campus. They have reported their feelings in the UNF campus climate survey, and those concerns have not been adequately addressed. This problem is both national and hyper-local and it needs to be addressed in both arenas. It is incumbent upon non-Black faculty to educate ourselves and our students about anti-racism and the Black experience in America. It is not the job of Black faculty to do this work for us. We are all responsible for changing the culture–especially those of us who are in less vulnerable positions within the university.
• We amplify UFF’s call for Law Enforcement, especially those who are fellow union members, to reevaluate their contracts and policies in order to hold accountable those who perpetuate the cycle of violence against Black people. We expect they will overhaul the current system that unconsciously and systematically targets Black people. 
• Our Black faculty and staff experience job insecurity because they are asked to engage a disproportionate amount of emotional and mentorship labor, which is essential for the functioning of the university, but is not valued by the university in terms of promotion, tenure, and advancement. We urge the university to rethink the value that Black faculty and staff bring to the university through these types of activities and how these activities take time away from the activities traditionally valued in promotion, tenure, and advancement. We must find a way to count this seen and unseen labor towards promotion in order to retain and recruit Black faculty and staff that our university needs in order to grow as an institution and reflect the diversity of the region we serve.
• UNF is a Carnegie Community Engaged Institution that serves the Jacksonville community. We urge the university to utilize the power and wealth of the university to advance equity within the community. This essential community-engaged research, scholarship, and service by faculty is often done by historically marginalized groups. This work requires building trust within these communities and this takes time and resources and may challenge existing methodological paradigms.
• Following President Szymanski’s Message Regarding Racial Injustice and UNF’s stated commitment to anti-racist education, we will champion and defend anti-racist faculty scholarship and pedagogy. This type of work asks difficult questions that might make some of our students or colleagues uncomfortable, but we recognize it as part of the necessary work of challenging structural racism. We commit to defend faculty academic freedom against censorship and continue the work begun by the Faculty Enhancement Committee and Faculty Affairs Committee to address the problems of biased and punitive ISQs.

As the UFF chapter of UNF, we stand in solidarity with our Black faculty, staff, and students and will use our guaranteed right to collectively bargain to make positive changes in the university.

6/19/2020