H.R. 9495 legislation also threatens our union itself, because unions are also nonprofits.
TELL CONGRESS: DEFEND NONPROFIT WORKERS
https://newsguild.org/tell-congress-defend-nonprofit-workers/
Posted on November 20, 2024Author The NewsGuild-CWA
This week the U.S. House is voting on… H.R. 9495, a bill which includes a provision that would disempower nonprofits and pose a threat to critical organizations supporting communities nationwide. We urge Members of Congress to vote NO on H.R. 9495 given the inclusion of this provision.
This legislation threatens nonprofit workers at ProPublica, the Texas Tribune, Spotlight PA, American Civil Liberties Union affiliates, the Natural Resource Defense Council, Southern Poverty Law Center and more who are members of The NewsGuild-CWA.
And the legislation also threatens our union itself, because unions are also nonprofits.
Section 4 of the bill is particularly concerning. Titled “Termination of tax-exempt status of terrorist supporting organizations,” this provision would give the Treasury Secretary near-unilateral power to strip the nonprofit status of any organization considered to be providing “material support or resources” to a terrorist organization. Such unilateral power could easily be abused by any future administration to target political opponents, shut down newsrooms and silence freedom of speech and affiliation in the United States.
It was narrowly defeated in an earlier vote on November 12 because it failed to clear a two-thirds majority vote in the House. House Republicans reintroduced the bill in a second attempt to pass it and changed the rules so only a simple majority is needed to pass it and move it to the Senate.
I’m asking you to contact your U.S. Representative TODAY and ask them to vote NO on H.R. 9495 and preserve our free speech and the free press.
SEND YOUR LETTER TO CONGRESS
Download and share this graphic on socials here:
I’m asking you to contact your U.S. Representative TODAY and ask them to vote NO on H.R. 9495 and preserve our free speech and the free press.
newsguild.orgH.R. 9495 legislation also threatens our union itself, because unions are also nonprofits.
TELL CONGRESS: DEFEND NONPROFIT WORKERS
https://newsguild.org/tell-congress-defend-nonprofit-workers/
Posted on November 20, 2024Author The NewsGuild-CWA
This week the U.S. House is voting on… H.R. 9495, a bill which includes a provision that would disempower nonprofits and pose a threat to critical organizations supporting communities nationwide. We urge Members of Congress to vote NO on H.R. 9495 given the inclusion of this provision.
This legislation threatens nonprofit workers at ProPublica, the Texas Tribune, Spotlight PA, American Civil Liberties Union affiliates, the Natural Resource Defense Council, Southern Poverty Law Center and more who are members of The NewsGuild-CWA.
And the legislation also threatens our union itself, because unions are also nonprofits.
Section 4 of the bill is particularly concerning. Titled “Termination of tax-exempt status of terrorist supporting organizations,” this provision would give the Treasury Secretary near-unilateral power to strip the nonprofit status of any organization considered to be providing “material support or resources” to a terrorist organization. Such unilateral power could easily be abused by any future administration to target political opponents, shut down newsrooms and silence freedom of speech and affiliation in the United States.
It was narrowly defeated in an earlier vote on November 12 because it failed to clear a two-thirds majority vote in the House. House Republicans reintroduced the bill in a second attempt to pass it and changed the rules so only a simple majority is needed to pass it and move it to the Senate.
I’m asking you to contact your U.S. Representative TODAY and ask them to vote NO on H.R. 9495 and preserve our free speech and the free press.
SEND YOUR LETTER TO CONGRESS
Download and share this graphic on socials here:
I’m asking you to contact your U.S. Representative TODAY and ask them to vote NO on H.R. 9495 and preserve our free speech and the free press.
newsguild.orgH.R. 9495 legislation also threatens our union itself, because unions are also nonprofits.
TELL CONGRESS: DEFEND NONPROFIT WORKERS
https://newsguild.org/tell-congress-defend-nonprofit-workers/
Posted on November 20, 2024Author The NewsGuild-CWA
This week the U.S. House is voting on… H.R. 9495, a bill which includes a provision that would disempower nonprofits and pose a threat to critical organizations supporting communities nationwide. We urge Members of Congress to vote NO on H.R. 9495 given the inclusion of this provision.
This legislation threatens nonprofit workers at ProPublica, the Texas Tribune, Spotlight PA, American Civil Liberties Union affiliates, the Natural Resource Defense Council, Southern Poverty Law Center and more who are members of The NewsGuild-CWA.
And the legislation also threatens our union itself, because unions are also nonprofits.
Section 4 of the bill is particularly concerning. Titled “Termination of tax-exempt status of terrorist supporting organizations,” this provision would give the Treasury Secretary near-unilateral power to strip the nonprofit status of any organization considered to be providing “material support or resources” to a terrorist organization. Such unilateral power could easily be abused by any future administration to target political opponents, shut down newsrooms and silence freedom of speech and affiliation in the United States.
It was narrowly defeated in an earlier vote on November 12 because it failed to clear a two-thirds majority vote in the House. House Republicans reintroduced the bill in a second attempt to pass it and changed the rules so only a simple majority is needed to pass it and move it to the Senate.
I’m asking you to contact your U.S. Representative TODAY and ask them to vote NO on H.R. 9495 and preserve our free speech and the free press.
SEND YOUR LETTER TO CONGRESS
Download and share this graphic on socials here:
I’m asking you to contact your U.S. Representative TODAY and ask them to vote NO on H.R. 9495 and preserve our free speech and the free press.
newsguild.orgThe AI Reporter That Took My Old Job Just Got Fired
https://www.wired.com/story/the-ai-reporter-who-took-my-old-job-just-got-fired/
GUTHRIE SCRIMGEOUR
NOV 21, 2024 5:00 AMBUSINESS
A local newspaper in Hawaii experimented with AI-generated presenters to engage and boost its… readership. After two months, the bots have been shelved.
A reporter holding a mic
James and Rose, the bizarre AI bots who were recently installed as news broadcasters at local Hawaii paper The Garden Island, have been terminated.
Employee retention is always a bit of a problem at local newspapers, and The Garden Island newspaper on the Hawaiian island of Kauai is no exception. Many reporters—usually mainland transplants like myself—would stick around for just a couple years before moving on, and some only lasted months.ADVERTISEMENT
WIRED’s resident AI expert Will Knight takes you to the cutting edge of this fast-changing field and beyond—keeping you informed about where AI and technology are headed. Delivered on Wednesdays.
After a two-month run, James and Rose have joined our ranks, as their broadcast has been discontinued, according to a representative for The Garden Island’s parent company, Oahu Publications (OPI). The pair were designed by Caledo, an Israeli firm that turns articles into videos where AI hosts discuss the news with one another. The Garden Island’s program was the first of its kind in the United States, and Caledo said at the time that it intended to expand it to hundreds of other local newspapers throughout the country—this is still the aim, according to a spokesperson.
While OPI declined to comment further, and Caledo declared the program a success without elaborating on this particular scenario, it seems likely that a broadly negative public response played into the decision to end James and Rose’s tenure at The Garden Island.
James, a middle-aged Asian man, and Rose, a younger redhead, were never able to figure out how to present the news in a manner that wasn’t deeply off-putting for viewers. Their program, which ran twice a week on Youtube, Facebook, and Instagram, covered topics as varied as a fall pumpkin giveaway and a vigil for a labor massacre—all in the same distant, matter-of-fact tone of beings incapable of comprehending human emotions.
In one particularly stilted exchange about the pumpkin giveaway, Rose asked James, “And how have these free pumpkins impacted the community?” to which James responded, “The free pumpkins have brought joy to many.”
They consistently butchered difficult Hawaiian names and even had surprising struggles with much simpler words. In their final broadcast on November 4, while discussing an air rifle championship, Rose inexplicably replaced the word “rifle” with the word “referee.”
In the polarized months leading up to the election, the pair managed to inspire visceral, bipartisan contempt. Comments under the videos were nearly universally negative.
“This is scary,” reads one Facebook comment from The Maui News, another local Hawaii paper. The nonprofit Hawaii journalism outlet Honolulu Civil Beat used them as a fundraising hook. “You no longer have to imagine a world where local news and information is generated by an algorithm,” wrote Ben Nishimoto, Civil Beat’s vice president of operations and philanthropy, in a September email, referring to the broadcast. “That dystopia is here. And it’s terrifying.”
I never like to root against fellow reporters, but I’ll admit I was also happy to see them go. While James and Rose did not actively supplant any existing newsroom jobs, I was concerned that the effort diverted resources that could be used on traditional media expenses, like human reporters, photographers, and editors.
The Garden Island was severely underresourced—for much of my time working there, I was one of only two reporters covering an island of 73,000. The paper was purchased earlier this year by the conglomerate Carpenter Media Group, which controls more than 100 local outlets throughout North America.
Caledo, while declining to disclose how much it was paid, said that new ads embedded in the broadcasts would offset the cost of the program. However, it does not appear as though OPI was able to sell a single ad on the videos.
James and Rose began every broadcast by announcing that the program was sponsored by Longs Drugs, a Hawaii local subsidiary of CVS. But Longs Drugs reported that it had a preexisting sponsorship agreement with OPI and that it had not been notified its logo would be used in the AI videos. “We have since asked that they run all Longs logo usage by us moving forward,” Amy Thibault, a CVS spokesperson, says. No other embedded advertisements appeared on the broadcasts.
Over its run, the tech did see some minor improvements. James began his tenure as lead anchor, at which point he was unable to blink and his hands were constantly vibrating. He was demoted to second anchor in mid-October, where he began blinking more regularly and his odd hand vibration was replaced by a single emphatic gesture.
But this proved to be too little too late. I wish James and Rose the best of luck in their future endeavors—it’s a tough job market out there.
A local newspaper in Hawaii experimented with AI-generated presenters to engage and boost its readership. After two months, the bots have been…
www.wired.comThe AI Reporter That Took My Old Job Just Got Fired
https://www.wired.com/story/the-ai-reporter-who-took-my-old-job-just-got-fired/
GUTHRIE SCRIMGEOUR
NOV 21, 2024 5:00 AMBUSINESS
A local newspaper in Hawaii experimented with AI-generated presenters to engage and boost its… readership. After two months, the bots have been shelved.
A reporter holding a mic
James and Rose, the bizarre AI bots who were recently installed as news broadcasters at local Hawaii paper The Garden Island, have been terminated.
Employee retention is always a bit of a problem at local newspapers, and The Garden Island newspaper on the Hawaiian island of Kauai is no exception. Many reporters—usually mainland transplants like myself—would stick around for just a couple years before moving on, and some only lasted months.ADVERTISEMENT
WIRED’s resident AI expert Will Knight takes you to the cutting edge of this fast-changing field and beyond—keeping you informed about where AI and technology are headed. Delivered on Wednesdays.
After a two-month run, James and Rose have joined our ranks, as their broadcast has been discontinued, according to a representative for The Garden Island’s parent company, Oahu Publications (OPI). The pair were designed by Caledo, an Israeli firm that turns articles into videos where AI hosts discuss the news with one another. The Garden Island’s program was the first of its kind in the United States, and Caledo said at the time that it intended to expand it to hundreds of other local newspapers throughout the country—this is still the aim, according to a spokesperson.
While OPI declined to comment further, and Caledo declared the program a success without elaborating on this particular scenario, it seems likely that a broadly negative public response played into the decision to end James and Rose’s tenure at The Garden Island.
James, a middle-aged Asian man, and Rose, a younger redhead, were never able to figure out how to present the news in a manner that wasn’t deeply off-putting for viewers. Their program, which ran twice a week on Youtube, Facebook, and Instagram, covered topics as varied as a fall pumpkin giveaway and a vigil for a labor massacre—all in the same distant, matter-of-fact tone of beings incapable of comprehending human emotions.
In one particularly stilted exchange about the pumpkin giveaway, Rose asked James, “And how have these free pumpkins impacted the community?” to which James responded, “The free pumpkins have brought joy to many.”
They consistently butchered difficult Hawaiian names and even had surprising struggles with much simpler words. In their final broadcast on November 4, while discussing an air rifle championship, Rose inexplicably replaced the word “rifle” with the word “referee.”
In the polarized months leading up to the election, the pair managed to inspire visceral, bipartisan contempt. Comments under the videos were nearly universally negative.
“This is scary,” reads one Facebook comment from The Maui News, another local Hawaii paper. The nonprofit Hawaii journalism outlet Honolulu Civil Beat used them as a fundraising hook. “You no longer have to imagine a world where local news and information is generated by an algorithm,” wrote Ben Nishimoto, Civil Beat’s vice president of operations and philanthropy, in a September email, referring to the broadcast. “That dystopia is here. And it’s terrifying.”
I never like to root against fellow reporters, but I’ll admit I was also happy to see them go. While James and Rose did not actively supplant any existing newsroom jobs, I was concerned that the effort diverted resources that could be used on traditional media expenses, like human reporters, photographers, and editors.
The Garden Island was severely underresourced—for much of my time working there, I was one of only two reporters covering an island of 73,000. The paper was purchased earlier this year by the conglomerate Carpenter Media Group, which controls more than 100 local outlets throughout North America.
Caledo, while declining to disclose how much it was paid, said that new ads embedded in the broadcasts would offset the cost of the program. However, it does not appear as though OPI was able to sell a single ad on the videos.
James and Rose began every broadcast by announcing that the program was sponsored by Longs Drugs, a Hawaii local subsidiary of CVS. But Longs Drugs reported that it had a preexisting sponsorship agreement with OPI and that it had not been notified its logo would be used in the AI videos. “We have since asked that they run all Longs logo usage by us moving forward,” Amy Thibault, a CVS spokesperson, says. No other embedded advertisements appeared on the broadcasts.
Over its run, the tech did see some minor improvements. James began his tenure as lead anchor, at which point he was unable to blink and his hands were constantly vibrating. He was demoted to second anchor in mid-October, where he began blinking more regularly and his odd hand vibration was replaced by a single emphatic gesture.
But this proved to be too little too late. I wish James and Rose the best of luck in their future endeavors—it’s a tough job market out there.
A local newspaper in Hawaii experimented with AI-generated presenters to engage and boost its readership. After two months, the bots have been…
www.wired.comUC Workers Speak Out On Palestine At UPTE AFSCME 3299 Strike At UCSF Mission Bay campus
https://youtu.be/DEtHkawLV58
At the strike of thousands of UC AFSMCE 3299 and UPTE workers, UPTE Members For Palestine
had a support rally and also spoke out for Palestine at the UC Mission Bay …campus.
This action took place on November 21, 2024.
Additional Media:
UC AFSCME 3299 & UPTE CWA Workers Strike For Living Wages and Against Union Busting at UCSF Parnassus
https://youtu.be/gLhOg-UgDzI
Striking UPTE UCSF Optometrists Speak Out For Patients & Justice
https://youtu.be/SAIkZLcegkM
Fighting For Housing, Staffing & Living Wages, UCSF AFSCME 3299 Workers Demand Action At Picket Line
https://youtu.be/L9pS-5J8WTY
UCSF UPTE Optometrists Strike & Rally With AFSCME 3299 State Bargaining Team At UC Mission Bay
https://youtu.be/QFjrq3KLmpw
UCSF Doctor & SEIU 1021/CWA UPTE Workers Speak Out On Palestine At SF General Hospital
https://youtu.be/GNCfpDus_5g
If We Don't Get It, Shut It Down! AFSCME 3299 Strikes UCSF Mission Bay With Support of CWA UPTE
https://youtu.be/wQdMed5ZxzI
UC Regents & Bosses STOP Outsourcing Our Jobs! UCSF AFSCME 3299 & CWA UPTE Workers Picket
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpJ-PNjRC84
AFSCME3299 UC Strike Leader Kathryn Lybarger Interviewed And SF Unite Here 2 Marriott Strikers Speak Out
https://soundcloud.com/workweek-radio/ww10-21-18-afscme3299-uc-strike-and-sf-unite-here-2-marriott-strike
"Stop The Destruction Of Our UC Public Pensions” Report By CWA UPTE At UCSF
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9NxaYYVUIE&t=47s
Janet Must Go! UC Workers Want UC Pres Napolitano Out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htslfoHPWvY&t=4s
Stop Attacking Our Benefits! UCSF AFSCME 3299 Workers Strike UCSF
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-wGeBUaG04
Additional information:
Debate over outsourcing, equity as UC workers strike
https://calmatters.org/articles/debate-over-outsourcing-equity-as-uc-workers-strike/
https://afscme3299.org/2018/10/25/research-shows-white-workers-get-more-lucrative-promotions-less-likely-to-be-fired-at-uc/
AFSCME Local 3299, CNA NNU nurses picket to demand higher wages, better working conditions
https://dailybruin.com/2024/10/09/afscme-local-3299-nurses-picket-to-demand-higher-wages-better-working-conditions
Striking UPTE UCSF Optometrists Speak Out For Patients & Justice
https://youtu.be/SAIkZLcegkM
UCSF Doctor & SEIU 1021/CWA UPTE Workers Speak Out On Palestine At SF General Hospital
https://youtu.be/GNCfpDus_5g
If We Don't Get It, Shut It Down! AFSCME 3299 Strikes UCSF Mission Bay With Support of CWA UPTE
https://youtu.be/wQdMed5ZxzI
UC Regents & Bosses STOP Outsourcing Our Jobs! UCSF AFSCME 3299 & CWA UPTE Workers Picket
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpJ-PNjRC84
Production of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net
Production of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net
At the strike of thousands of UC AFSMCE 3299 and UPTE workers, UPTE Members For Palestine had a support rally and also spoke out for Palestine at the…
youtu.beUC Workers Speak Out On Palestine At UPTE AFSCME 3299 Strike At UCSF Mission Bay campus
Sinclair’s EPIC plan promised to End Poverty in California
https://www.latimes.com/california/newsletter/2024-11-21/upton-sinclair-los-angeles-city-council-essential-california
An editorial cartoon in the Oct. 2, 1934 edition of the Los Angeles Times criticizes Upton Sinclair …and his EPIC plan.
An editorial cartoon in the Oct. 2, 1934 edition of the Los Angeles Times criticizes Upton Sinclair and his EPIC plan. (Los Angeles Times)
In 1933, Sinclair published “I, Governor of California, and How I ended Poverty: A True Story of the Future.” The 63-page booklet was classic Sinclair: heartfelt, pedantic and too ahead of its time for its own good.
Written as a fictionalized reminiscence from 1938, the author laid out his End Poverty in California (EPIC, for short) plan for Depression-era readers: monthly pensions for elderly and disabled people. Higher income and property taxes for the rich. Government seizure of abandoned factories and unused farmland to create worker cooperatives. The mix of common-sense reforms and pie-in-the-sky proposal drew quick ridicule — but also fans, who started hundreds of EPIC clubs across the state.
The backlash against Sinclair’s run for governor forged today’s modern-day political circus
A cartoon in the Oct. 29, 1934 edition of the Los Angeles Times depicts Upton Sinclair as inexperienced.
A cartoon in the Oct. 29, 1934 edition of the Los Angeles Times depicts Upton Sinclair as an inexperienced puppet during his run for governor. (Los Angeles Times)
A longtime member of the Socialist Party, Sinclair re-registered as a Democrat, took advantage of a bickering party (the more things change …) and won its nomination. His victory so shook California’s political establishment that it forged today’s modern-day political circus of fake news, attack ads, skulduggery and demonization to sink Sinclair.
This paper — never a fan of Sinclair to begin with — ran front-page attacks against him throughout his campaign, deeming the nominee an “apostle of hatred” and his supporters as “maggots” (and you thought Fox News was extreme!). Hollywood studios used their creative might to paint Sinclair as a threat to the California Dream. MGM producer Irving G. Thalberg, who has an Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences award named after him, produced newsreels that warned “bums” and communists would flood California if Sinclair won.
An editorial cartoon in the Oct. 2, 1934 edition of the Los Angeles Times criticizes Upton Sinclair.
An editorial cartoon in the Oct. 2, 1934 edition of the Los Angeles Times accuses Upton Sinclair of trying to attract other states’ unemployed to California.
The negative onslaught was successful — Sinclair lost by over 250,000 votes to Republican incumbent Frank Merriam. (For the definitive account of the 1934 California gubernatorial race, read Greg Mitchell’s excellent “The Campaign of the Century: Upton Sinclair’s Race for Governor of California,” or check out his 2022 Times op-ed piece on the matter). Sinclair told the story of his failed campaign the following year in “I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked.”
The electoral catastrophe must’ve tickled Sinclair’s funny bone. His account is an unsparing jaunt. He’s even self-deprecating enough to include some of the dozens of negative political cartoons that newspapers across the country commissioned throughout his campaign.
Sinclair’s political descendants are avenging him in L.A. City Hall as you read this
As I wrote earlier this month, tenants right attorney Ysabel Jurado completed one of the most stunning upsets in L.A. political history when she knocked off Kevin de León from his Eastside City Council seat. Jurado won despite De León — a former political giant whose reputation went under like the Titanic after his role in the 2022 City Hall audio leak scandal — and his acolytes running a red-baiting campaign against his opponent straight outta 1934.
When Jurado, 34, is sworn in next month, she’ll be the fourth sitting L.A. councilmember backed by the Democratic Socialists of America’s Los Angeles chapter, following in the wake of Nithya Raman, Eunisses Hernández and Hugo Soto-Martínez. They now hold a quarter of L.A.’s City Council seats — a once-unimaginable bloc in Los Angeles that’s now a force opponents need to deal with.
I’m not sure if the Fabian Four are familiar with Sinclair, but they should read up on him quick. And they should take pride in fulfilling the final chapter of “I, Candidate for Governor,” in which Sinclair predicts that socialism in the Golden State had yet to see its best days.
“Keep your eyes on California,” he concluded, “and follow along behind us.”
Ninety years after his failed run for California governor, Upton Sinclair is smiling down on us from socialist heaven.
www.latimes.comCA AFL-CIO Pres Lorena Gonzalez On UC AFSCME 3299 & UPTE CWA Strike & Union Busting
S.F. Symphony’s struggles take center stage in Fauré’s Requiem
…https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/classical/review-s-f-symphony-s-struggles-take-center-19914225?_gl=1*167z1j9*_gcl_au*NDQ0NDExMDEwLjE3MzE5OTUwMjY.*_ga*MTM5ODQxNDQzNy4xNzMxOTk1MDI2*_ga_56G0ZT3ZD0*MTczMjEyNDMwMy43LjEuMTczMjEyNDM5Mi4wLjAuMA..
Rebecca Wishnia November 17, 2024Updated: November 18, 2024, 4:24 pm
The San Francisco Symphony Chorus in a performance at Davies Symphony Hall.
As contract tensions between talent and management escalate, it’s hard to see what the immediate future holds for the San Francisco Symphony. But one thing is clear: Musicians stick together.
Long before any notes of Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem were sung at Davies Symphony Hall on Saturday, Nov. 16, the orchestra’s instrumentalists led a long ovation in support of their colleagues in the Symphony Chorus. It was a heartening show of solidarity in an evening that otherwise felt disjointed.
These fine performers have had much to contend with over the past many months. After a three-day strike in September that canceled what were to be the season’s opening performances of Verdi’s Requiem, the Chorus’ 32 union members remain without a contract.
SF Symphony: Renewed protests over wage and budget cuts
Members of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus in a 2022 performance at Davies Symphony Hall.
The choristers made their case, via leaflets distributed outside the hall before the weekend’s concerts, for a multiyear agreement that preserves the current performing minimums and provides for compensation growth. During the program’s first performance on Friday, Nov. 15, Symphony management sent an email to ticket holders detailing its position of maintaining current wage rates for choristers and reducing the Chorus performances from 26 to 23 in the current season. (The American Guild of Musical Artists, which represents the union singers, has since published its response.)
Meanwhile, the orchestra members’ own contract is set to expire on Sunday, Nov. 24. As if this weren’t enough, the musicians are also mourning the loss of soprano Aimée Puentes, a longtime Chorus member who died last month.
In stressful times, the first line of defense is a good leader. Guest conductor Kazuki Yamada had the unenviable task of uniting everyone for these first concerts back for the Chorus, and he unfortunately seemed to struggle in the role during Saturday’s performance. The 45-year-old conductor got his start as a choirboy in his native Japan; he’s now music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, a position once held by the great Simon Rattle. Yamada surely knows this music well, yet under his leadership, Fauré’s Requiem — and the rest of the pieces on the program — failed to cohere.
Guest conductor Kazuki Yamada led the San Francisco Symphony in works by Gabriel Fauré, Maurice Ravel and Dai Fujikura.
Indeed, in this performance of an inherently beautiful piece, it was difficult to find much beauty. From Yamada’s first downbeat — a gesture too ambiguous for the unison declamation to land — the ensemble pulled apart. The textures were muddy, phrases were directionless and tempos were punishingly slow. The Chorus, prepared by Director Jenny Wong, sang with inconsistent vowels and, shockingly, the occasional insistence of individual voices. It sounded like a first reading.
The other pieces on the program had their bright spots, and in Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major, that light was soloist Hélène Grimaud.
To be sure, circumstances weren’t ideal. In the slow movement, Yamada couldn’t quite get the strings to move; in the finale, his conducting seemed to weigh the music down. The balance was off. But when Grimaud played alone, she revealed herself to be the same musician audiences have admired ever since her Symphony debut in 1993 (the same year she released her magnificent first recording of this piece). She phrased with utmost rhythmic nuance, especially in the unaccompanied aria of the slow movement and in her encore, the Bagatelle Op. 1, No. 2, by contemporary Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov. Her technique was flawless as ever; the first-movement piano cadenza, a fluent cascade of virtuosic arpeggiation and trills, was a joy.
Pianist Hélène Grimaud was the soloist in Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major.
The program had another highlight in the U.S. premiere of “Entwine” by London-based composer Dai Fujikura. In this short 2021 work, Fujikura takes fleeting gestures of not entirely unfamiliar sounds — the woodwinds playing flutter-tongue, the trumpets fanning their mutes — and reconfigures them in rich new harmonies. At first, the instrumental consorts seem to be in their own worlds, but gradually, the music connects them.
Some of the entrances were unintentionally blurry, but with the help of Yamada’s introductory spoken remarks, the piece’s premise — a composer’s longing for community during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic — came across. Put yourself back in that time: no gathering, certainly no touching.
“Maybe,” Yamada said, “through music we can do something.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated when the current contract was set to expire. It expires Nov. 24.
Rebecca Wishnia is a freelance writer. This article has been provided in partnership with San Francisco Classical Voice.
NO ROOM FOR EMERGENCY SAN FRANCISCO’S BIGGEST HOSPITAL SYSTEM: DON’T TALK ABOUT PALESTINE
https://theintercept.com/2024/11/19/ucsf-medical-palestine-speech/
IN DECEMBER, BRIDGET Rochios, a nurse practitioner and midwife at the University of California, San Francisco, showed up to …work wearing a keffiyeh.
Later, she and other co-workers started coming to work wearing “Free Palestine” pins, as well as hospital ID badges shaped like a watermelon, a pro-Palestine symbol.
Rochios, whose work includes addressing health disparities within reproductive health care, had been moved by reports of Israel’s targeting and destruction of Gaza’s hospitals and health care system, and started wearing the items as a show of solidarity with Palestinian women and babies, as well as her medical colleagues in Gaza.
Supervisors ordered Rochios and her colleagues to remove the pins, threatening them with suspension or termination. Most complied, but Rochios refused.
In April, she traveled to Gaza where she spent a month delivering babies at a maternity hospital in Rafah and the al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah. She saw some of the many delivering mothers who have suffered under dire conditions in Gaza.
“The people who are really ‘unsafe’ are the women who I was supporting in labor as literally bombs were dropping.”
A week after she returned to the U.S., her supervisors at the UCSF Mission Bay campus, one of the graduate school and hospital system’s 10 campuses, placed Rochios on a three-month paid administrative leave for “insubordination.” Hersuspension was renewed in September after she again refused to remove her watermelon pin. She may still face further sanctions, including termination. University representatives have told her that several colleagues and patients said the pin made them feel “unsafe.”
“The people who are really ‘unsafe’ are the women who I was supporting in labor as literally bombs were dropping and shaking the walls of our hospital,” Rochios told The Intercept, recalling moments during Israel’s invasion of Rafah. “Women who have not had prenatal care at all; women who went to walk to the hospital in labor and have a baby, and then two hours later, walk back home to their tent where they did not have running water, where they don’t have enough food or hydration to breastfeed, no clean water, or money to buy formula for their kids.”
Medical professionals, especially those who have treated patients in Gaza’s and Lebanon’s hospitals over the past year, have spoken out about atrocities carried out by the Israeli military. Doing so at UCSF, one of the country’s most elite medical institutions, may come at a price.
Rochios is one of nine health care workers at UCSF who spoke with The Intercept about their experiences of censorship and punishment after speaking out about human rights for Palestinians as a part of their research and medical work.
UCSF declined to comment or respond to a detailed list of questions or multiple phone calls over the course of a week. A UCSF spokesperson said they were concerned that the accounts of UCSF employees were being “taken out of context.”
RUPA MARYA, AN internal medicine physician and professor at UCSF, is perhaps the most notable and vocal among those who have received pushback. In her social media posts in January, Marya, an expert in decolonial theory, questioned the impacts of Zionism as “a supremacist, racist ideology” on health care and drew immediate criticism from pro-Israel colleagues and Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener.
The university then published a statement across its social media accounts addressing the posts without naming Marya, disavowing her statements as “antisemitic attacks.” Wiener thanked UCSF for the statement. A flurry of online attacks against Marya followed, including racist and sexist attacks and threats of death and sexual violence. Wiener has continued to single out Marya on social media.
In September, Marya wrote a new post on social media that UCSF students were concerned that a first-year student from Israel may have served in the Israeli military in the prior year, then asked, “How do we address this in our professional ranks?”
The following month, the university placed her on paid leave and suspended her ability to practice medicine pending an investigation into the post. The university has since reinstated her ability to give clinical care, but she remains banned from campus, including the hospital where she worked.
“I wanted to protect people who have lost family members,” Marya said. “People are being murdered, doctors are being disappeared, hospitals are being bombed — you have this traumatized community in UCSF. I’ve been trying to give voice to the experience of the Muslim, Indigenous, Black, SWANA” — Southwest Asian and North African — “students who are afraid, like deeply afraid.”
The Center for Protest Law and Litigation, a First Amendment group, is assisting Marya in obtaining public records of possible communications about her social media posts between UCSF, Wiener, and the Helen Diller Family Foundation, the school’s largest donor that has in the past donated to pro-Israel propaganda groups. The center filed suit for the records after the university failed to produce documents after nine months of back and forth, during which the school claimed such records are exempt from freedom of information laws.
In a statement sent to The Intercept, Wiener said Marya’s social media posts “crossed a line,” accusing her of using “an antisemitic conspiracy theory targeting Jewish doctors” and an Israeli medical student. He said concerned UCSF faculty and students brought the January and October posts to his attention. “I then called out those posts as antisemitic, just as I have called out homophobic, transphobic, racist, and Islamophobic statements by various individuals,” he wrote.
Wiener, as a part of the legislature’s Jewish Caucus, previously targeted K-12 school districts for teaching history lessons that were critical of Israel, dismissing them as “bigoted, inaccurate, discriminatory, and deeply offensive anti-Jewish and anti-Israel propaganda,” according to a January letter to state lawmakers. He decried the online threats against Marya, calling for an investigation.
Exterior view of the UCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion under a clear blue sky, San Francisco, California, April 8, 2024. (Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)
People walk towards a devastated building at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on June 11, 2024. Israeli troops conducted raids in November and March on Al-Shifa hospital, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas militant group. The medical facility, the largest in the Gaza Strip, was reduced to rubble after an Israeli operation in March, the WHO said. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP) (Photo by OMAR AL-QATTAA/AFP via Getty Images)
UCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion in San Francisco on April 8, 2024, left, and a devastated building at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City in the Gaza Strip on June 11, 2024. Photos: Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images and Omar Al-Qatta/AFP via Getty Images
THE SCHOOL’S CRACKDOWN has been broad, targeting professors, doctors, and medical staff.
Doctors have had their lectures mentioning Gaza scrubbed from the internet or canceled outright. They have been accused of antisemitism and creating an unsafe work environment, and banned from lecturing entirely. Staffers, nurses, and students have been suspended for speaking out in solidarity or for acts as simple as wearing a watermelon pin or hanging a pro-Palestine symbol in their offices. Dozens of employees have criticized the ongoing silence from UCSF and its failure to condemn Israel’s war on Gaza, accusing the school of favoring pro-Israel views.
“This is really unprecedented where this university in particular has stepped in and taken such a strong stand in support of some speech and opposition to other speech,” said Dan Siegel, a longtime Bay Area civil rights attorney who is representing several UCSF employees facing discipline. “It’s really remarkable to me that there is so much content-based discrimination here.”
For the past 30 years, Siegel has represented faculty and staff across the UC system in employment and workplace issues. Before October 7, he had never seen such a widespread effort to punish employees for speaking out about a specific issue.
“Look, I don’t want to make people feel uncomfortable, but aren’t people made uncomfortable by 40,000 dead in Gaza?”
“Among the supporters of the Israeli government, this is a cynical and manipulative effort to limit debate,” he said. “They’ve promoted an atmosphere where you’re a student at the university or a patient at the hospital, and it becomes perfectly normalized for you to say or for someone to champion your saying, ‘I feel uncomfortable as a Jew because of people saying these things,” said Siegel, who is Jewish.
“Look, I don’t want to make people feel uncomfortable, but aren’t people made uncomfortable by 40,000 dead in Gaza or the efforts taking place in the West Bank to steal Palestinian land?” Siegel asked. “Those things make me feel uncomfortable — so now we’re all going to be censoring each other’s speech because it makes us uncomfortable, and that really can’t be the criteria for limiting speech.”
In late July, a group of House Republicans, including House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., told UCSF they would investigate allegations of antisemitism made by employees and patients at the institution. The members of Congress threatened to withhold all federal funding, including Medicare and Medicaid payments, from the school and health care system. Their investigation is a part of a larger partisan effort, led by House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., targeting universities whose students and faculty have been vocal critics of Israel.
THREE UCSF PHYSICIANS have been banned from giving lectures after mentioning the negative health impacts of Israel’s war on Gaza or the apartheid health system in the Occupied Territories.
Jess Ghannam had received pushback for his scholarship in the past. In 2012, an attendee of one of his lectures about Gaza at UCSF called the police on him, saying they didn’t feel safe with him on campus, Ghannam recalled. Later that year, a student burst into tears and ran out of a lecture Ghannam was delivering at UC Davis and later filed a complaint alleging that Ghannam had created an unsafe learning environment. (UC Davis launched a formal investigation, which eventually saw the complaint dismissed.)
In his 25 years at the university, Ghannam never had any of his lectures canceled outright. He is a well-known speaker who has shared his research on the consequences of war on displaced communities, such as Palestinians, in many venues over the past two decades. And he helped establish mental health and medical clinics for Palestinians, interviewing Palestinian torture survivors who were incarcerated in Israeli prisons.
In September, he was scheduled to speak to first-year medical students, after a group of medical students had met with the university’s deans to push for more education around Palestine.
Student protest calling on the UC system to divest from its investments in Israeli companies while gathering outside of UC San Francisco's Rutter Center, where a meeting of the UC Board of Regents was held at the University of California, San Francisco, Wednesday, July 17, 2024. (Thomas Sawano/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)
Student protesters outside of UC San Francisco’s Rutter Center call for the UC system to divest from investments in Israeli companies as the UC Board of Regents holds meetings inside the university, in San Francisco, on July 17, 2024. Photo: Thomas Sawano/San Francisco Chronicle via AP
Then, four days before the scheduled talk, Ghannam heard from the course instructor that his lecture was being canceled. The instructor said there wasn’t enough time to provide “wraparound services” for students, or peer support or support services, for those who may be distressed by the topic, Ghannam said.
Students responded with outrage. Ninety-five medical students signed a letter addressed to school officials, calling the cancellation “an act of intentional erasure of historical harms that continue to affect our communities and our profession” and alleging that it was part of “a pattern of suppression that seemingly targets any element of acknowledgement or advocacy for the health of Palestinians, despite UCSF’s claimed position as a bastion of social justice.” The students went on to host Ghannam independently, allowing him to give his lecture in front of about 100 people.
“That’s the clear message: You can’t talk about Palestine, you can’t talk about genocide.”
“If you talk about Palestine,” Ghannam said of his critics’ perspective, “if you talk about the health consequences of genocide, and the negative impact of genocide and settler colonialism, it’s OK to talk about it in any other people except Palestinians — and then if you do try to talk about it in the Palestinian context, we’re going to shut you down.”
“I mean, that’s the clear message: You can’t talk about Palestine, you can’t talk about genocide.”
LEIGH KIMBERG had a similar experience. Kimberg, a medical school professor, primary care doctor, and leader in the field of violence prevention and trauma-informed care, had lectured at UCSF’s continuing education program several times in the past decade.
In April, she gave a 50-minute lecture and dedicated six of those minutes to a discussion of the health of Palestinians in Gaza. She argued that you cannot speak on trauma-informed care without mentioning the genocide in Gaza and described the connections between the liberation of Black, Palestinian, and Jewish people. She also decried antisemitism during her lecture.
Still, the following month, administrators told Kimberg that they had received complaints from attendees who called her speech “biased and antisemitic,” which prompted the school to remove the recording of her talk from the school’s website. When she protested the video’s removal, she said the school barred her from giving lectures at the program.
The ban was lifted after multiple emails from Kimberg and Siegel, who is representing her, but she was told that her future talks must comply with the program’s rules. She also received pushback from her division at the school of medicine, where colleagues have referred to her as “inflammatory” or “not trauma-informed.”
Healthcare workers in San Francisco on Jan. 14, 2024, at the March for Gaza, part of a national day of action against the war. Photo: Leigh Kimberg
Kimberg began to speak out about Palestine publicly last October, and her Palestinian colleagues welcomed her perspective as a person of Jewish ancestry. Her grandparents had fled antisemitic violence in Poland and Lithuania, and three of her relatives died in the Holocaust. But her colleagues also cautioned her of the backlash to come.
“We do want to warn you that the second you advocate for Palestine, you will be called ‘antisemitic,’” Kimberg recalled from earlier conversations with Palestinian colleagues. “It doesn’t matter that you’re Jewish — in some ways, it will be worse — but you will definitely be called ‘antisemitic’ if you say anything to value Palestinian life.”
“And that has been my experience.”
SUCH DISCRIMINATION IS what led Keith Hansen, a former chief resident of surgery at UCSF, to conceal his Palestinian heritage throughout his career. As chief resident in the fall of 2023, Hansen would send daily emails to his co-workers at the trauma surgery department at San Francisco General Hospital, highlighting updates across their field. In one of those emails in October, as reports of Israeli strikes on hospitals in Gaza began to compile, he skipped the updates and instead asked his colleagues “to take a moment to acknowledge that doctors and surgeons and patients, just like us, were being bombed by the Israeli government.”
Hansen received positive feedback for the email from his co-workers, but in his monthly review to assess his performance as a resident, an attending physician referred to Hansen as “a polarizing figure” because of the email.
In May, as student activists continued to occupy a protest encampment at the school’s Parnassus Heights campus, Hansen gave a lecture as chief resident about his work in organ transplantation along with health inequities of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank under Israeli occupation.
During the talk, he also disclosed his Palestinian heritage, something he had never done in his career. He shared that he was born in Jordan to Palestinian refugees, his mother from Ramallah and his father from Jenin. After running through data showing health disparities between Palestinians living under occupation and Israeli citizens, as well as the targeting of physicians in Gaza, he called on the university to do more to address such issues. He referenced other UCSF initiatives, such as fundraising to protect doctors and scholars in Afghanistan and Ukraine. He went on to call for an academic boycott of institutions “complicit in the genocide and medical apartheid.”
Following his talk, several colleagues lodged complaints against him that he was creating an unsafe working environment. The chair of his department also directed him and other speakers not to mention “anything political or anything that didn’t have to do with graduation.” At graduation, he said people he had previously gotten along with avoided him.
“Everyone kind of shows their true colors once they find out your background.”
“There’s that term — ‘liberal except for Palestine’ or ‘humanitarian except for Palestine’ — and a lot of people as soon as they hear you’re Palestinian just change their entire view of you,” Hansen said. “And it has changed my relationship — I mean, there were people at graduation who didn’t talk to me, who I had known for years and always got along with really well. Everyone kind of shows their true colors once they find out your background.”
At the same time, pro-Israel speakers have been invited to campus while Palestinian voices have been opposed. Among those speakers were Elan Carr, a U.S. Army veteran and CEO of the Israeli American Council, an influential pro-Israel lobbying and advocacy group. UCSF’s Office of Diversity and Outreach invited him to speak during May’s Jewish American Heritage Month.
Nearly 100 faculty, medical workers, and students wrote to the diversity office, protesting Carr’s talk, citing his role at a counterprotest against student encampments at UCLA that turned violent a month earlier, as well as his endorsement of transphobic comments on social media. Carr’s speech on “the persistence of anti-Zionism, anti-Israel discrimination, and campus antisemitism” went on as planned.
The same office declined to sponsor and publicize an official screening of documentary “Israelism,” which was hosted by the school’s chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace. The film centers on the advocacy of anti-Zionist Jewish activists.
SOME STAFFERS HAVE been disciplined for a speech act as quiet as wearing a pin.
Shortly after October 7, Rosita, a nurse at UCSF who gave only her first name out of fear of being doxxed by pro-Israel activists, started hand-making watermelon pins for her co-workers to attach to their hospital ID cards, green glittery resin disks with a small rubber watermelon glued on top.
A slice of the fruit has been a symbol of Palestinian liberation since the 1980s, when Palestinian artists started to use the depictions of the watermelon, with its red flesh, green rind, and black seeds, as a way to circumvent an Israeli ban on public displays of the Palestinian flag in Gaza and the West Bank. Rosita passed her pins out to interested colleagues at work and to others during pro-Palestine protests.
A watermelon pin attached to a UCSF employee ID card. Photo: Bridget Rochios
In a relatively uniform work environment such as a hospital floor or clinic, custom badge pins are typical ways for medical workers to express themselves. At UCSF, such displays are often political, with many wearing pins that advocate for LGBTQ rights or the Black Lives Matter movement. In the past, UCSF even gave away its own uterus pins meant to affirm reproductive rights, said Rosita, who also helped found the school’s faculty and staff pro-Palestinian group.
“I can tell what type of person you are by the pins that you have on your badge,” she said. “So it’s a sense of pride and solidarity and acknowledgment.”
In all, Rosita said she has made and given away 500 pins. And while many workers received compliments from colleagues and patients, those who wore the pins started to get approached by their managers, telling them the pins were antisemitic and ordering them to remove them under threat of suspension or termination.
In September, Rosita’s manager called her in for a “counseling” session where she was told to remove the pin because a staff member said it made them feel “uncomfortable.” She refused and responded with an email, calling the manager’s request “discrimination and denial of the Palestinian people.”
“She exists!” Rosita added. “I wear the watermelon because she exists!”
Rosita, who is Rochios’s union steward and has been representing her in disciplinary hearings, said she worried she would be met with similar punishment.
MOST READ
GettyImages-1976437330-e1732034897549.jpeg
“Absolutely Insane”: Pentagon Officials on Trump’s Military Deportation Plan
Nick Turse
GettyImages-2184848078-e1731674737727.jpeg
House GOP Moves to Ram Through Bill That Gives Trump Unilateral Power to Kill Nonprofits
Noah Hurowitz
GettyImages-2159654394.jpeg
White House Staffers to Biden: “You Are Running Out of Time” on Gaza
Shawn Musgrave
Another staff member faced similar pushback for displaying pro-Palestine symbols. A researcher at UCSF, who declined to give their name due to fear of workplace retaliation, was told by supervisors to remove a sign from their office that said “Queer as in Free Palestine” with a red and pink triangle. The staff member, who is queer, said the sign was meant to express solidarity between the LGBTQ community and Palestinians. They noted that their Mexican LGBTQ flag had been accepted. Leading up to the ban, the researcher had received an online death threat for displaying the symbol, and one community member confronted them inside their office, accusing them of supporting Hamas.
The school told them the red triangle was a Nazi symbol that is being used to promote violence against Jewish people. The ban remains on the staff member’s employee file. Since reporting the death threat, the school has yet to offer a safety plan for the staff member, who as a result has been working remotely since September.
“It’s been really tough. I’ve had to take time off, my mental and physical health is just shot at this point from the stress and anxiety, not knowing whether I’m going to lose my job,” they said.
“My mental and physical health is just shot at this point from the stress and anxiety, not knowing whether I’m going to lose my job.”
Another staffer received a notice of intent to fire her just for discussing accusations lodged against them with colleagues. In January, UCSF therapist Denise Caramagno quote tweeted, to her modest following of 500 users on X, the school’s public rebuke of Marya with the following: “@UCSF is coordinating an attack on its own faculty of color who are asking legitimate questions about social determinants of health. This is a violation of academic speech. How are we to achieve health equity if we cannot ask important questions about systems of supremacy?”
Several months later in May, Caramagno’s supervisor sent an email, flagging that a physician at UCSF sent a complaint about Caramagno’s post to school officials and a complaint officer in the diversity office, calling the tweet antisemitic and questioning Caramagno’s ability to “offer psychological support to Jewish and Israeli faculty and staff.”
Medical workers stage a die-in at San Francisco city hall on January 8, 2024. Photo: John Avalos
Over the past decade, Caramagno helped build the school’s CARE program, which provides resources and support to those on campus who have experienced discrimination, harassment, or abuse. As the co-director, she had remained the point of contact for students to reach out to confidentially and become a trusted source of support to students during difficult moments, including amid protests during the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements. She’s regularly called out systemic racism as a part of her role.
“When I see what’s happening in Palestine, it just looks like the most extreme form of racism,” Caramagno said, referring to the genocide in Gaza. “We’re a public health care system, so when we see the dismantling of the public health care system [in Gaza], we have an obligation to call that out.”
While the complaint did not lead to any discipline, she was barred from serving as a point of contact for individuals with reports of antisemitism.
In June, her supervisors caught wind that Caramagno had shared the email from her supervisor that included the complaint with close friends and colleagues, seeking guidance and support on how to proceed. Supervisors told her that she was not allowed to share the email, which they considered confidential. Caramagno and her attorney, Siegel, insist the email was not confidential, which she dismissed as “defamatory.” Even so, by August she was suspended and then received notice of the school’s intent to fire her. She is barred from campus and from contacting her clients.
“I’m a trained clinician in this; I know the laws about confidentiality,” Caramagno said. “I know I had never breached confidentiality, and I never will.”
LAST WEEK, A group of faculty staff and students, including Kimberg and Ghannam, gathered for the first session of the UC People’s Tribunal, a group that aims to hold UC leaders accountable for the school system’s complicity with Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza and the ongoing displacement of Palestinians.
In addition to the violent crackdown on student encampments across the UC system last spring, school leaders have long shown a pro-Israel bias in their longstanding opposition to attempts by student and faculty groups to join academic boycotts of institutions with ties to Israel. The tactic is part of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, or BDS, which aims to achieve Palestinian statehood.
The People’s group, which presented the tribunal charges at La Peña Cultural Center in Berkeley, focused on the UC’s investments in Israeli companies and the other activities of UCSF’s largest private donor, the Diller family. A collection of foundations created by the Bay Area real estate billionaire Sanford Diller, who died in 2018, gave a massive $1 billion to the school in 2017 and 2018, after giving $150 million over the previous 15 years.
Facade of UCSF Helen Diller Medical Center at night with illuminated windows, located at 505 Parnassus Avenue, San Francisco, California, April 28, 2023. (Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)
Facade of the UCSF Helen Diller Medical Center in San Francisco on April 28, 2023. Photo: Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images
The foundations, named for Diller’s late wife Helen, also donated $100,000in 2016 to the Canary Mission, a group that aims to blacklist students and professors at universities who are found to be critical of Israel. Once an individual is listed on the Canary Mission site, a flood of cyberbullying messages often follow in an attempt to ruin the person’s reputation. The site has a profile for Ghannam and Marya, accusing both of supporting terrorism and antisemitism. Ghannam jokingly called himself one of the site’s “inaugural” members, or a “first-gen Canary Mission.” The group also recently celebrated Marya’s suspension on social media.
In 2016, the Diller Foundation also donated $25,000 to Regavim, an Israeli NGO that sues Palestinians who try to build homes in the occupied West Bank; $100,000 to Reservists on Duty, a group that pays for Israeli reserve soldiers to travel to U.S. universities to work with students on projects that challenge BDS; and $25,000 to Turning Point USA “for US campus efforts against BDS.” And the foundation has donated to Islamophobic groups American Freedom Law Center and Stop Islamization of America, along with American right-wing conservative groups, Project Veritas and the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
Jackie Safier, Sanford Diller’s daughter, who now runs the Diller Foundation, has dismissed connections between the foundation and the far-right Zionist and conservative groups in the U.S. and Israel. Given the foundation’s close ties with UCSF, however, faculty and staff who have faced punishment for their pro-Palestine speech have questioned whether the relationship was a factor.
“You can’t walk anywhere at UCSF without seeing Helen Diller’s name somewhere,” Ghannam said. “The foundation’s name is in the front of UCSF, the main entrance, they’ve endowed chairs and faculty positions.”
GHANNAM HAD HOPED to travel to Gaza to assist patients there during this past year, but has been barred due to Israeli travel restrictions into the territory for individuals with Palestinian ancestry. He instead has been forced to watch the conflict from afar, doing what he can with organizing at UCSF, while Israeli strikes kill people he’s close with.
“There’s this awesomeness of feeling the solidarity; people are finally understanding Palestine in ways that they never understood before,” Ghannam said. “But at the same time, the amount of fucking grief and pain that I feel every day with knowing that my colleagues have been killed, that all clinics that we helped build and all the programs we help build and all of the people whose kids I’ve seen grown up over the years and get married — they’re all dead, so there’s this profound sense of grief and guilt.”
Rochios speaking with Al Jazeera for an interview aired on May 26, 2024.Screenshot: Al Jazeera
Rochios’s advocacy on the health inequality experienced by Palestinians in Gaza began by speaking out at home, both at the workplace and at rallies in the Bay Area. When Rochios, who was allowed to travel to Gaza, was working in Rafah in April, she began to share what she was witnessing on television news for outlets such as Al Jazeera.
“While the West seems to not give any weight or validation to Palestinian reporters on the ground, these health care workers have become the journalists, the storytellers, all this information, and it became very clear to me to that it was my duty to try and be a voice to that,” she said.
UCSF escalated its punishment against Rochios this week, moving her from a paid suspension to three days unpaid. She will be allowed to return to work for the first time since June on November 21, but was again ordered not to wear her keffiyeh or watermelon badge. If she continues to wear the items, the school said, she would be in violation of UCSF’s PRIDE policies and Principles of Community, which are among several codes meant to reinforce diversity and inclusion within the institution. She expects to be fired, given the climate of repression she and her colleagues have experienced at UCSF.
Through conversations with colleagues in the OBGYN department at the nearby city-run San Francisco General Hospital, Rochios knows that this outcome is not the norm in her profession, even within the same city. Unlike at UCSF, the hospital workers have been able to display their support for Palestine, with some openly wearing sweatshirts that read “Healthcare workers for Palestine.”
“I’ve become such a pariah in this way within UCSF,” she said. “Whereas it exists without issue in a sister hospital in the same city.”
Correction: November 19, 2024, 11:23 a.m. ET
This article originally referred to Rupa Marya as a lecturer at UCSF. She is a professor of medicine.
Nine health care workers at UCSF report punishment for speaking out about human rights for Palestinians, or simply wearing a pin.
theintercept.comUC AFSCME3299 & UPTE CWA Workers Strike For Living Wages and Against Union Busting at UCSF Parnassus
https://youtu.be/gLhOg-UgDzI
Thousands of UC AFSCME 3299 & UPTE CWA workers went on an unfair labor practice strike on November 20 & 21st because of union busting policies by the… UC administration and UC Regents who are appointed by Gavin Newsom.
Workers talked about having to work two jobs to survive and long commutes to and from work of over 1 & 1/2 hours. They also reported that UC management has flagrantly violated labor laws.
The UC management have made massive raises in the cost of healthcare benefits unilaterally since they are still negotiating for a contract which is a union busting tactic and the Regents and
administration are spending millions of dollars on anti-labor lawyers to attack labor rights. Lorena Gonzalez who is the president of the California AFL-CIO also spoke at a rally at the UCSF Parnassus campus.
Workers also discussed the relationship of their fight and the massive military spending of trillions of dollars for wars abroad including supporting the genocide in Gaza.
Additional Media:
Striking UPTE UCSF Optometrists Speak Out For Patients & Justice
https://youtu.be/SAIkZLcegkM
Fighting For Housing, Staffing & Living Wages, UCSF AFSCME 3299 Workers Demand Action At Picket Line
https://youtu.be/L9pS-5J8WTY
UCSF UPTE Optometrists Strike & Rally With AFSCME 3299 State Bargaining Team At UC Mission Bay
https://youtu.be/QFjrq3KLmpw
UCSF Doctor & SEIU 1021/CWA UPTE Workers Speak Out On Palestine At SF General Hospital
https://youtu.be/GNCfpDus_5g
If We Don't Get It, Shut It Down! AFSCME 3299 Strikes UCSF Mission Bay With Support of CWA UPTE
https://youtu.be/wQdMed5ZxzI
UC Regents & Bosses STOP Outsourcing Our Jobs! UCSF AFSCME 3299 & CWA UPTE Workers Picket
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpJ-PNjRC84
AFSCME3299 UC Strike Leader Kathryn Lybarger Interviewed And SF Unite Here 2 Marriott Strikers Speak Out
https://soundcloud.com/workweek-radio/ww10-21-18-afscme3299-uc-strike-and-sf-unite-here-2-marriott-strike
"Stop The Destruction Of Our UC Public Pensions” Report By CWA UPTE At UCSF
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9NxaYYVUIE&t=47s
Janet Must Go! UC Workers Want UC Pres Napolitano Out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htslfoHPWvY&t=4s
Stop Attacking Our Benefits! UCSF AFSCME 3299 Workers Strike UCSF
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-wGeBUaG04
Additional information:
Debate over outsourcing, equity as UC workers strike
https://calmatters.org/articles/debate-over-outsourcing-equity-as-uc-workers-strike/
https://afscme3299.org/2018/10/25/research-shows-white-workers-get-more-lucrative-promotions-less-likely-to-be-fired-at-uc/
AFSCME Local 3299, CNA NNU nurses picket to demand higher wages, better working conditions
https://dailybruin.com/2024/10/09/afscme-local-3299-nurses-picket-to-demand-higher-wages-better-working-conditions
Striking UPTE UCSF Optometrists Speak Out For Patients & Justice
https://youtu.be/SAIkZLcegkM
UCSF Doctor & SEIU 1021/CWA UPTE Workers Speak Out On Palestine At SF General Hospital
https://youtu.be/GNCfpDus_5g
If We Don't Get It, Shut It Down! AFSCME 3299 Strikes UCSF Mission Bay With Support of CWA UPTE
https://youtu.be/wQdMed5ZxzI
UC Regents & Bosses STOP Outsourcing Our Jobs! UCSF AFSCME 3299 & CWA UPTE Workers Picket
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpJ-PNjRC84
Production of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net
Thousands of UC AFSCME 3299 & UPTE CWA workers went on an unfair labor practice strike on November 20 & 21st because of union busting policies by the…
youtu.beUC AFSCME3299 & UPTE CWA Workers Strike For Living Wages and Against Union Busting at UCSF Parnassus
https://youtu.be/gLhOg-UgDzI
Thousands of UC AFSCME 3299 & UPTE CWA workers went on an unfair labor practice strike on November 20 & 21st because of union busting policies by the… UC administration and UC Regents who are appointed by Gavin Newsom.
Workers talked about having to work two jobs to survive and long commutes to and from work of over 1 & 1/2 hours. They also reported that UC management has flagrantly violated labor laws.
The UC management have made massive raises in the cost of healthcare benefits unilaterally since they are still negotiating for a contract which is a union busting tactic and the Regents and
administration are spending millions of dollars on anti-labor lawyers to attack labor rights. Lorena Gonzalez who is the president of the California AFL-CIO also spoke at a rally at the UCSF Parnassus campus.
Workers also discussed the relationship of their fight and the massive military spending of trillions of dollars for wars abroad including supporting the genocide in Gaza.
Additional Media:
Striking UPTE UCSF Optometrists Speak Out For Patients & Justice
https://youtu.be/SAIkZLcegkM
Fighting For Housing, Staffing & Living Wages, UCSF AFSCME 3299 Workers Demand Action At Picket Line
https://youtu.be/L9pS-5J8WTY
UCSF UPTE Optometrists Strike & Rally With AFSCME 3299 State Bargaining Team At UC Mission Bay
https://youtu.be/QFjrq3KLmpw
UCSF Doctor & SEIU 1021/CWA UPTE Workers Speak Out On Palestine At SF General Hospital
https://youtu.be/GNCfpDus_5g
If We Don't Get It, Shut It Down! AFSCME 3299 Strikes UCSF Mission Bay With Support of CWA UPTE
https://youtu.be/wQdMed5ZxzI
UC Regents & Bosses STOP Outsourcing Our Jobs! UCSF AFSCME 3299 & CWA UPTE Workers Picket
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpJ-PNjRC84
AFSCME3299 UC Strike Leader Kathryn Lybarger Interviewed And SF Unite Here 2 Marriott Strikers Speak Out
https://soundcloud.com/workweek-radio/ww10-21-18-afscme3299-uc-strike-and-sf-unite-here-2-marriott-strike
"Stop The Destruction Of Our UC Public Pensions” Report By CWA UPTE At UCSF
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9NxaYYVUIE&t=47s
Janet Must Go! UC Workers Want UC Pres Napolitano Out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htslfoHPWvY&t=4s
Stop Attacking Our Benefits! UCSF AFSCME 3299 Workers Strike UCSF
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-wGeBUaG04
Additional information:
Debate over outsourcing, equity as UC workers strike
https://calmatters.org/articles/debate-over-outsourcing-equity-as-uc-workers-strike/
https://afscme3299.org/2018/10/25/research-shows-white-workers-get-more-lucrative-promotions-less-likely-to-be-fired-at-uc/
AFSCME Local 3299, CNA NNU nurses picket to demand higher wages, better working conditions
https://dailybruin.com/2024/10/09/afscme-local-3299-nurses-picket-to-demand-higher-wages-better-working-conditions
Striking UPTE UCSF Optometrists Speak Out For Patients & Justice
https://youtu.be/SAIkZLcegkM
UCSF Doctor & SEIU 1021/CWA UPTE Workers Speak Out On Palestine At SF General Hospital
https://youtu.be/GNCfpDus_5g
If We Don't Get It, Shut It Down! AFSCME 3299 Strikes UCSF Mission Bay With Support of CWA UPTE
https://youtu.be/wQdMed5ZxzI
UC Regents & Bosses STOP Outsourcing Our Jobs! UCSF AFSCME 3299 & CWA UPTE Workers Picket
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpJ-PNjRC84
Production of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net
Thousands of UC AFSCME 3299 & UPTE CWA workers went on an unfair labor practice strike on November 20 & 21st because of union busting policies by the…
youtu.beUC AFSCME3299 & UPTE CWA Workers Strike For Living Wages and Against Union Busting at UCSF Parnassus
https://youtu.be/gLhOg-UgDzI
Thousands of UC AFSCME 3299 & UPTE CWA workers went on an unfair labor practice strike on November 20 & 21st because of union busting policies by the… UC administration and UC Regents who are appointed by Gavin Newsom.
Workers talked about having to work two jobs to survive and long commutes to and from work of over 1 & 1/2 hours. They also reported that UC management has flagrantly violated labor laws.
The UC management have made massive raises in the cost of healthcare benefits unilaterally since they are still negotiating for a contract which is a union busting tactic and the Regents and
administration are spending millions of dollars on anti-labor lawyers to attack labor rights. Lorena Gonzalez who is the president of the California AFL-CIO also spoke at a rally at the UCSF Parnassus campus.
Workers also discussed the relationship of their fight and the massive military spending of trillions of dollars for wars abroad including supporting the genocide in Gaza.
Additional Media:
Striking UPTE UCSF Optometrists Speak Out For Patients & Justice
https://youtu.be/SAIkZLcegkM
Fighting For Housing, Staffing & Living Wages, UCSF AFSCME 3299 Workers Demand Action At Picket Line
https://youtu.be/L9pS-5J8WTY
UCSF UPTE Optometrists Strike & Rally With AFSCME 3299 State Bargaining Team At UC Mission Bay
https://youtu.be/QFjrq3KLmpw
UCSF Doctor & SEIU 1021/CWA UPTE Workers Speak Out On Palestine At SF General Hospital
https://youtu.be/GNCfpDus_5g
If We Don't Get It, Shut It Down! AFSCME 3299 Strikes UCSF Mission Bay With Support of CWA UPTE
https://youtu.be/wQdMed5ZxzI
UC Regents & Bosses STOP Outsourcing Our Jobs! UCSF AFSCME 3299 & CWA UPTE Workers Picket
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpJ-PNjRC84
AFSCME3299 UC Strike Leader Kathryn Lybarger Interviewed And SF Unite Here 2 Marriott Strikers Speak Out
https://soundcloud.com/workweek-radio/ww10-21-18-afscme3299-uc-strike-and-sf-unite-here-2-marriott-strike
"Stop The Destruction Of Our UC Public Pensions” Report By CWA UPTE At UCSF
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9NxaYYVUIE&t=47s
Janet Must Go! UC Workers Want UC Pres Napolitano Out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htslfoHPWvY&t=4s
Stop Attacking Our Benefits! UCSF AFSCME 3299 Workers Strike UCSF
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-wGeBUaG04
Additional information:
Debate over outsourcing, equity as UC workers strike
https://calmatters.org/articles/debate-over-outsourcing-equity-as-uc-workers-strike/
https://afscme3299.org/2018/10/25/research-shows-white-workers-get-more-lucrative-promotions-less-likely-to-be-fired-at-uc/
AFSCME Local 3299, CNA NNU nurses picket to demand higher wages, better working conditions
https://dailybruin.com/2024/10/09/afscme-local-3299-nurses-picket-to-demand-higher-wages-better-working-conditions
Striking UPTE UCSF Optometrists Speak Out For Patients & Justice
https://youtu.be/SAIkZLcegkM
UCSF Doctor & SEIU 1021/CWA UPTE Workers Speak Out On Palestine At SF General Hospital
https://youtu.be/GNCfpDus_5g
If We Don't Get It, Shut It Down! AFSCME 3299 Strikes UCSF Mission Bay With Support of CWA UPTE
https://youtu.be/wQdMed5ZxzI
UC Regents & Bosses STOP Outsourcing Our Jobs! UCSF AFSCME 3299 & CWA UPTE Workers Picket
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpJ-PNjRC84
Production of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net
Thousands of UC AFSCME 3299 & UPTE CWA workers went on an unfair labor practice strike on November 20 & 21st because of union busting policies by the…
youtu.beUC AFSCME3299 & UPTE CWA Workers Strike For Living Wages and Against Union Busting at UCSF Parnassus
S.F. Symphony’s struggles take center stage in Fauré’s Requiem
…https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/classical/review-s-f-symphony-s-struggles-take-center-19914225?_gl=1*167z1j9*_gcl_au*NDQ0NDExMDEwLjE3MzE5OTUwMjY.*_ga*MTM5ODQxNDQzNy4xNzMxOTk1MDI2*_ga_56G0ZT3ZD0*MTczMjEyNDMwMy43LjEuMTczMjEyNDM5Mi4wLjAuMA..
Rebecca Wishnia November 17, 2024Updated: November 18, 2024, 4:24 pm
The San Francisco Symphony Chorus in a performance at Davies Symphony Hall.
As contract tensions between talent and management escalate, it’s hard to see what the immediate future holds for the San Francisco Symphony. But one thing is clear: Musicians stick together.
Long before any notes of Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem were sung at Davies Symphony Hall on Saturday, Nov. 16, the orchestra’s instrumentalists led a long ovation in support of their colleagues in the Symphony Chorus. It was a heartening show of solidarity in an evening that otherwise felt disjointed.
These fine performers have had much to contend with over the past many months. After a three-day strike in September that canceled what were to be the season’s opening performances of Verdi’s Requiem, the Chorus’ 32 union members remain without a contract.
SF Symphony: Renewed protests over wage and budget cuts
Members of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus in a 2022 performance at Davies Symphony Hall.
The choristers made their case, via leaflets distributed outside the hall before the weekend’s concerts, for a multiyear agreement that preserves the current performing minimums and provides for compensation growth. During the program’s first performance on Friday, Nov. 15, Symphony management sent an email to ticket holders detailing its position of maintaining current wage rates for choristers and reducing the Chorus performances from 26 to 23 in the current season. (The American Guild of Musical Artists, which represents the union singers, has since published its response.)
Meanwhile, the orchestra members’ own contract is set to expire on Sunday, Nov. 24. As if this weren’t enough, the musicians are also mourning the loss of soprano Aimée Puentes, a longtime Chorus member who died last month.
In stressful times, the first line of defense is a good leader. Guest conductor Kazuki Yamada had the unenviable task of uniting everyone for these first concerts back for the Chorus, and he unfortunately seemed to struggle in the role during Saturday’s performance. The 45-year-old conductor got his start as a choirboy in his native Japan; he’s now music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, a position once held by the great Simon Rattle. Yamada surely knows this music well, yet under his leadership, Fauré’s Requiem — and the rest of the pieces on the program — failed to cohere.
Guest conductor Kazuki Yamada led the San Francisco Symphony in works by Gabriel Fauré, Maurice Ravel and Dai Fujikura.
Photo: Zuzanna Specjal
Indeed, in this performance of an inherently beautiful piece, it was difficult to find much beauty. From Yamada’s first downbeat — a gesture too ambiguous for the unison declamation to land — the ensemble pulled apart. The textures were muddy, phrases were directionless and tempos were punishingly slow. The Chorus, prepared by Director Jenny Wong, sang with inconsistent vowels and, shockingly, the occasional insistence of individual voices. It sounded like a first reading.
The other pieces on the program had their bright spots, and in Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major, that light was soloist Hélène Grimaud.
To be sure, circumstances weren’t ideal. In the slow movement, Yamada couldn’t quite get the strings to move; in the finale, his conducting seemed to weigh the music down. The balance was off. But when Grimaud played alone, she revealed herself to be the same musician audiences have admired ever since her Symphony debut in 1993 (the same year she released her magnificent first recording of this piece). She phrased with utmost rhythmic nuance, especially in the unaccompanied aria of the slow movement and in her encore, the Bagatelle Op. 1, No. 2, by contemporary Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov. Her technique was flawless as ever; the first-movement piano cadenza, a fluent cascade of virtuosic arpeggiation and trills, was a joy.
Pianist Hélène Grimaud was the soloist in Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major.
The program had another highlight in the U.S. premiere of “Entwine” by London-based composer Dai Fujikura. In this short 2021 work, Fujikura takes fleeting gestures of not entirely unfamiliar sounds — the woodwinds playing flutter-tongue, the trumpets fanning their mutes — and reconfigures them in rich new harmonies. At first, the instrumental consorts seem to be in their own worlds, but gradually, the music connects them.
Some of the entrances were unintentionally blurry, but with the help of Yamada’s introductory spoken remarks, the piece’s premise — a composer’s longing for community during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic — came across. Put yourself back in that time: no gathering, certainly no touching.
“Maybe,” Yamada said, “through music we can do something.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated when the current contract was set to expire. It expires Nov. 24.
Rebecca Wishnia is a freelance writer. This article has been provided in partnership with San Francisco Classical Voice.
The San Francisco Symphony is an award-winning symphony, led by Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen.
www.sfsymphony.orghttps://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/voters-say-no-to-school-vouchers/ar-AA1unQgY?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=c0f37e6615f143eabb99c775bdd4a093&ei=87
School choice ballot measures were in front of voters in Kentucky, Colorado and Nebraska.
www.msn.comhttps://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/education-secretary-hopeful-demands-oklahoma-school-students-watch-video-of-him-praying-for-trump/ar-AA1umrct?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=c0f37e6615f143eabb99c775bdd4a093&ei=15
Education secretary hopeful demands Oklahoma school students watch video of him praying for Trump – Ryan Walters, who ordered schools in Oklahoma to…
www.msn.com
