By Written by Steven Rousso-Schindler, Yousef Baker, Lori Baralt, Chantrey J. Murphy, Kimberly Robertson and Kimberly Walters
The CSU Time, Place and Manner FAQs claim to aid the university’s “educational mission by helping to maintain an environment where its operations and work can be safely conducted without disruption.”
In reality, however, it is extremely difficult not to conclude that Long Beach State’s administration used this policy to single out five professors among others: Jake Alimahomed-Wilson, Sabrina Alimahomed-Wilson, Azza Basarudin, Araceli Esparza and Steven Osuna.
Of the dozens of professors who participated in campus protests advocating for Palestinian lives and freedom, it appears that these five were selectively targeted.
The administration emailed them claiming they had violated the TPM’s “sound amplification” policy by using a megaphone to do teach-ins at a student protest outside Brotman Hall on May 2.
In reality, several other professors also spoke or performed music using amplified sound that day. Yet for some reason, the administration issued allegations of TPM violations ultimately against only these five professors.
Sound amplification has also been used regularly this semester outside Brotman Hall to play amplified music in the same space where the protest took place.
What differentiated these five from all the other professors who might have received warnings?
They were the authors of “Boeing University: How the California State University became complicit in Palestinian genocide.”
Their article took a deep dive into the university’s close relationship with a major manufacturer of armaments that sends shipments of weapons and planes to Israel that are used to murder innocent Palestinian civilians.
Students, faculty and staff have long relied on sound amplification at protests and labor organizing on our campus. At large events, sound amplification is the only possible way to communicate effectively to crowds who assemble to exercise their right to free speech.
It was the only way to address the hundreds of students and faculty who gathered to support Palestinian lives on May 2, 2024.
The administration sent the warnings to these five professors more than three months after the protest took place. The messages arrived strategically on the first day of the fall 2024-2025 semester. The administration warned them that any future TPM violations could be met with further disciplinary action.
This was not an idle threat.
Universities all over the country have started suspending faculty members who have publicly vocalized support for Palestine, including at another CSU campus.
The CSU appears to be using TPM as a tool to suppress political speech that it disagrees with.
As far as we have been able to discover, this is the first time our administration has ever used this policy to target its employees. It is striking that of all the students, staff and faculty members that have protested various issues on our campus over the decades, it is only supporters of Palestinians against whom the administration has ever used the TPM policy.
This appears to be a case of what has been called the “Palestine exception.”
Whether or not these five professors were intentionally targeted as retaliation for their article about Boeing, the appearance that they were sends a chilling message to all CSULB faculty: Do not use scholarly expertise to be critical of CSULB or be prepared to be censored, disciplined and potentially worse.
To us, it feels like a clear intimidation tactic meant to scare these five professors into silence about any academic activities they want to pursue on-campus concerning the Palestinian struggle.
We urge the CSU and specifically CSULB to reconsider whether the newly updated and greatly expanded TPM policy on Aug. 15 and CSULB’s addendum are really promoting a safe work environment for everyone and whether the sudden enforcement of the TPM policies against faculty who advocate on behalf of Palestinian lives is in keeping with the University’s educational mission.
Finally, we also strongly urge CSULB to rescind its warning emails to professors Jake Alimahomed-Wilson, Sabrina Alimahomed-Wilson, Basarudin, Esparza and Osuna. These faculty members simply participated in teach-ins with a large group of students, doing the job the University hired them to do: that is, to teach critical thinking about a timely global discourse that demands our attention and action.
These professors and others like them who also participated did not in any way violate the goal of the TPM policy to ensure that “work can be safely conducted without disruption.” They should therefore be protected by the University for doing their jobs—not targeted and threatened.
Editor’s Note: This article was edited to add a missing paragraph on Sept. 12 at 9:28 a.m.
