In Support of Sarah Raymundo
Dr. Emerlinda R. Roman
President, University of the Philippines Diliman
Quezon City Philippines
Dear Dr. Roman:
As academic scholars in the U.S. with long-lasting commitments to the Philippines and important connections to the University of the Philippines in particular, we write to urge a redress and reversal of the denial of tenure to one of your most exemplary faculty members, Sarah Raymundo. We feel there has been an egregious breach in the integrity of the tenure process and in the principles of academic freedom that our international scholarly community upholds and vigorously defends. Moreover, as a result of this breach, we feel the University of the Philippines has done a grave injustice to an outstanding scholar, teacher and public intellectual, standing to lose one of its most valuable young faculty and setting an alarming precedent that is sure to erode the ideals, quality and principled practices of higher education.
Along with our colleagues in the Philippines, we were appalled and dismayed to hear of U.P. Diliman Chancellor Cao’s decision to overturn the original recommendations for Sarah Raymundo’s tenure made by, respectively, the Sociology Department, the College Executive Board and the Academic Personnel and Fellowship Committee. We have reviewed the documents in Professor Raymundo’s case and find the irregularities in the tenure review process to be insupportable. It is clear from the paper trail that while Professor Raymundo’s excellent academic accomplishments have been recognized at all the above institutional levels as meritorious and deserving of tenure, she has been punitively judged, in the most unilateral and arbitrary fashion at the behest of a redbaiting minority bloc, for her radical political commitments and involvements. We find this egregious violation of the codes of academic integrity and freedom and dismissal of scholarly achievement in favor of political ideology to be a huge mar on the University of the Philippines’ well-known and longstanding record of commitment to the principles of intellectual freedom and justice.
Many of us are familiar with Professor Raymundo’s brilliant scholarly writings on Filipino popular culture in the context of the global economy, Philippine national politics and social movements. We have been impressed by and learned enormously from her astute and illuminating sociological analyses of the conditions of lived life in the Philippines, the insights of which have been honed precisely through her long-time activist involvement and experiences substantiated through more formal research and study. Indeed, in our estimation, Professor Raymundo’s activist work in the areas of human rights and global social struggles is undoubtedly both a key source and form of expression of her research and theoretical approach, and as such should also be understood as a significant intellectual and professional contribution in its own right.
Professor Raymundo’s combination of theoretical erudition (her fluency in sociological theory, critical social theory, as well as cultural studies) and empirical knowledge is an inspiring example to all of us, as it has been an invaluable instruction to the many students who have had the privilege of taking her classes. In addition to her achievements as a scholar and a teacher, Professor Raymundo has also been an exemplary colleague in the international academic community. She has not only been an active participant in international conferences but has also been central to the vital intellectual exchanges between students and scholars in the U.S. and in the Philippines, arranging talks and seminars at the University of the Philippines that have brought U.S. academics in important dialogue with our colleagues and with students at U.P. as well as at other universities in the Philippines. We cannot overemphasize the importance of Professor Raymundo in fostering these intellectual exchanges, in which many of us first came to know and appreciate her brilliance as a scholar of Philippine society and culture.
We can say with confidence that Professor Raymundo’s scholarly contributions to the interdisciplinary fields of Global Studies, Philippine studies, and Cultural Studies as well as Sociology, her strong teaching record, and her exceptional record of service to the intellectual community at large are well beyond the requirements for tenure. It is our hope that you will redress the grave injustice of the arbitrary denial of her tenure. Along with our colleagues in the Philippines and at the University of the Philippines, we understand the importance of her intellectual work to the critical work we undertake in multiple fields and urge you, as the President of this prestigious university, to recognize the broad respect she has gained as a scholar, teacher and public intellectual and to grant her the tenured position that she greatly deserves.