Solidarity with UW students suspended for protesting the genocide of Palestinians
From Kshama Sawant:
Workers Strike Back and I stand in solidarity with the University of Washington students who have been unjustly retaliated against for protesting against the brutal genocide of the Palestinian people.
Workers Strike Back and I are opposed to all the repressive actions that have been carried out against UW students by the university administration, including the police brutality, suspensions, and the loss of degrees, jobs, housing, and financial aid. Workers Strike Back has donated $300 to the GoFundMe to support the students.
As part of building a united mass struggle of students and working people against the genocide, I and Workers Strike Back and I are joining those demanding that the UW administration rescind all retaliatory actions that they have taken against anti-genocide protesters.
We encourage our supporters to take the following actions:
Sign the petition: https://tinyurl.com/defenduw33
Call and email the UW administration to demand they rescind all retaliatory actions against anti-genocide protesters:
Office of President Robert Jones: 206-543-5010, president@uw.edu
Community Standards & Conduct Office: 206-685-6194
Civil Rights Compliance Office: 206-221-7932
UW Regents: regents@uw.edu
Donate to the GoFundMe to help pay for legal and medical fees and other expenses for the unjustly suspended UW students: https://www.gofundme.com/f/super-uw-support-students-community-members
The genocide in Gaza has included a horrific mass starvation campaign, all of which has been carried out by the Israeli state with the full backing of both the Democratic and Republican parties in the United States. There are estimates of half a million Palestinians, including many children, killed in the past two years.
We must fight to end the genocide and end the long-running Israeli oppression of Palestinians and occupation of Palestinian lands. This means we need a general strike in the United States, in addition to mass strikes and mass civil disobedience. Crucially, it also means building mass movements with leadership independent of both the Democratic and Republican parties.
American Corporations like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and RTX (formerly Raytheon) are profiting massively from selling the weapons Israel is using to carry out this mass slaughter. UW students were absolutely correct to stand against the university administration’s cozy relationship with the executives and major shareholders of Boeing, a company that is complicit in the genocide.
The repression against UW students is part of a wider attack on antiwar protesters that aims to quell the resistance to U.S. imperialism. Hundreds of students and workers at multiple university campuses, including Columbia and CUNY, have faced retaliation, including suspensions, expulsions, firings, and arrests.
My husband Calvin Priest, the political director of my Congressional campaign and an elected leader in Workers Strike Back, was arrested for peacefully protesting the genocide at a July public town hall hosted by pro-genocide Democratic Congressman Adam Smith. Smith has shamelessly continued to slander Calvin. Smith has called antiwar protesters “leftwing fascists” and demanded their arrest. Smith is one of the many Democrats who have voted for tens of billions of dollars to bankroll Israel’s genocide. He also repeatedly voted to block United Nations food aid to Gaza. He also voted to create ICE, and has voted to fund ICE and the detention centers.
To end the genocide and fight the repression of antiwar activists, we need actions like the general strike of millions of workers and union members in Italy, called in solidarity with arrested Global Sumud Flotilla activists. Italian dockworkers have refused to load military cargo headed for Israel. Union leaders in the U.S. should be calling similar actions to build for a general strike. Unfortunately, most top union leaders are tied at the hip to the pro-genocide Democratic and Republican parties.
We need fighting leaders independent of these two genocidal parties who can call mass protests and strike action to stop the attacks on Palestinians, immigrants, antiwar protesters, workers, and oppressed people everywhere, and fight to win real victories for working people.
I am running to defeat genocidal Democrat Adam Smith and become the first-ever revolutionary socialist elected to the U.S. Congress. Our campaign is fighting to end all U.S. military funding to the Israeli state, to stop the deportations, to shut down the detention centers, and to shut down ICE. We are fighting for free healthcare for all funded by taxing the rich, for national rent control, and for a national $25/hour minimum wage.
If elected to the U.S. Congress, I will use the same fighting strategy my fellow socialists and I used when I was a Seattle City Councilmember for ten years, between 2014 and 2024. By using my elected office to build independent movements of working and young people, we defeated the billionaires and the Democratic Party and we won the nation’s highest minimum wage in Seattle, the Amazon Tax that raises hundreds of millions of dollars annually for affordable housing, free abortion in Seattle, and unprecedented renters’ rights.
