A RESOLUTION of the El Camino College Federation of Teachers, AFT Local 1388 (ECCFT) to declare the lives of Black, Indigenous, and all Peoples of Color (BIPOC) matter; and

WHEREAS, we uphold the ideals of equal justice under the law, racial justice, and human dignity for all of our students and faculty; and

WHEREAS, allowing injustice to go unchallenged violates our principles; and

WHEREAS, racial inequality has always been a favored tool of those who wish to weaken and divide working people; and

WHEREAS, the Black Lives Matter movement has gained powerful traction in conjunction with recent tragic events involving, in particular, police brutality and institutionalized racism that target the BIPOC community; and

WHEREAS, we also believe that the growing divide between “haves and have nots” in American society undermines the realization of the belief that BIPOC lives matter in the actual workings of the criminal justice system, our schools, and workplaces; and

WHEREAS, we experience the toxic impact of the intersection of racism and poverty in too many of our students’ lives and in our classrooms; and

WHREAS, while we profoundly believe and insist that the lives of our BIPOC students and faculty matter;

WHEREAS, we express solidarity with the thousands of protesters throughout the Nation who are peacefully expressing their outrage and frustration at the deaths of unarmed Americans; and

WHEREAS, we support and express solidarity with the El Camino College Academic Senate’s resolution, to declare that the lives of Black students matter; and

WHEREAS, the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Aubrey, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, and too many others are indicative of a growing social-economic division that threatens the current and future well-being of our academic community;

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, the ECCFT affirms its commitment to support policies and practices designed to dismantle structural racial inequality; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, the ECCFT will continue to fight for equal opportunity in employment, housing, education, and the funding of public services, and to ensure that all citizens are treated with the due process that is their legal right; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, the ECCFT will continue to support the Black Lives Matter movement and other racial justice organizations; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, the ECCFT will confront and work to eradicate racial prejudice, bias, aggression and structural inequality in our colleges and workplaces; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, the ECCFT will work to tackle the inequities that result from institutionally racist policies and practices in our colleges and workplaces, including hiring practices; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, the ECCFT will oppose policies created to marginalize BIPOC communities. We choose not to accept these conditions, as they exist, but to accept the responsibility for changing them in our colleges and workplaces; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, the ECCFT encourages members to add to their curricula concepts of equal justice under the law, of racial and social justice, and of institutional racism in their classrooms and other academic spaces; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, the ECCFT urges our members to engage in intentional learning spaces to organize for racial justice with recognition of the interconnected nature of racism coupled with systems of oppression that impact people based on class, gender identity, sexual orientation, ability and language; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, the ECCFT recognizes that the fight for civil rights and equality is as real today as it was decades ago and urges members to take initiative in collaboration with local and national organizations fighting for racial justice against the harsh racist practices to which many BIPOC people are exposed. No matter who you are, Black lives matter, and a system of fair, transformative, and restorative justice that is accountable to communities is something to which each of us has a right; and

BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED, the ECCFT will join with other labor and educational groups to call for the creation of a national model for community policing and well-funded, thoughtful programs that divert marginalized young people into academic and career programs and for an end to systemic and institutionalized racism.

Adopted by the AFT 1388 Executive Board June 9, 2020.