Cal Poly's Social Justice Teach-In returns after hiatus

After a two-year hiatus, Cal Poly’s Social Justice Teach-In returned on May 28 in the Chumash Auditorium, hosted by the Students for Justice in Palestine club.

Presenters spoke about academic freedom, censorship, Palestine, immigration and student activism. The event, titled “Bringing Back the Social Justice Teach-In,” ran from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and featured Cal Poly faculty and student speakers.

The teach-in was previously held annually from 2017 to 2023, according to history professor Thanayi Jackson. Jackson said the 2024 teach-in was postponed one week before it was scheduled to happen after administrators raised concerns about a Palestine-focused track.

“There is a dangerous precedent of blanket censorship occurring around the topic of Palestine,” Jackson said during the welcome session.

In response, university spokesperson Keegan Koberl referred to a post from Cal Poly Culture and Institutional Excellence in April 2024 as the extent of their comment on the matter.

The post reads: “In light of the feedback and responses from presenters, we have come to believe that proceeding with the event in its current form would not adequately meet the commitment made to the campus with the initial postponement, nor would the event fully reflect the spirit of an authentic campus Teach-In.”

Iyad Jamaly, co-president of the Students for Justice in Palestine club, said the 2024 event was postponed and eventually cancelled because there were not both pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli perspectives. The 2024 teach-in was supposed to have six different tracks. However, those other tracks were not required to have opposing perspectives, such as the Reproductive rights track, which was not required to have a pro-abortion perspective.

“If you had a track about racial injustice, would you have to bring a Klan member to balance it out?” Jamaly said.

One of the morning presentations, led by librarian Kyle Tanaka and political science senior Lucia Moratinos-Chu, focused on the removal of Cal Poly library research guides. Tanaka said 19 guides were removed from public view, many of which had diversity, equity and inclusion-related focuses.

“What Cal Poly has decided to do here is an extremely troubling precedent,” Tanaka said.

Students at the event said the teach-in created space for conversations they do not always see reflected on campus.

“I want to continue the conversation,” child development sophomore Sam Wong said. “It’s easy to think that people don’t care, but everyone in this room cares.”

Cal Poly media relations said the event was not university-led and was organized by Students for Justice in Palestine.

“If the university will not create spaces for you, then you need to go out and create those spaces for yourself,” Jamaly said. “That’s a big thing that has been echoed by many minority communities across campus.”

Immigration was another significant focus of the teach-in.

One of the speakers was Jared Van Ramshorst, a Cal Poly political science professor. During his session, U.S. War on Immigrants, he explained the background of government agencies that manage immigration into the country and explained their functions.

He wanted to clarify the difference between Border Patrol and ICE.

“They’re not the same agency and organization and while that might seem insignificant, looking at that tells us a lot about how they evolved over time.”

He also spoke about how they are being used incorrectly today.

Van Ramshorst called for “a wholesale reimagining of what politics should look like here in the United States,” as a solution to the problem of immigration and enforcement.

“It’s going to take a bigger conversation that isn’t just the difference between a Democratic and a Republican administration,” Van Ramshorst said. “I think it’s a much larger and deeper conversation about media literacy, about understanding, about familiarity.”

He also expressed concern for the current state of immigration discourse.

“I look at the language and rhetoric around the Chinese Exclusion Act and it’s the same language and rhetoric that’s being used now,” he said.

There is hope that the teach-ins will continue next year.

“I have a lot of faith in the student body here at Cal Poly to continue it, one way or another,” Jamaly said.

Correction: This story was updated to correct the spelling of Jackson’s first name.