On Nov. 25, a demonstration was held by the Associated Student Union at Contra Costa College, bringing awareness to the tragedies occurring in Gaza, the lack of acknowledgment of the identities of Middle Eastern and North African students, and CCC professor Asad Kabir, who was put on administrative leave for sending emails about Palestine and Israel to all faculty and staff.
One event organizer, Middle College student Sophie Khouri, also one of the founders and the president of the Middle Eastern/North African Student Union, also known as the MENA club, spoke at the demonstration. Khouri explained that she created MENA when the attacks on Gaza began because of her Palestinian background.
“I couldn’t stay silent knowing that I’m Palestinian and decided to use my identity to spread awareness about what’s happening in Gaza,” said Khouri.
Khouri highlighted the lack of Middle Eastern and North African representation at CCC in her discussion, explaining the absence of classes being provided by the ethnic studies department.
“At the time, our campus lacked any type of Arab representation. Under their ethnic studies department, CCC did not and still does not offer any Middle Eastern or North African studies courses,” said Khouri. “Under their history department, they seem to have classes covering every region of the world except for the one that we call home.”
Khouri also mentioned her experience with being forced to check white on surveys because there were no options for Middle Eastern and North African students to select that accurately represented how they identify.
District leaders addressed this during the September Governing Board meeting, when they discussed diversity reports for the district 2023-2024 fiscal year, which is a 12-month period where enrollment, diversity reports, and other specifics are tracked and reported.
This report included not only data from school students and faculty but also from district workers. The Associate Vice Chancellor and Chief of Human Resources Officer Dr. Jeffrey Michels did the diversity report reading during the Sept. 11 board meeting.
While reading off of the 4CD Population Comparison slide during his report, Michels addressed future additions to the existing list of categories for the surveys.
“There’s a lot of discussion around maybe adding some categories. Middle Eastern is one that we’ve been talking about a lot that’s not yet in this packet for you, but I think it will be before very long,” said Michels.
Students, faculty push back on professor’s suspension over Palestine emails
An article published by The Advocate on Nov. 21 uncovered that CCC philosophy and humanities professor Asad Kabir was put on administrative leave for sending a series of emails to all staff and faculty detailing his opinions on the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
Khouri discussed the district’s actions toward Kabir during her speech and, like many other students and faculty, argued that the district has been improperly enforcing its email policies.
“According to the district, it is against their policy to use emails for political purposes. However, this rule has not been enforced in the past,” said Khouri. “When there was discussion about the war in Ukraine, Black Lives Matter, and the 2022 protests in Iran there was no backlash, yet why was this matter handled differently?”
On November 21 an email with a petition regarding Kabir was sent to Chancellor Mojdeh Mehdizadeh and other members of the 4CD administration. The email and petition called for the reinstatement of Professor Kabir for the spring 2025 semester and an accessible designated forum where 4CD faculty and staff would be able to freely discuss important topics relating to social justice.
“Dear Chancellor Mojdeh Mehdizadeh,
We, the undersigned, write to express our deep concern regarding the administrative leave imposed on Professor Asad Kabir. We believe this action is disproportionate and contributes to the widespread suppression of speech against the genocide in Palestine throughout academia not only in California but around the United States and across the world, and thus it has a powerful negative impact on our community.
Disproportionate Response: We find the administration’s response to be excessive, particularly in light of the numerous instances of faculty and staff sharing personal announcements (1) on work email without facing similar consequences.
If the only rule broken was to keep announcements work-related and then to violate a cease and desist order with respect to this rule, then administrative leave is an extreme consequence that does not fit with our understanding of the district policy (2) and of how this policy has historically been enforced.
If the reason for placing Professor Kabir on administrative leave was the specific content of his messages, that is inherently political and is a violation of our agreed-upon value of free speech(3).
Restricting and censoring email content related to Palestine is discriminatory and grounded in Anti-Arab and Anti-Muslim racism.
Negative Impact on Students and 4CD Community: The negative impact of this disproportionate response cannot be overstated. Removing Professor Kabir from all 3 of his classes in week 11 of the semester is irresponsible and negatively impacts students (while 2 substitutes were hired, and 1 current adjunct faculty was assigned, this replacement of a professor at this time during the semester causes significant disruption). Restricting employees’ ability to use email listservs to communicate, with potential the consequence of administrative leave, has led to a culture of fear and intimidation.
Additionally, we believe that 4CD managers violated district hiring procedures when they bypassed the Humanities/Philosophy Department Chair and hired faculty to teach Professor Kabir’s 2 classes. These faculty were not interviewed nor approved by the department Chair, and the department Chair had no input on these decisions, nor was the Academic Senate President involved as is required by the contract (4).
We strongly urge the administration to reinstate Professor Asad Kabir to his position and restore email privileges before the Spring 2025 semester. Additionally, we call upon the administration in partnership with faculty and staff to create designated and accessible forums within the 4CD community where faculty and staff can openly discuss these and other matters of great importance to our community.
By taking these steps, the administration can demonstrate its commitment to academic freedom, free speech, and social justice.
References
(1) Collectively, the writers of this letter remember many instances over the last 15 or so years in which a wide range of social justice topics in addition to non-social justice topics that were discussed over email college- or district-wide in regards to Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ rights, DACA and undocumented students, Stop Asian Hate, women in Iran, etc. without restrictions in place by administrators to review and approve email content, and without colleagues being put on administrative leave.
(2) Email distribution lists implementation guidelines:
https://www.4cd.edu/gb/policies-procedures/guidelines/IG2012_01.pdf
(3) Philosophy statement: Value and Protection of Academic Freedom: https://www.4cd.edu/about/philosophy-statement.html
(4) Hiring procedures are written in the “4CD Uniform Employment Selection Guide”
(page 26) Appendix A-7, “Emergency Hiring for Part-time Instructors.” https://www.4cd.edu/gb/policies-procedures/hr/Uniform.pdf
Sincerely,
Members of 4CD Community including Faculty, Staff, Students, and community members:”
So far the petition has gained over 300 signatures from faculty, students and groups across multiple colleges, including CCC Academic Senate President Gabriela Segade, the 4CD Coalition of Faculty, Staff & Students for Peace and Justice, and Diablo Valley College President of Alpha Beta Gamma Business Honors Society Aitana Sahni.
When asked if the district had or would be responding to the petition, Michels explained that the district was unable to comment. However, he stated that the district would be treating the process with care.
“The District can not comment on personnel matters. A fair and thorough process is being followed.” said Michels in an email.
Along with calls for change, the petition also accused the district administration of following improper hiring procedures when finding replacement faculty to teach Kabir’s classes. The writers of the petition claim that neither the department chair nor the Academic Senate President were involved with decisions regarding the hiring process.
When the accusations regarding the violation of district hiring procedures from the email sent to Chancellor Mehdizadeh were mentioned, Michels cited the United Faculty Contract and the Uniform Selection Guide as relevant district policies.
“The District’s hiring policies for faculty are described in the United Faculty Contract and in the Uniform Selection Guide, which are both available on the 4CD website,” said Michels. “Whenever any faculty member needs a substitute for any reason, the District’s primary interest is in minimizing any negative impact on students.”
Appendix A-7 “Emergency Hiring for Part-time Instructors” from the 4CD Uniform Employment Selection Guide states that “The emergency procedure is to be used in the following cases: (1) an instructor becomes unavailable to teach at the last moment, or (2) additional sections are needed due to unusually large enrollment.”
The document also states that the college may hire under the Emergency hiring procedure if “Prior to the hiring, appropriate academic manager and or the department/sub-area chair (if available) and the Faculty Senate President (or designee) determine that the situation is an Emergency.” and “The hiring committee consists of at least one faculty member from the same or closely related discipline and either the Division Dean or department chair.”
The petition is still open and gaining signatures.
