The War on Terror: A Credible Threat (4/24)

The War on Terror: A Credible Threat will be a teach-in on surveillance, university life and the war on terror. It is to be a day of reflection on U.S. International Politics and University Life.

As a result of student demonstrations against military recruiters in April 2005, the Defense Department listed our campus as a "credible threat." They specified neither their means of assessment nor the nature of the threat. Because the United States government explicitly labeled the University of California at Santa Cruz a "credible threat" in its "War on Terror", we as educators are obliged to seek and to provide an understanding of both this "War" and the "threats" that the US Government claims to combat.

We have decided to take this occasion to present a thorough examination of the War on Terror, making links between the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, illegal surveillance, the Patriot Act, unitary executive powers, harassment of Middle East Studies programs, efforts to hamper academic freedoms, torture and rendering, criminalization of immigrants, and U.S. support for authoritarian regimes who have used the rubric of the War on Terror to harass their own citizens.

The event will take place on Monday, April 24. We are inviting political activists, journalists, Congressional representatives, lawyers, professors, students and performers to speak.

Major funding for the teach-in has been provided by:

Office of the Chancellor
Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor
Student Affairs
American Civil Liberties Union
Anthropology Department
Center for Cultural Studies
Center for Justice, Tolerance, and Community
College 9 and College 10
Community Studies Department
Cowell College
Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action Office
Feminist Studies Department
History Department
Institute for Advanced Feminist Research/Feminism and Global War
Institute for Humanities Research
Latin American and Latino Studies Department
Literature Department
Merrill College
Politics Department
Psychology Department
Sociology Department
Stevenson College
Women's Center