The UO Negotiating team provided the following letter to students in the encampment during their negotiations on the afternoon of May 9, 2024.

Dear students:

Since our meeting on Tuesday, members of university leadership have had the opportunity to engage with faculty, academic leaders, and more students on the subject of the encampment and the interests and concerns you have shared. We also recognize your interest in hearing more from our negotiation team about all seven of the demands and, specifically, those focused on divestment.

With this in mind, please find below a response to each of the demands outlined in your May 2nd letter to the president. These responses are being shared with the hope of establishing greater understanding on the university’s position on several items in the demands, as well as our emphasizing our willingness to continue productive engagement on the issues and concerns raised. In exchange, we ask that students participating in the encampment take the following immediate actions:

• Agree to a specific date and time, that is within the next two days, by which you will remove the encampment, cease overnight camping and dismantle the encampment
• Agree to no further overnight camping and to reserving a designated space for gathering during daytime hours (8am- 7pm) through an officially recognized student group, and to do so through appropriate channels and following standard rules on the use of amplification and other guidelines for assembly.

In working through your demands, the following principles guide our responses.

The UO is an educational institution devoted to the creation and transmission of knowledge. We do so with an unwavering commitment to academic freedom, creative expression, and intellectual discourse, along with the commitment to foster equity and inclusion in a welcoming, safe, and respectful community.While our community members are free to hold and to express their individual political views, as an institution, our leaders will not take positions on political issues that do not tie directly to the university’s operations. This is essential to fostering the climate of free speech that is central to the university’s purpose.

Educational Resources

Consistent with these principles and in response to your demand related to enhancing educational resources, we agree that expanded education on the Middle East and on the Israel-Palestine conflict benefits all students and enhances dialogue and mutual understanding. We thus commit to several activities rooted in this shared value:

1. The UO will create a visiting scholar program to bring to campus prominent academic figures working on the contemporary realities and historical, economic, social, and cultural contexts of the Israel-Palestine conflict. These visiting professorships, modeled on those funded by the Global Justice Program, will augment our current curriculum and offer students direct access to academic advice, research guidance and mentorship from experts on the current conflict. Visiting scholars will be recruited and selected by a committee comprised of faculty and students in a way that builds on the shared principles already developed by faculty and staff for educational events on the conflict.
2. The UO will increase resources for public educational events that use these shared principles to teach the value of multiple perspectives, mutual respect, civil discourse, and empathy for “other sides.” These began with the November 2023 Theater for Empathy in Understanding the Israel-Palestine Conflict and will continue with the upcoming May 22 educational forum on Antisemitism and Islamophobia.

Academic Exchange

We reaffirm the value of academic exchange, deep understanding and experiential learning related to the Middle East, with particular attention to local histories, cultures, languages, and realities.This includes, but is not limited to, understanding the Israel-Palestine conflict. However, your request for us to cut off ties with specific Israeli universities is antithetical to our educational mission and the importance of global engagement in that mission. It also reduces our capacity to study and understand the contemporary Middle East at a time when greater knowledge is vital. We instead commit to work to expand exchange opportunities in the parts of the region where we have no such ties and programs. We will also maintain existing links with partners in the region that share our commitment to evidence-based research and to teaching and learning across multiple perspectives.

Retirement Options

You asked that we distribute education and resources to faculty during hiring and onboarding about their retirement investment options. The public universities of Oregon offer eligible new faculty and officers of administration (OAs) options for the management of their retirement savings; and those who choose the Optional Retirement Plan (ORP) have control over the investment allocation of their retirement savings. With regard to distributing education and resources to faculty during their hiring and onboarding about the ORP plan, the UO will review its new employee onboarding materials to ensure clarity on options for personal direction of retirement savings investment. If materials aren’t already explicit about this, language will be added to ensure that it is clear that the ORP option allows the employee to have control over their investments and to direct investments in a way that aligns with their personal preferences.

Ceasefire

You asked that the university release a specific statement in support of a ceasefire in Gaza. Doing so would be counter to our view that the institution not take positions on political issues, as it chills free speech and open dialogue. That said, we too are heartbroken over the devastating loss of human life in the Middle East and particularly in Gaza and we support an end to violence and the pursuit of peace. To this end, we are prepared to issue a statement, as part of the release of any agreement reached between the coalition and the university, as follows: "As a community of globally engaged faculty, students, and staff, we are anguished by the current humanitarian and hostage crisis in Gaza. We join with many around the world in mourning the tragic loss of innocent life starting on October 7th and throughout the long Israel-Palestine conflict. We also recognize the complex geopolitical issues that are at the root of this crisis. We hope for a rapid cessation of hostilities and the resumption of efforts to achieve peace in this troubled region.”

Divestment

The UO Foundation, the entity charged with meeting the needs of the university through the stewardship of university investments, is appropriately focused on long-term investment decisions that ensure the university remains on strong financial footing. That is done through rigorous management of our investments, evaluating opportunities through an environmental, social, and governance framework. The University of Oregon (UO) Foundation will therefore not divest from Jasper Ridge. Divestment is counter to the UO’s obligations to its students and the state. The Foundation’s work helps finance scholarships and student aid, student housing, teaching facilities, research labs, and the faculty who instruct and support students’ pursuit of their degrees.

However, in the spirit of education and to further understanding, we are willing to arrange a meeting, after the encampment has been taken down, for up to five students selected by the coalition to meet with the president and CEO of UO Foundation, the UO’s senior vice president for finance and administration, and President Scholz. The purpose of the meeting would be to share the UO Foundation’s approach to investment and endowment management with students and to hear student perspectives on investment and divestment.

Boycott (BDS)

The university has adopted a Procurement and Contracting Code of Ethics that is based in our fiduciary obligation to be stewards of public money when purchasing goods and services. Key to this obligation is our commitment to obtain the best value for our expenditures. In service of that commitment, and our duty to ensure fair access to university business, our procurement practices generally require competitive procurements, with specific outreach to locally owned, and women and minority business owned firms who can offer the best value to the campus. In that context, we are not in a position to boycott companies simply because they are listed on a website that expresses concerns over who else that company may contract with. In addition, our ability to obtain the best value in our contracts would be substantially impaired if vendors come to believe that the terms and conditions of our contracts are subject to change in response to political campaigns. That said, none of the vendors you listed are currently preferred vendors providing best value to the campus through Duck Depot, the university’s procurement platform.

Student Conduct Code Violations

During our negotiations, we offered to forego pursuit of student conduct code charges against those in the encampment if there was no further overnight camping and if recognized student groups reserve space for further gathering during daytime hours (8am to 7pm) through appropriate channels, following standard rules on use of amplification and other guidelines for assembly. Those include charges related to violating space reservation and overnight camping rules, which are in place to help everyone on campus maintain respectful operations and physical safety. Given the disruptive impact of the encampment on academic operations and the continued adverse experience reported by a significant number of students, this offer expired at 12pm (noon) on Tuesday, May 7, 2024.

At this point, students who have been involved in the encampment remain subject to the Student Conduct Code. However, the commitment to end the encampment and move to a permissible daytime event through this agreement will be considered a favorable mitigating factor in the adjudication of violations specific to overnight camping on UO property and facilities scheduling; and the UO commits to any administrative sanctions that result from the adjudication of violations specific to overnight camping on UO property will not result in suspension, expulsion, revocation of degree, eviction, or restitution as part of participation in the encampment. This approach does not pertain to any other policy or conduct code violations not known at the time of an agreement.

Protection of Speech

With respect to the provision of formal protection for faculty, students, and staff when speaking, writing, or having views that express solidarity with Palestinians, UO academic freedom and free speech guidelines protect “faculty, students and staff when speaking, writing, or having views that express solidarity with” any group or community, including Palestinians. We will ensure that our regular communications and training with regard to academic freedom and free speech clearly articulate freedom to express solidarity with any group.

We look forward to hearing from you with respect to the information outlined above. We are interested in preserving the university’s academic mission and concerns remain about the ongoing physical safety of our community. Finally, please know that we will be sharing the contents of this letter with the UO community.

Thank you,

The UO Negotiating Team