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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black">Dear members of the Senate Executive Committee,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black">I am writing as both a senator for CAS (Humanities), and as a member of this executive committee to see if we could be proactive in seeking the support of our central administration in developing the most tolerant
and humane approach to the current camping protest that is developing in our quad in front of the Knight Library. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black">I have received multiple emails and requests
<span style="background:white">from both faculty colleagues and students</span> to take action and to make sure that our Senate and our administration show the highest level of compassion and understanding for this student display of solidarity in the midst
of an unjust war that has already claimed the lives of more than 40,000 people and displaced more than a million people. As we talk about AI and global citizenship in the College of Arts and Sciences and across the campus, here's an opportunity to take sides
with humanity: this war is completely one-sided from whichever angle we may look at it, and it is also deploying for the first time in history AI-guided weaponry through the
<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/04/05/israel-idf-lavender-ai-militarytarget/" title="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/04/05/israel-idf-lavender-ai-militarytarget/">
Lavender program</a> which chooses targets through data-driven and computerized guided programs. It also has disproportionately affected women and children, offering no quarter, and respecting no grounds, including hospitals, shelters, and schools. </span><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black">The racialized dehumanization of refugees, Muslims, and Palestinians in US media has dulled the responses of the general public in our country and in other places for over seven months now, but the small gesture
of solidarity of a group of several hundred students which started as a camp in our midst yesterday, should make us proud instead of resorting to physical violence and repressive measures. It is a teaching opportunity if there ever was one for a community
of learners like ours. We constantly talk about what makes us different as a campus, how to find our "edge". I believe we stand to demonstrate to our colleagues across the country, colleagues in Columbia and in Illinois, and many other places where faculty
and students have been forcibly removed from university campuses and violently banned from re-entry for a year, and to show the entire world that our campus upholds the tolerant solidarity mode that our community in Eugene and Oregon expects from us, that
we are prepared to exercise tolerance and empathy, compassion and humanity in the face of the dehumanized Terminator-like machinery that has been unleashed on humanity in Ukraine and elsewhere, and in this case on the small region of Gaza, a place that was
already developed as an intergenerational refugee camp decades ago and which is clearly being leveled to the ground in
<a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/top-un-court-to-rule-in-gaza-genocide-case-over-german-supply-of-weapons-to-israel/" title="https://www.timesofisrael.com/top-un-court-to-rule-in-gaza-genocide-case-over-german-supply-of-weapons-to-israel/">
what increasingly appears to be as a genocide</a> under scrutiny by various international institutions. Why should we allow a local replication of that evacuation of space and place our university as a proxy, an ally combatant against those who defend human
rights? Is a graduation photo on the green what we care about? I know you are all compassionate human beings and I am sure we will be able to craft a resolution and enter into dialogue with our administration to assure that the best standards of public meetings
and freedom of expression are guaranteed.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black">I have just received word of the statement issued by the University of Denver which I copy below, and I hope we can perhaps issue a similar statement asking our president and administration to exercise the maximum
zeal in respecting civil rights and to think about this demonstration as a historical opportunity to show the world that we at Oregon are on the side of humanity and not on the side of its violent erasure by vindictive nationalist zealots armed with logarithms
and computerized genocidal army forces.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="color:black">Respectfully, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="color:black">Pedro Garc¨ªa-Caro<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="color:black"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><a href="https://cas.uoregon.edu/directory/romance-languages/all/pgcaro"><span lang="ES" style="color:#0563C1">Pedro Garc¨ªa-Caro</span></a></span><span lang="ES" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Associate Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies</span><a href="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5064-0845" title="https://orcid.org/%200000-0002-5064-0845"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:windowtext;text-decoration:none"><img border="0" width="19" height="19" style="width:.1979in;height:.1979in" id="Picture_x0020_3" src="cid:image001.png@01DA9B0D.F077BCB0" alt="Image"></span></a><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">
| School of Global Studies, University of Oregon | UO Senator (2023-2025), College of Arts and Sciences, Humanities
<span style="color:#212121">| Friendly Hall 325 | (541) 346-5813</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">General Editor,
<i><a href="http://journals.oregondigital.org/index.php/peripherica/index"><span style="color:#0563C1">Periph¨¥rica: A Journal of Social, Cultural, and Literary Studies</span></a><o:p></o:p></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Co-Editor,<i>
<a href="https://www.aaup.org/reports-publications/journal-academic-freedom"><span style="color:#0563C1">Journal of Academic Freedom</span></a></i><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black"><img border="0" width="190" height="39" style="width:1.9791in;height:.4062in" id="Picture_x0020_2" src="cid:image002.png@01DA9B0D.F077BCB0" alt="signature_231923415"></span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#222222"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#222222"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#222222">The University of Oregon is located on <b>Kalapuya ilihi,</b> </span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#0563C1"><a href="https://library.uoregon.edu/honoring-native-peoples-and-lands" title="https://library.uoregon.edu/honoring-native-peoples-and-lands"><span style="color:#0563C1">the
traditional indigenous homeland of the Kalapuya people.</span></a></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:#212121"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="elementtoproof"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#424242">Dear University of Denver faculty,</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#424242"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#212121">We, the Executive Committee of the Faculty Senate, write today in support of faculty, staff, and students¡¯ right to peacefully protest. Like many of you, we are disturbed by actions taken across the country at
other universities where administrators have chosen to deny students </span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#424242">their</span><span style="color:#424242"> </span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#424242">First</span><span style="color:#424242"> </span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#424242">Amendment
</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#212121">rights by forcefully removing and arresting students who were peacefully gathered to demonstrate on behalf of their beliefs in nondisruptive ways. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#212121"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#212121">We want faculty, staff and students to know that your University of Denver Faculty Senate has been working with University administrators for several months to develop a demonstrations policy that
</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#424242">respects freedom of speech and freedom to peacefully protest and demonstrate. Once the draft is complete, student, staff, and faculty senates will have the</span><span style="color:#424242"> </span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#424242">opportunity
to review</span><span style="color:#424242"> </span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#424242">the policy and</span><span style="color:#424242"> </span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#424242">offer</span><span style="color:#424242"> </span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#424242">feedback</span><span style="color:#424242"> </span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#424242">before
the policy is finalized. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#212121"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#212121">We</span><span style="color:#212121"> </span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#424242">also</span><span style="color:#212121"> </span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#212121">recognize that a critical issue
at other universities regards the use of armed police excessive force to remove non-violent demonstrators, Such unacceptable tactics are extreme and lead to needless escalation</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#424242">. These actions have also heightened
concerns about the University of Denver¡¯s plans to give</span><span style="color:#424242"> </span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#424242">Campus</span><span style="color:#424242"> </span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#424242">Safety officers access
to guns and to partner with City of Denver police when necessary, a</span><span style="color:#424242"> </span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#424242">plan many</span><span style="color:#424242"> </span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#424242">faculty,
staff, and students have been critical</span><span style="color:#424242"> </span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#424242">of. Please know that we will continue to advocate for all reasonable, experience-tested alternatives to arming Campus Safety officers</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#424242"> </span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#424242">and
to allowing armed law enforcement officers to police</span><span style="color:#424242"> </span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#424242">peaceful demonstrations.
</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#212121">We do so because we strongly support
</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#333F48;background:white">peaceful, nondisruptive protests on our campus, and know that any policing of demonstrations must also be peaceful. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#333F48;background:white"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#333F48;background:white">Warm regards,</span></p>
<p class="elementtoproof"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#333F48;background:white">Your Faculty Senate Executive Committee</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/04/05/israel-idf-lavender-ai-militarytarget/" target="_blank"><span style="text-decoration:none"><img border="0" width="240" height="180" style="width:2.5in;height:1.875in" id="_x0000_i1025" src="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/PX5TXHETPNCWLADKHVX6ABLNJ4_size-normalized.png&w=1440"></span></a><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Segoe UI Light",sans-serif"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/04/05/israel-idf-lavender-ai-militarytarget/" target="_blank"><span style="text-decoration:none">Analysis | Israel
offers a glimpse into the terrifying world of military AI</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Segoe UI",sans-serif;color:#666666">The IDF is allegedly using an AI-powered database identify targets to eliminate, according to a new report by journalist Yuval Abraham. That military tool¡¯s
name? ¡°Lavender.¡±<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Segoe UI",sans-serif;color:#A6A6A6">www.washingtonpost.com<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black">Best,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black">Pedro<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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