Statement of Solidarity with #TheArizona3 from Gender and Women’s Studies at University of Arizona

April 4, 2019

Dear President Robbins, Provost Goldberg, UA Police Chief Seastone, and Dean Washington White:

We write as concerned, disappointed, and outraged members of the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Arizona. We object to the University’s treatment, investigation, and ongoing criminalization of Denisse Moreno and Mariel Alexandra Bustamante. As you know, these students were exercising their First Amendment right to free speech when they protested the triggering presence of armed and uniformed Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents in the UA’s Modern Languages building on March 19, 2019.

We understand that a third student, Marianna Ariel Coles-Curtis, was charged this afternoon for her alleged participation at the 03/19 protest. Rather than attempting to deflate the situation, then, it appears that the University of Arizona administration is continuing to allow the UAPD to criminalize the most vulnerable members of the UA community for exercising their First Amendment rights. In the meantime, The College Republicans is being allowed to go forward with their campus event tonight featuring Art Del Cueto, the controversial head of the local chapter of the National Border Patrol Council, and the leading figure who is calling upon Professor Robbins to investigate and punish the students.

In protesting armed CBP presence on campus, these students demonstrated an immense capacity for critical thought and action as well as moral courage. The ability to see a micro-moment within its larger, abstract context is a skill only enhanced by an education at the University of Arizona. It is in this vein that the protesters cast the presence of Border Patrol within a context larger than the Modern Languages Building, when they asked: Who is made safe by ongoing raids, family separation, racial profiling, and strategies of death and deterrence practiced along the US-Mexico border?

We support our students’ right to be and feel safe on campus, regardless of their citizenship and immigration status. Furthermore, we insist on the inseparability of “protest” and “disruption.” The most significant democratic changes in United States History have occurred precisely because concerned groups of people have disrupted business-as-usual. We view these student protests as an opportunity for the University to make meaningful changes to ensure that our campus is welcoming and supportive of all students, staff, faculty, families, and communities that we serve as a land-grant university.

President Robbins, we understand that over the past 48 hours you have gone on record as saying that because Moreno and Bustamante have already been officially charged by UAPD and have already been summoned to appear in Pima County Court on April 22, 2019, this matter is now out of your hands and that it is now a matter to be decided by Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall. We strongly disagree that the matter is out of your hands. There are a number of things that UA administrators can do; as members of the Tucson community and members of the Department of Gender & Women’s Studies, we call on you to do the following:

1. Act to ensure that all charges are dropped.

2. End all punitive actions taken on behalf of the University against the students;

3. Cease the Dean of Students’ investigation into potential violations of the University of Arizona Student Code of Conduct. Rather than investigating the students, the Dean of Students must protect the students.

4. Tell the UAPD to cease their ongoing zealous efforts to locate other individuals who allegedly participated in the 03/19 protest.

5. Take seriously the threats to the lives and well-being of the Mexican American Studies community (staff, faculty, and students) as well as the staff and undergraduates who gather in the Chicano/Hispano Student Affairs & Research Center. Understand that many of the people who enter the Cesar Chavez building to teach, learn, clean, work, and visit, do so with concern.

6. Utilize this incident as an opportunity to call for a university-wide discussion of: university responsibility in defending student safety and well-being on our campus (including undocumented students); free speech; and the status of the university in the ongoing militarization of the border region including any financial and institutional entanglements of the university with private corporations and government agencies known to be involved in systematic human rights abuses.

7. Call for the immediate creation of policy that will regulate the presence of CBP on campus, especially armed and fully uniformed.

8. Apologize to Moreno, Bustamante, and Coles-Curtis for placing their safety, well-being, and ability to concentrate on their studies in jeopardy. Ensure that their education proceeds smoothly and successfully.

Thank you in advance for your attention to these matters. We look forward to your reply.

The Faculty and Graduate Students of The Department of Gender & Women’s Studies at University of Arizona