BY HANK REICHMAN

Janet Napolitano

University of California President and former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has been a leader among university administrators in opposing the Trump administration’s attacks on immigrants, most recently speaking forcefully to denounce the administration’s hideous policy of separating children from their parents at the border.  Now UC faculty are calling on Napolitano to match her words with deeds.  On June 18, UC-AFT, which represents contingent faculty and librarians, wrote Napolitano to call on her to cancel the university’s contract with General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT), a defense contractor.  UC contracts out management and administration of its Analytical Writing Placement Examination (AWPE) to GDIT.  Under that arrangement UC faculty members score thousands of exams prepared by GDIT and interact regularly with GDIT staff.  However, “GDIT is also a contractor for the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement and employs staff who support and facilitate the forced separation of children and parents seeking asylum at the U.S. border,” the letter states.

“Contracting out an educational process is a questionable practice for a university to begin with,” the letter continues.  “Contracting out to a defense contractor forces faculty to be complicit with war profiteering.  Contracting out to a defense contractor that enables the U.S. government to rip children away from their parents and place them in concentration camps is an unconscionable moral failing.”

Today UC-AFT was joined by the Council of University of California Faculty Associations (CUCFA), an AAUP partner that represents tenured and tenure-track faculty at nine of the system’s ten campuses.  The CUCFA board called on Napolitano “to act positively on the June 18, 2018 UC-AFT call.”

Here is the full text of the UC-AFT letter:

June 18, 2018
President Janet Napolitano
University of California
1111 Franklin St., 12th Floor
Oakland, CA 94607

Dear President Napolitano:

As contingent faculty and librarians represented by UC-AFT, we work with undocumented
students at the University of California on a daily basis. Your initiative to support the UC’s
undocumented students and your lawsuit against the Trump administration’s rescission of
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) have been powerful advocacy for some of our
most vulnerable community members.

Today, we ask that you extend that leadership to immediately canceling the UC’s contract with
General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT), a defense contractor. The UC currently
contracts out the management and administration of the Analytical Writing Placement
Examination (AWPE) to GDIT. Many UC faculty, including a number of our members, score more
than 16,000 AWPE exams taken by admitted first-year students every year. During that process,
we are in regular communication with GDIT staff. GDIT is also a contractor for the U.S. Office of
Refugee Resettlement and employs staff who support and facilitate the forced separation of
children and parents seeking asylum at the U.S. border.

Contracting out an educational process is a questionable practice for a university to begin with.
Contracting out to a defense contractor forces faculty to be complicit with war profiteering.
Contracting out to a defense contractor that enables the U.S. government to rip children away
from their parents and place them in concentration camps is an unconscionable moral failing.

In the strongest possible terms, we urge you to halt the UC’s participation in these abuses by
immediately withdrawing from any and all agreements between the UC and GDIT.

Sincerely,

UC-AFT Executive Board
Mia L. McIver, UCLA
Axel Borg, UC Davis
Ben Harder, UC Riverside
Roxi Power, UC Santa Cruz
Miki Goral, UCLA