Defund ASUW
Research for equitable governance.
DefundASUW Statement on Cancellation of Hasan Piker Lecture
On Thursday, the University of Washington cancelled Hasan Piker's January 2027 Speaker Series lecture, citing a planning process that "did not meet the necessary level of rigor." DefundASUW applauds the University for this decision.
Hasan Piker is not an obscure figure whose record required digging. In August 2019, he told his audience that "America deserved 9/11," earning a seven-day suspension from Twitch. He has since described Israel as "a terrorist state," among countless other acts of antisemitism. A speaker with this record becomes a plausible University guest only on a campus where his politics already feel mainstream. No organization has done more to make these ideas acceptable on campus than the ASUW.
This is not a matter of interpretation. In 2024, ASUW passed a resolution calling on the University to divest from Israel. Among its many identity-based commissions, ASUW funds and staffs a Black Student Commission; no Jewish Student Commission exists. The organization's priorities are perhaps best understood through its Wikipedia article, a document of remarkable length for a student government, much of it evidently written by the organization about itself, chronicling its own importance for an audience of its own members.
ASUW receives $1.7 million a year from the $175-per-quarter Services & Activities Fee that every student is required to pay. It is currently pushing a new $125-per-quarter Student Health Fee, a proposal only 29.64% of surveyed students support, which would free existing SAF dollars for redistribution by a committee whose eleven voting members are all appointed by ASUW and GPSS. An organization this energetic about expanding its own funding has, in seven years, found no occasion to say one word about Hasan Piker.
In light of these events, our Benefactors have empowered DefundASUW with a new Grant to proceed against ASUW.
Community members with relevant information may write to [email protected].