Update, November 3. UC’s Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, Michael Brown, responded to our letter about the potential for censorship of faculty by private technology providers with the attached letter, the plain text of which is below:

Dear Executive Board of the Council of UC Faculty Associations:

Your letter dated September 24, 2020, to President Michael V. Drake, M.D., was forwarded to my office for review, appropriate follow-up and response.  In your letter, you expressed concerns about the decision of several media platforms to cancel an event sponsored by a group affiliated with San Francisco State University on September 23, 2020, titled, “Whose Narratives: Gender, Justice and Resistance.”  Since your letter, I understand that there are allegations of similar incidents involving events sponsored by groups affiliated with New York University and University of Hawaii.

The University takes seriously your concerns regarding censorship, freedom of speech and academic freedom.  Accordingly, my office in partnership with other internal stakeholders, is looking further into the events in question and the concerns you raised.  As part of our efforts, we have reached out to other academic institutions as well as the media platform providers that the University utilizes to better understand their acceptable use policies and practices.  Once our review is completed, we look forward to following-up with CUCFA.  In the meantime, we thank you in advance for your patience while we look further into this important matter you raised.

Sincerely,
Michael T. Brown, Ph.D.
Provost and
Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs

cc: President Drake
Vice Provost Carlson
Director Lee