132 academics and researchers, specialists in Latin American Studies and Latino/a Studies, signed on to a letter in support of the 27 students who are currently facing charges for student activism at the Autonomous University of Honduras-UNAH campuses. Three of those students have been convicted and await sentencing for non-violent protest. Academics are asking for University to drop charges against all students, especially 3 of the students already convicted: Moises David Caceres Velasquez, Sergio Luis Ulloa Rivera, and Cesario Alejandro Felix Padilla.
Students have been protesting the UNAH authorities since last year, 2016, seeking a voice on their campus reforms, which should include free and open student elections. Students seek to build a participatory and democratic system of shared governance to oversee changes to their curriculum and grading practices, as well as student elections, improvements to their major curriculums as well transparency in local campus reforms. Their non violent form of protest has involved marches and building take-overs, unarmed, for which they have been tear gassed, persecuted, held in constant surveillance, and have had direct intimidation from military units, such as the Cobra Unit, military police, anti-riot police and private security systems linked to the state, who have physically assaulted students.
The UNAH is the largest University in Honduras boasting 80,000 students, with regional satellite campuses throughout the nation and serving mostly working poor students, but open to students of all economic brackets. It is a public and an autonomous institution of higher learning, which claims to have shared-governance and lead itself without state or military intervention.
The full letter follows:
TO: Lic. Julieta Castellanos
Rector of the Autonomous University of Honduras, UNAH
Blvd. Suyapa, Ciudad Universitaria, Tegucigalpa, MDC, Honduras
We, the undersigned faculty members urge you and the administration of UNAH to drop the charges against student protestors: Moises David Caceres Velasquez, Sergio Luis Ulloa Rivera y Cesario Alejandro Felix Padilla, who were engaged in non-violent civil disobedience to call attention to needed reforms that include student voice and participation on campuses across the nation.
We call for solidarity with students on a hunger strike, among their demands the following: to end criminalization and judicial processes against students and to conduct legitimate and fair student elections in the UNAH. We also understand that students are dissatisfied with the university leadership and are seeking a recall of the administration because of their failure to dialogue and for their top-down politics of criminalizing their own student body. Recently, the father of Andres Gomez was killed after attending his son's judicial hearing. We call for a full investigation and prosecution of those culpable for this murder.
Students are not our enemies, they are our future. The rising politics of terror facing student protestors in Honduras, where militarization of the various UNAH campuses throughout the nation is becoming a standard response by administration under your leadership, harkens back to the 1980s violence. Students are receiving death threats, persecution and surveillance for standing up for their rights. Your very own intellectual work on the 1980s argues against militarization because it is not an avenue for progress. We would add that militarization and criminalization of our youth are not fruitful to building participatory democracy.
As educators we see the value of protest in helping students develop their own identity and voice and helping them develop into productive members of our society that seeks to build a participatory democracy, an aim for which Hondurans have been working since the 1980s.
Students' rights to protest should be a protected form of expression, a rite of passage, a form of building an active citizenship and a voice around national and even world affairs. In and out of the classrooms, we must encourage students to be critical and dialogical members of society and not just passive receptacles of knowledge.
We hope that a fruitful dialogue can take place among you, University authorities and students, so that an effective, constructive and collaborative University reform, which includes student voices, may be achieved.
We urge you to drop the charges against the 27 students, including those named above, to dialogue and reach an agreement that can open up the classrooms, where all students feel reflected.
Sincerely the undersigned,
Richard Stahler-Sholk, PhD Eastern Michigan University
Piya Chatterjee PhD Scripps College
Mario Pecheny PhD Universidad de Buenos Aires
Paul Espinosa PhD Arizona State University
Leisy Abrego PhD UCLA
Kency Cornejo PhD University of New Mexico
Pablo Gonzalez PhD University of California Berkeley
Michelle Watts PhD University of Southern Mississippi
Aaron Pollack PhD Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropologia Social (CIESAS)-Sureste
Richard Grossman PhD Northeastern Illinois University
Marc Zimerman PhD Emeritus, U. of Houston, U. of Illinois at Chicago
Maria Mendez PhD University of Minnesota
Rodolfo Rosales PhD Retired from University of Texas of San Antonio
Suyapa Portillo PhD Pitzer College
Alfonso Gonzales PhD University of California Riverside
Leece Lee Oliver PhD California State University Fresno
Kimberly Drake PhD Scripps College
Jorge Ramon Gonzalez Ponciano PhD Stanford University
Katy Pinto PhD California State University Dominguez Hills
Aurelia Lorena Murga PhD The University of Texas at El Paso
Estela Ballon PhD California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
Javier Arbona PhD University of California, Davis
Katherine Hoyt PhD Alliance for Global Justice
Victoria Sanford PhD Lehman College, City University of New York
Samantha Fox PhD Binghamton University
Elena Shih PhD Brown University
Lilian Davila PhD University of California Merced
Joanna Perez PhD California State University Dominguez Hills
Claudia Arteaga PhD Scripps College
Rosalyn Negron PhD UMass Boston
X. Banales PhD California State University
Jih-Fei Cheng PhD Scripps College
Harry E. Vanden PhD University of South Florida
Laura J Enriquez PhD University of California at Berkeley
Eric Vazquez PhD Dickinson College
Holmfridur Gardarsdottir PhD Universidad de Islandia
Maria Socorro Tabuenca PhD-C The University of Texas at El Paso
Carla Gomes PhD-C Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
Ariana Stickel PhD-C University of Arizona
Mara Aubel PhD University of Kansas
Molly Todd PhD Montana State University
Raquel I. Drovetta PhD CONICET-Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas
Ellie Walsh PhD GOVERNORS STATE UNIVERSITY
David Close PhD Memorial University of Newfoundland
Christopher Perreira PhD University of Kansas
Matthew J Countryman PhD University of Michigan
Edward Murphy PhD Michigan State University
Pite Rebekah PhD Lafayette College
Christopher Loperena MS University of San Francisco (USA)
Jose Rubio-Zepeda PhD University of Texas at Austin
Gloria Chacon PhD University of California San Diego
Sandra Haley PhD Brown University
Steven Osuna PhD California State University, Long Beach
Christine Wade PhD Washington College
Patricia Ornelas-Moya Otro California State University of Los Angeles
Griselda Martinez Otro California State University, Northridge
Dalesy Casasola PhD California State University Los Angeles
Joo Ok Kim MA University of Kansas
Bernabe Rodriguez PhD California State University Long Beach
Alicia Estrada PhD California State University, Northridge
Brenda Cruz MA California State University, Los Angeles
Olivia Jaffe-Pachuilo Otro San Diego State University
Tamara Favors PhD University of California Merced
Thelma Jimenez-Anglada PhD Lawrence University
Vernor Arguedas PhD Universidad de Costa Rica
K. Myers PhD C University of California, Mercer
Beezer de Martelly PhD University of California, Berkeley
Carmen Caamano PhD Universidad de Costa Rica
Rosemary L Lee Otro Retired
Emelyne Camacho Otro California State University Long Beach
Hector Fuentes MPA California State University, Northridge
Walter Abrego PhD Texas Tech University
Jorge Moraga MA California State University, Bakersfield
Rodolfo Rodriguez PhD University of California, Merced
Shannon Speed PhD UCLA
Adrienne Pine JD American University
Joseph Berra PhD University of California Los Angeles School of Law
Arely Zimmerman PhD Mills College
Ashley Lucas Otro University of Michigan
Christina Acosta PhD C University of California Merced
Amrah Salomon J. PhD C University of California, San Diego
Nalya Rodriguez PhD University of California Irvine
Guadalupe Bacio PhD Pomona College
Chris Zepeda-Millan MA University of California Berkeley
Fanny Garcia PhD Columbia University
Mita Banerjee MA Pitzer College
Esmeralda Garcia PhD University of California Irvine
Munia Bhaumik PhD Emory University
Salvador Vidal-Ortiz MA American University
Tricia Morgan PhD Pitzer College
Genevieve Carpio PhD UCLA
Sylvanna Falcon PhD University of California, Santa Cruz
Patricia Zavella PhD University of California
Beatriz Cruz Sotomayor Otro Universidad del Turabo
Alessandra Alvares PhD University of California Santa Cruz
Amalia Pallares PhD University of Illinois at Chicago
Mary Delgado Garcia PhD Scripps College
Ernesto Martinez Otro University of Oregon
Alvaro Huerta PhD California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
Cristina Serna PhD Colgate University
Shannon Gleeson Otro Cornell University
Kim YuneHie PhD UC Berkeley
Ralph Armbruster-Sandoval MS UC Santa Barbara
Clara E. Irazabal-Zurita, PhD University of Missouri - Kansas City
Genevieve Negron-Gonzales, PhD, University of San Francisco
Enrique Ochoa, PhD California State University, Los Angeles
Karma R. Chavez PhD University of Texas at Austin
Victor Silverman PhD Pomona College
Maria Cristina Morales PhD-C University of Texas at El Paso
Gabriela Arguedas Otro Universidad de Costa Rica
Andrea Gonzalez Otro California State University Long Beach
Hao Huang PhD Scripps College
Marta Bustillo PhD Universidad de Puerto Rico
Adriana Garriga-Lopez PhD Kalamazoo College
Monica Moreno Figueroa PhD University of Cambridge
Joan Simalchik PhD University of Toronto Mississauga
Kemy Oyarzun PhD Universidad de Chile
Joel Mercado-Diaz PhD The University of Chicago
Stacey Schlau PhD West Chester University
Elizabeth Maier PhD Colegio de la Frontera Norte
Maria Amelia Viteri PhD USFQ
Jack Spence PhD University of Massachusetts Boston
Karina Oliva Alvarado PhD UCLA
Heather Vrana PhD University of Florida
Emilie Bergmann PhD University of California, Berkeley
Liv Sovik PhD Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
Hillary Hiner PhD Universidad Diego Portales
Rosalind Bresnahan PhD California State University
Miguel Tinker Salas PhD Pomona College
Sonia Ticas PhD Linfield College
Dan Beeton Otro Center for Economic and Policy Research
