The Lower Frequencies

UC Ethnic Studies Council

A podcast from the Ethnic Studies Council at the University of California.

Episodes

  1. 3d ago

    Episode 9: The Trump Higher Education Compacts

    Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we are joined by Professor of Law Raquel E. Aldana (UC Davis), Associate Professor of Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies Rana Jaleel (UC Davis), and Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Law Brian Soucek (UC Davis), about the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to shape higher education, particularly through its two proposed “compacts.” Our guests also address efforts to defend higher education and pushback from faculty, including the AAUP and the UC Faculty Associations (UCFA). Links "Compact 1.0," Compact for for Academic Excellence in Higher Education (2025)  "Compact 2.0," A National Call to Action to University Presidents and Governing Boards (2026)  AAUP materials on Compact 2.0  AAUP, “ Statement on Academic Boycotts,” August 2024  AAUP, “Why Academic Freedom Matters Now,” September 2026. The Opinionated University: Academic Freedom, Diversity, and the Myth of Neutrality in American Higher Education (University of Chicago Press 2026) Individual and Collective Academic Freedom, 106 B.U. Law Rev. 1087 (2026). Trump’s ‘Compact’ with Universities Holds a Hidden Danger, San Francisco Chronicle (Oct. 15, 2025),  For updates on the UC Faculty Association and UC labor union lawsuit opposing Trump funding threats, visit UCFA

  2. Jun 9

    Episode 8: The Golden Gate 26

    Send us Fan Mail As this episode goes live, seven people are facing felony conspiracy and false imprisonment charges–and up to fifteen years in prison–for having been among the 26 Bay Area residents who, in the early morning of April 15, 2024 (tax day), took the extraordinary step of protesting the U.S.-funded Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza on the Golden Gate Bridge. Holding a banner stating, “Stop the World for Gaza,” these courageous protesters used their bodies to block the southbound lane and in so doing disrupted business as usual in the imperial metropole. Animating a long Bay Area legacy of queer direct action, they intervened against the lethal Zionism of U.S. foreign policy after having exhausted every option available to ordinary people to halt the genocide. In this episode, we speak with two of the Golden Gate 26 (GG26), Rosita, a healthcare worker, and Jordan, a law student, alongside Oakland civil rights attorney and lifelong activist Walter Riley. We discuss what it means to organize against imperialist genocide within the belly of the beast and why–no matter what the outcome of the trial–the GG26 have prevailed over those who would repress them by unapologetically materializing solidarity with the Palestinian people, demonstrating how U.S.-funded genocide boomerangs back here, and enacting radical care for each other and the world in which we live. As is clear from the conversation, the activist community that formed in the crucible of repression, far from bowed, is more durable, tenacious, and fierce than the state violence directed against them.  Links: Golden Gate 26 Solidarity Committee (Instagram) Golden Gate Defendants Oakland People’s Arms Embargo Stanford 11 Action Kit Civil Rights and Structural Attacks: Conversations with Walter Riley (AK Books).

    Episode 8: The Golden Gate 26

  3. Jun 4

    Episode 7: The Racial Environmental State with Keith Miyake

    Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we are joined by Keith Miyake, a professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies and Labor Studies at UC Riverside and a core member of the UC Ethnic Studies Council. Keith talks about how their moorings in STEM and ethnic studies inform and sharpen their research and organizing, including within the university, and how their work as an environmental engineer in Southern California helped inspire their new book, The Racial Environmental State: Contested Spaces of Resistance, published in June 2026 by the University of Washington Press. In this discussion, Keith addresses how activists and organizers have engaged with the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) process in ways that exceed the parameters of the racial environmental state, opening up the possibility of redistribution of resources, the elimination of borders and prisons, challenging settler colonialism, and the forging of unlikely solidarities. They explore the pros and cons of working with the state in pursuit of racial and environmental justice and wrestles with how abolitionists can craft new relationships rooted in radical notions of democracy.   Keith’s book can be purchased through the University of Washington for a 40% discount until July 11 with the code warm26.

  4. May 7

    Episode 6: The War Within: Repression and Resistance at UCSD with BT Werner

    Send us Fan Mail In the first episode of a new series, “The War Within,” featuring those fighting against war, imperialism, and repression from inside the UC system, we talk to BT Werner about their long history of organizing at UC San Diego (UCSD). Werner, a physicist who has been at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography for 35 years, discusses how understanding complex systems can help us fight back against UC repression while providing examples from the Black Winter of 2010 to the 2024 Gaza solidarity encampments. Two years after the May 6 police raid that violently dismantled the UCSD encampment, Werner and one other UCSD professor are still facing disciplinary changes and suspension. We encourage listeners to sign a petition demanding that the UCSD administration drop the charges immediately. Links: Struggle for the Liberation of Palestine – UCSD Edition Petition to Drop the Charges against UCSD Professor Lily Hoàng and Professor BT Werner  Drop the Charges Email Campaign Legal and Support Funds for Survivors of The Palestine Exception at UCSD

  5. 12/06/2025

    Episode 5: The UC v. Trump

    Send us Fan Mail When the UC Regents and administration failed to stand up to the demands of the Trump administration, faculty and workers stepped up to join the fight.  In this episode, Zoé Hamstead (Associate Professor of City and Regional Planning, UCB, co-chair of Berkeley Faculty Association, CUCFA Chair of Legal Affairs), Annie McClanahan, (Associate Professor of English, UCI, Co-President of the Council of UC Faculty Associations), and Anna Markowitz (Associate Professor of Education, UCLA, President of the executive board of the UCLA  Faculty Association) join The Lower Frequencies to discuss the role of faculty and the faculty associations (in partnership with UC unions, the AAUP, and other organizations) in waging a successful series of legal challenges that forced the Regents to disclose the federal demand letter and won a preliminary injunction against the Trump administration.   Links: CUCFA amicus brief in AAUP v. Rubio UC Researcher Grant Terminations Class Actions Faculty Lawsuit Demands Public Access to Trump Administration’s Settlement Demands on University of California Trump demand letter to UCLA Order granting preliminary injunction against Trump demands

  6. 11/08/2025

    Episode 4: UC Move Your Money!

    Send us Fan Mail Episode 4:  UC Move Your Money! In this episode of The Lower Frequencies, we speak with UCLA Associate Professor of Anthropology Hannah Appel (who is also Associate Faculty Director of the Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy and co-founder and organizer with the Debt Collective), about a new systemwide UC campaign that empowers faculty to begin the process of divesting from war and genocide.  We walk through the three-step UC Move Your Money campaign and how it offers faculty a chance to take action today while building power for more ambitious efforts down the road.   Links: UC Move Your Money website and Instagram Unmasking the UC A brief primer on the difference between defined benefit (DB) and defined contribution (DC) plans.

  7. 10/14/2025

    Episode 3: The Right to Teach Truth: What K-12 Teachers Need to Know

    Send us Fan Mail In this third installment of The Lower Frequencies we host educators, lawyers, and activists who share practical advice and inspiration for teachers to defend the presentation of vital topics in K-12 schools. In response to the intensification of attacks to censor the teaching of genocide and queer and trans lives, for example,  Lupe Carrasco Cardona, Mark Kleiman, Tracie Noriego and Liz Jackson discuss how building community, knowing legal, employee, and union safeguards and responsibilities all protect our right to teach truth and defend student’s rights to a full and liberatory education. Visit our Instagram for resources for teachers.

  8. 07/14/2025

    Episode 2: The People V. UC: Thomas Harvey and Mark Kleiman

    Send us Fan Mail Episode 2:  The People v. the UC: Thomas Harvey and Mark Kleiman In the first of a series on “The People v. The UC,” The Lower Frequencies welcomes movement lawyers Thomas Harvey and Mark Kleiman to discuss their tireless work defending the students, staff, and faculty of the University of California from repression.  Mark and Thomas discuss what brought them to movement law, their work in defending ethnic studies from Zionist attacks, and their battles with the UC, including a successful court action against Regent Jay Sures and an ongoing lawsuit on behalf of those in the UCLA encampment who were brutalized by Zionist counter-protesters and police.  If you are interested in supporting their work, you can donate at the link to the UCLA lawsuit below or email Thomas Harvey at tbhlegal@proton.me. Links: The People for a Free Palestine v. UCLA (please donate to support this case if you can) Liberated Ethnic Studies Lawsuit Dismissed

  9. 04/14/2025

    Episode 1: Policing Ethnic Studies: The Legislative Jewish Caucus and AB 1468

    Send us Fan Mail The Lower Frequencies,  Episode 1 Policing Ethnic Studies:  The Legislative Jewish Caucus and AB 1468 The inaugural episode of The Lower Frequencies features guest Marcy Winograd and members of the UC Ethnic Studies Council discussing AB 1468, a bill authored and introduced by the California Legislative Jewish Caucus, without any consultation of ethnic studies experts, that would impose a massive and costly set of rules policing the ways in which ethnic studies can be taught by K-12 teachers in the state.    Relevant Links: Nadia Rahman, “AB 1468: The California Jewish Legislative Caucus Introduces an Ethnic Studies Bill to Censor Public Education on Israel and Palestine,” February 24, 2025. Marcy Winograd, “California Israel Lobby Aims to Police Ethnic Studies - Why?”  LA Progressive, March 4, 2025.   Marianne Dhenin, “California Ethnic Studies Bill Aims to Censor Palestine-Related Education,” Truthout, April 2, 2025. CAIR SF:  Tell Your Representatives to Vote No on AB 1468

  • 9 Episodes

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About

A podcast from the Ethnic Studies Council at the University of California.

Information

  • Creator
    UC Ethnic Studies Council
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    9
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 The Lower Frequencies
  • Show Website
    The Lower Frequencies