Graduate Students Pursue Legal Action Against California Institute of Integral Studies

Subject: Statement by CIIS Anthropology Students in Support of Hearing Process


We are current and former Masters and PhD students in the Social and Cultural Anthropology
program at the California Institute of Integral Studies, writing to provide a necessary context in
response to claims that have been circulating that the current faculty hearing process for
Professors Angana Chatterji and Richard Shapiro is a violation of academic freedom by the
administration of CIIS.

The current campaign in support of the immediate reinstatement of Professors Chatterji and
Shapiro attempts to link the investigation with Professor Chatterji’s work in Kashmir, as well as
with Professor Shapiro’s visa denial into India this past year. There are currently hundreds of
academics and others nationally and internationally signing a petition that some anthropology
students are circulating framing this as politically motivated targeting. This is an open lie. As
students of social justice and of this department, we recognize the very real targeting of faculty in
a post 9/11 context. We, too, support organizing in solidarity against censorship based on political
beliefs and actions, and support due process in the Academy. However this manipulation of facts
that they are circulating --in our name- deceptively erases the reality of the situation. We do not
claim to speak for all anthropology students, but we are certainly speaking for many who for
reasons explained below, have not felt safe enough to be public about their concerns.

Understanding the perils that await us as whistleblowers of these charges, and as allies to those
who have spoken out, we will share only a few of our concerns:

• Violations of academic policy: Students have received “ghost grades” (grades for work
not turned in), sometimes composing up to half of their required MA or PhD required
units. These grades have been granted differentially, creating a divisive environment
among students.
• Power: There exists a concentration of power and a subsequent abuse of power, both
structural and psychological, by the only two full-time faculty. It should be noted the
department chair, Professor Shapiro is married to the only other full-time faculty
member, Professor Chatterji. A lack of any neutral mechanism of accountability has
allowed long-term dysfunction, unethical practices, violation of academic integrity, of
institutional policy, and of the relationship between professor/advisor and student to
become normalized.
• Retaliation against students with critiques: Students who have (over a number of
years) publicly expressed concerns have been made the targets of public humiliation,
exclusion, disparaging gossip campaigns and academic punishment. To critique is to be
on the wrong side of radical politics in the anthropology department. Students have also
faced pressure to comply with departmental politics and practices, including petitions and
monitored community meetings. This atmosphere of fear and paranoia is the reason why
things have erupted in the way that they have. Students had no other option but to go to
the administration for help.

The individual and collective impact of these violations (and this is a partial list) includes damage
to students’ academic work, advocacy research and community relationships, psychological and
physical health, prospects for completing dissertations, employment opportunities, and capacity to conduct research and publish future works.

We are alarmed at the conflation between Professor Chatterji and Shapiro’s political and social
justice work in Kashmir with the current situation at CIIS. This move serves to deflect attention
from ongoing internal dynamics in the Anthropology Department. Such conflation is an insult to
those academics who face very real targeting within the Academy for their political work and
beliefs. It is irresponsible and sets a dangerous precedent that threatens accountability and
solidarities in the Academy. And it is an unconscionable exploitation of the Kashmiri freedom
struggle and its social justice allies.

There have been a series of tactics to delegitimize the process and refuse to recognize very real
student concerns. Students who have come forward have been threatened and maligned. We have
been dismissed for being “careerist” for wanting to complete our degrees, for being “unwilling to
break” when we contested certain practices, and for being petty liberal bourgeoisie as a means of
marshaling a class analysis against us. We have been categorized as “white”, a means of
deploying identity politics to silence critique. We are of color, brown and black, and we are also
white. We are working class and not working class, variously queer and, as gender plays a
significant role in these issues that we raise in this department, we note here that we are
overwhelmingly female. We are also trans and male. We continue to face tactics aimed to
produce silence, and have come forward despite threats of very real retaliation.
In further attempts to discredit, the current situation has also been tied to concerns about the
privatization of universities -without any evidence. Professor Shapiro has been cast as an active
pro-union organizer to further these claims, framing the investigation as a conservative attempt to
crush union activity.

This again steers attention away from the real issues, and again minimizes
the very important movements that we -as students of social justice- care deeply about and within
which we participate actively in our lives as scholars and activists. This is not a matter of
academic freedom, or ‘adjunctification” of the Academy. Nor is it a lack of respect for a
difference in pedagogical style, as has been asserted, which may suit some but has differentially
impacted others. This is about the systematic, institutional and personal abuse of students and of
their rights. That some students continue to uphold such a system does not, nor should it, make
our experiences tolerable.


There is a constituency of students who continue to call for the unconditional reinstatement of
these two professors. Some core issues of concern have been made public by students and
administrators. However, many students calling for reinstatement are unaware of the scope and
details of charges against Professor Chatterji and Professor Shapiro. When they speak to their
assumptions of why the allegations are taking place, they are speaking from a largely uninformed perspective as the investigation of these two professors is conducted. Calls for greater
transparency into the nature of the charges evidences a lack of care for the safety and academic
futures of students who have spoken up in dissent. We are also dismayed that the two faculty
members in question, Professors Chatterji and Shapiro, have willfully contributed to an
environment that has proved so divisive, damaging, and hostile among students for so many years
here in our program.

Noting the impossibility and real danger of expressing all of the charges, it is important for us to
emphasize that the CIIS administration has acted in response to student concerns regarding
institutional and legal violations. This institutional process was convened in relation to students
coming forward despite a climate of intense fear, amidst ongoing retaliation and bullying in the
SCA department, to speak to concerns and experiences that were so serious that a typical
grievance procedure was insufficient to address those concerns. This alone should give those following the current process at CIIS pause. The realities of this current situation are far more
complex than the flattened and manipulative discourse framing this as the suppression of radicals.

Students who have given voice to their concerns have demanded forms of protection that are not
compatible with transparency. This has created an environment that other students, who we also
respect, may not fully understand. We have had to weigh heavily our own academic futures, our
substantial investments in our education, our health, and our jobs to stand in dissent of some of
the practices and policies here. For many of us, it was precisely our Professors’ work in Kashmir
that kept us silent for years, as we did not want to jeopardize what we see as important to
struggles for justice in Kashmir, and elsewhere, including the respect we have for the work of our
colleagues. That this situation has reached this point is devastating to all of us.

It is important that we stress that for those of us who have submitted statements or met in person
with the Deans, we loved and greatly respected these two faculty members at one point in time
and we have poured our lives into this program, our research and activism. Contrary to
accusations, we are neither outsiders, nor are we intent on bringing down the department. We are
not students who politically oppose the breadth and scope of either of the Professors’ work. We
do believe that this is about speaking out against systematic, institutional and personal abuse of
students and their rights. The severity, normalization, and frequency of mistreatment are not
justifiable or excusable by any ethical academic standard. The level of intimidation is so great
that it has taken years for many of these whistleblowers (some still anonymous and others now
publicly named) to come forward at great risk or cost to themselves. This risk needs to be
recognized both in immediate and long-term consequences.

We realize this is a highly charged situation with many sides. However the framing of this as a
violation of the academic freedom of Professors Shapiro and Chatterji is dangerously misleading.
It obscures the reality of grave suppression of the rights of many students by these two faculty
and contributes to the invisibilization of a long history of policy and legal violation, mistreatment
and devastating abuse of power. This faculty hearing process is toward accountability for their
actions and their effects.

Thank you for taking the time to read and hear the fullness of this difficult situation.

Angana Chatterji has written many articles about political issues in India like Kashmir, Gujarat, and Orissa. Read them. She was wrong on facts and opinion every single time. It is an extraordinary record of failure. Methodical and factual investigations have disproven her statements about Gujarat. Her association with Mr. Fai, who is an agent of the Pakistani military's ISI intelligence service speaks volumes. The ISI supports Islamic terrorist groups that kill innocent women and children.
Why so wrong, so often?
Answer: Hatred. Chatterji and Shapiro are Hinduphobes. They have expressed their hatred at an institution started by a Hindu (Haridas Chaudhuri) and Sri Auribindo, who was a Hindu nationalist and freedom fighter. This speaks volumes about the tolerance of Hindus.
Enough is Enough.
Vitriol and epithets are not scholarship or even civil discourse, and this is all Chatterji has expressed. Read her public statements and article. Fortunately, it's all on the web.

This is sad but funny. One has to respect the principles and ethics of the students who were abused by Chatterji and Shapiro.
But it is ironic to hear accusations that others are intentionally misleading and lying about the issue, and that this is unfair.

What do you think Chatterji, Shapiro, and the "social justice" folks have been doing all those years? Do you think the accusations in the name of "social justice" have been fair, accurate and reasonable? Do you think Kashmir, Gujarat, Orissa were simple black & white "social justice" issues? Do you think there has been a lot of intentional misleading and lying going on? Were you ever curious why "social justice" was always against Hindus?

You are simply getting a dose of the same medicine that the self-righteous CIIS, Chatterji, and "social justice" people have been spewing for years. Agenda-driven misrepresentation (a.k.a. lying) tastes quite bitter to you now that you are on the receiving end.

Look back at the record and facts. All the name calling and misrepresentation, like "Hindu nationalist", "right-wing", "genocide", were unfair and incorrect epithets. And it certainly was not scholarship. Every accusation against Modi was proven wrong, or worse, proven to be politically motivated. They have been thrown out of every court in India. There are 240,000 Kashmiri Hindus who have been refugees for 22 years now. Did you ever care about their "social justice" all these years? Learn the facts, not the propaganda from Chatterji and the ISI.

So, your "graduate degree" in "anthropology" from a "university" like CIIS is worthless because you were taught to be a dishonest instead of an honest scholar.

This is how the game has been played in the world of Hinduphobia because it requires you to hate a peaceful people and philosophy. Chatterji is a Hinduphobe because she has issues and baggage from India. Don't get caught up in her internal psychological hatred of Indian Hindus. This goes against everything Haridas Chaudhuri and Sri Auribindo represent. BTW, both were Hindu nationalists.

Sri Auribindo and Haridas Chaudhuri fought for and promoted clarity of thought and honesty. The only thing coming out of CIIS is muddled, muddied, dirty, and dishonest.

Good Luck!! Ya'll got a lot to learn and a long way to go!

It is clear from comments that there is a intensity of feeling about these faculty members. Perhaps this is a complete surprise to the administrators of CIIS but that is unlikely. They can say that they had no idea who these people actualy were when they hired them. That would certainly not speak well of the rest of the faculty who may or not br great educators but, if they are great - or poor, the administrators cannot be blamed. Or, worse, when controversy comes to faculty CIIS is either unwilling or unable to stand for the integrity of their faculty. Either way, CIIS has brought disgrace upon themselves.