As we reported here, last fall the UC regents voted once again to raise tuition by 8 percent (on top of the 32 percent increase the previous year) during a meeting at the isolated and heavily fortified facilities at UCSF Mission Bay. Around 400 students and workers showed up to protest the decision. During the protest, the police used pepper spray and batons to attack the protesters, and at one point an officer named Jared Kemper drew his pistol on a group of unarmed students. A number of students were arrested that day, and two of them -- Peter Howell and Eric Wilson -- are preparing for their upcoming trials.
Peter Howell is being charged with:
1) Penal Code section 148(b): removal of baton from Officer Kemper
2) Penal Code section 243(b): battery on a police officer (Kemper)
3) Penal Code section 148(a)(1): resisting, obstructing or delaying an officer (Officer Suttles)
4) Penal Code section 406: Rout: attempted riot
Eric Wilson is charged with:
1) PC section 243(c)(2): battery with injury on an officer (Officer Bolano)
2) PC section 148(a)(1): resisting, obstructing or delaying an officer (Officer Bolano and Sgt. Acuna)
3) PC section 148(a)(1): resisting, obstructing or delaying an officer (Officer Suttles)
4) PC section 406: Rout: attempted riot.
The matter is set for Jury Trial readiness on July 22nd, and as soon as a courtroom is available it will be sent out to trial, most likely during the week of July 25th-29th. The trial should last approximately 1 week and will take place at the Hall of Justice in San Francisco, located at 850 Bryant Street.
The defense is still looking for witnesses who would be willing to testify on behalf of either Howell or Wilson. If you were at the protest and saw either the incident with Officer Kemper or the incident in the stairwell, please leave a comment on this post at occupyca or send us an email at reclaimuc [at] gmail.com. We'll forward your contact info to the lawyers, but apart from that everything will remain entirely confidential. Also, if you know of other people who were at the protest on November 17, 2010, please let them know about the trial, forward them the link, and get the word out. We'll keep posting updates here as new information comes in.
UC Merced student Peter Howell, who was arraigned on December 28 after being subjected to a full-fledged manhunt by UCSF police, continues to face criminal charges stemming from the protest at the UC Regents' meeting at UCSF Mission Bay last November. The most serious of these charges is a felony, for allegedly taking the baton of and attacking UC Irvine police officer Jared Kemper, who pulled his gun on and threatened unarmed protesters. As thosewhouseit has convincingly documented (here and here), the charges are completely absurd -- KTVU's video of the incident clearly shows Kemper violently pushing his way through a group of students and in the process dropping his baton on the ground. Nevertheless, at his arraignment the judge refused to consider reducing the felony charge to a misdemeanor.
We have just received word that Peter's preliminary hearing will take place on Tuesday, Feb 22 at 9am in room 10 at 850 Bryant in San Francisco. Come out to support him!
We've received a report that the UC Merced student who is being charged with a felony (among other things) based on allegations stemming from the protest at the UC Regents' meeting in November, and who was subjected to a full-fledged manhunt organized and carried out by UCSF police, will surrender himself into custody today. He will be arraigned Tuesday (tomorrow) morning at 9am at the San Francisco courthouse at 850 Bryant St. Come out and support him!
Peter Howell, the UC Merced undergrad facing a felony count for the Regents' meeting, had his arraignment today around 10:45 am. Brought out in orange scrubs and cuffs, Howell's lawyer asked that the felony charge be reduced to a misdemeanor given that the prosecution’s case is so weak and that there is video evidence demonstrating that Howell never touched the weapon. The prosecutor attempted to defend the position that he grabbed Kemper's baton, but the reasoning was incoherent. Here's Howell on the scuffle:
"I put my hands on my chest and backpedaled," Howell said in the interview. "I was trying to get away. [Officer Kemper] shoved through me, and he may have lost control of his baton. You can hear it rattle on the ground in a video. At no point did I strike him on the head, so I believe that statement was false."
Regardless, the judge refused to engage the debate, pushing it back to the hearing date, now scheduled for February 22 upon the request of the defense. The judge denied him release on O[wn] R[ecognizance] but reduced the bail from $30,000 to $15,000.
[...]
Howell's lawyer, John Hamasaki, is looking for anyone who witnessed the alleged incident on November 17 at UCSF-Mission Bay. Contact him at john@hamasakilaw.com if you are a witness, or else if you have photos or videos of the alleged incident.
Safety reminder: Please do not offer yourself as a witness if you have uncharged conduct from that day (that may also show up in photos or videos). This is not an assumption that anyone does, just a precaution. Also, please don’t discuss any possible evidence or witness testimony you may have in writing, including comments sections on blogs and over listservs. Due to the recent increase in state/university repression, we should actively consider being very careful with information, in order to care for each other and ourselves.
[Update Sunday 12/19, 2:08pm] Just got word of some updates in the case. Most important is that Peter's arraignment will not be taking place tomorrow (Monday) morning, as previously noted. We'll post updates as we get them:
He has been informed that he will be charged with a felony count of 148(b) for the removal of an officer's baton;
The total charges are a felony and three misdemeanors;
He's arranging to turn himself in;
He won't be in court tomorrow and his lawyer is working on putting him on calendar soon (hopefully Tuesday).
Original post follows below...
----------------------------------
This just came to us on the email, regarding the UC Merced student who learned the other day that he was facing four misdemeanor charges from the protest at the UC Regents' meeting in November [Update: the above link discusses a different student facing battery charges from the same protest; the student in the email cited below is facing charges for allegedly attacking UC Irvine cop Jared Kemper. Sorry for the confusion!]:
Tuesday morning Peter learned he was being charged with four misdemeanors arising out of the demonstration at the Regents meeting. Peter only learned that he was being charged after his attorney called the District Attorney’s office to check on the status of his case. Peter was informed that there was a warrant for his arrest issued at the behest of the district attorney’s office. Peter immediately arranged to appear in court in San Francisco at the earliest possible date.
Thinking everything was squared away, Peter spent the night at a friend’s house on Tuesday. Instead three cars full of police officers showed up at his house pounding on the door. His housemate tried to turn them away, but they asked for his ID which they ran to see if it was valid. The police were also looking in the backyard and the windows to see if they could concoct a reason to go inside. Luckily, his housemates knew their rights and told the police to leave, which they finally did after insinuating that the house was lying to them about knowledge of Peter and his whereabouts.
When he got to campus on Wednesday, he went to his professor to tell them what was going on. The professor offered to give him an incomplete, which is helpful but that means he'll have to re-study for his final over winter break. Peter found out later that police had been at the campus coffee shop looking around at everyone to see if he was there. Police also stationed themselves outside of the classroom where his final exam was to take place, and even went inside and lurked in the projector room during the entire test.
Peter, through his attorney, had himself placed on the court’s calendar immediately after he learned that the district attorney’s office was filing charges against him. Nonetheless, police have continued to hunt for the UC Merced student relentlessly. He now has two incompletes and must make the work up after break. Peter is rightfully outraged at the police's behavior and is astounded that something like this could happen in a country that says it values free speech and democracy. Also, he is disheartened that a university, his university, would use its police force to unjustifiably intimidate students, going far out of the way to make them feel hunted and watched.
We have learned that the Merced manhunt was orchestrated by the UCSF police, who traveled two hours out of their way in order to attempt to arrest and humiliate Peter in front of his friends, professors and classmates.
This situation is unique in a few ways:
University police conducted a 24-hour manhunt (With UC student funds) for a student who is charged with a few misdemeanors.
These police were from SF and went all the way to Merced to do this.
Police created a situation of intense surveillance of the Merced campus, including a coffee shop that students use and call their own space.
Serious attempts were made to enter his house, including searching for a Plain-View Doctrine reason and questioning the integrity of his housemates.
He does not have a violent record of any kind and is not a flight risk. He has never given the police any reason to believe he would not show up for his court date on Monday.
We should consider some possible reasons that the UC has suddenly decided that its police force is best used to harass students at their homes and during final exams. Is it because they need to justify the unjustifiable act of Officer Jared Kemper of UC Irvine, pulling his gun on a crowd of unarmed protesters? Or have the UC regents and administration finally realized that the public education movement isn't a phase, and that we're not going to stop?
Peter deserves commendation for his cool head in this stressful situation and our support on Monday at his courtdate. Please show up, 9am in Department 13 at 850 Bryant Street in San Francisco to support this student who has been the target of oppressive police tactics.
The recent wave of occupations and massive protests in the UK are incredibly inspiring for those of us in California who have been fighting the privatization of public education. There are some clear parallels, not only in terms of the economic and discursive forms the austerity measures take but also in the tactics being adopted and developed to challenge and combat them. But there are also significant differences.
In an essay published a couple weeks ago, Michael Hardt analyzed some of these differences. "Whereas in Britain, Italy, and other European countries students battle police in the streets and experiment with new means to protest such government actions," he writes, "there is a relative calm on U.S. campuses." What explains this calm? One relevant factor, he suggests, is that the movement toward privatization in the US has been much more gradual than in the UK. The broadest, biggest, and most intense protests in California took place in November 2009 when the UC Regents were voting to approve a 32 percent tuition hike; in the UK, parliament just voted in a 300 percent increase, and slashed the overall budget for higher education by some 80 percent. A second factor is the difficulty of national coordination, since the education policies vary from state to state.
But Hardt is most interested in the big picture, the roots of difference: "The most significant reason for less student activism in the United States, however, may derive from a much deeper national condition. The social value placed on education for all, especially higher education, has declined dramatically." Education is no longer a central mission of the US government as it was in the post-Sputnik era, and what Hardt (and Negri) identify as the shift toward "biopolitical production" has made the focus on hard sciences and engineering that dominated the industrial model less and less important:
University policies throughout the world have not kept pace with these changes. The private money that universities solicit to compensate for the decline in public funding is dedicated overwhelmingly to technical and scientific fields. The human sciences, which are increasingly relevant in the biopolitical economy, are deprived of funds and wither. In this case the student demands actually point in the direction of economic prosperity. The current student protests thus reconfirm a general rule of politics, that social struggles proceed and prefigure social development.
Hardt raises a number of questions that are clearly important for us to consider. In some ways, however, his broad vision obscures some of what I think are the most interesting differences at the micro-tactical level. Here I want to really briefly lay out two that I've been thinking about recently.
First, cops with guns. In this video from last week's protests in London, cops struggle to hold their own line as the "book bloc" of protesters attempts to push through using reinforced banners and shields in order to break out of the "kettle" where they're being kept against their will. In contrast, at the UC Regents' meeting at UCSF Mission Bay in November, the police used chemical weapons (pepper spray) and even drew guns to shut down protesters. What would demos look like here if the cops couldn't rely on such overwhelming firepower? How would we confront them?
Second, private property law. Dozens of universities in the UK were occupied in November, and many of these occupations are still ongoing. University College London, for example, has been occupied for about three weeks now. It's inconceivable for an occupation to last that long in the US. Even "live week," the open occupation of Wheeler Hall at UC Berkeley that took place almost exactly a year ago, lasted just four or five days. Not only was there a heavy police presence the entire time, we've since learned through a public records dump that the administration was scheming to shut it down from the start. They were just waiting for an opening to send in the cops, which they eventually did, making 66 arrests. But the legal context is different in the UK. As Angus Johnston wrote last week,
Some two hundred students at University College London have been occupying the Wilkins Building on campus for the last two weeks in protest against planned funding cuts and fee hikes at Britain’s universities. On Thursday the university demanded that they leave.
In the US, the university’s next step would have been obvious — call in the cops. In California, student occupations are becoming a regular occurrence, and police evictions accompanied by mass arrests are almost inevitable.
But this isn’t the US.
In the UK, you can’t evict students who are peacefully occupying a campus building without a court order, and the university has in this case so far failed to get one.
In comparison to the broad strokes of Hardt's brush, these examples may seem less significant. Obviously there are other critical differences -- for example, the strike culture that makes it possible to paralyze campuses in Puerto Rico, for example -- but the ones presented above are useful for thinking about horizons of possibility. Maybe what's at stake is the distinction between strategy and tactics. But sometimes this distinction gets blurry -- the normalization of cops with guns and the fetishization of private property shape the kinds of tactics we deploy and the kinds of violence we face in response. To some extent, they produce the field on which political action occurs. Actions or campaigns to push cops off campus or to disarm UCPD, for example, could significantly shift this ground and immediately add to the repertoire of tactics at our disposal. They won't turn California into London or Rome, but it certainly couldn't hurt.
On November 17, as the UC Regents met in San Francisco to discuss a proposed eight percent undergraduate tuition increase, as well as a reduction in pensions for university employees, a group of over 300 students and workers from across the UC system gathered at the site of the Regents meeting. As the regents arrived, protesters formed picket lines at all entrances of the building, such that police officers ultimately had to forcibly break up protest lines in order to allow individual Regents to enter the building. After the Regents had been escorted into their meeting, protesters massed on the east side of the building. They pulled down a police barricade, and began marching toward the east entrance, hoping to enter into the Regents meeting and interrupt a process that promises to delay their retirements and cast them even further into debt. Students and workers were attempting to reclaim their futures from the Regents, whose austerity proposals appear to be little more than unjustifiable ends in themselves, as the stabilization of state funding has rendered such measures unnecessary.
Protesters were initially met at the east doors with police who wielded billy-clubs as bludgeons, and with a brief dousing of pepper spray. Pushed back once, students and workers massed a second time in front of the police line, and began again to walk towards the entrance. This time, the police coated them with an extended, indiscriminate blanket of pepper spray. People who were more than ten feet away from the line of police needed treatment for the burning sensation in their eyes and on their faces caused by exposure to this chemical weapon. Those closer to the police required intensive treatment, and were, in some cases, still in pain over an hour later.
After these incidents on the east door, protesters moved around to the other side of the building and attempted to enter into the Regents meeting through an attached parking garage. A number of protesters were able to enter into the interior foyer before being beaten aggressively with batons, pepper sprayed at close range, and, in some cases, arrested. Again, those who were sprayed required intensive treatment. During this confrontation inside the parking garage, UCPD officer Kemper pulled his gun on students without provocation. Concerning this incident, spokespeople from the UC administration and from UCPD have claimed – despite conflicting video evidence -- that a student took officer Kemper's baton and beat him on the head with it. Video of the incident shows Kemper losing control of his baton as he rushes students, and then -- without provocation -- unholstering his gun. An open letter has been released calling on the UC and UCPD to account for their public misrepresentation of this incident -- an incident that has severely frightened students and workers, who recognize that one further false move on the part of officer Kemper could have resulted in serious injury or even death.
At UC Berkeley, concerned members of the campus community will meet tonight to respond to the fee increases and to the police violence faced by students and workers at the Regents meeting. We will be meeting at 6pm in Dwinelle 370. Please join us in carrying forward the protests against educational privatization and police violence on our campuses.
Resources:
* For an account of how the Regents could reduce undergraduate tuition and treat UC employees fairly, even in the face of recent reductions in state funding to the UCs, see Bob Meister's latest report: http://reclamationsjournal.org/issue03_meister.html
[Update Thursday 4:59pm]: There's a lot of bad news coverage out there, where reporters repeat word for word the absurd story that the chief of police came up with. Cops lie. There's some better coverage and analysis at StudentActivism, SF Bay Guardian, and the Informant.
In the early morning of November 16, students blockaded California Hall, the main administrative building at UC Berkeley. Heavy police presence made it difficult to maintain the blockade, and by 9am they had opened up an entrance to the building. But we're just getting started.
(photos via occupyca and thosewhouseit)
From the email, an open letter to Boalt law school Dean Christopher Edley:
No More Futile Discussion With Administrators. Action. Disruption. Reclamation.
Dear Dean Edley,
We sincerely hope that in the moments leading up to tomorrow's UC Regents meeting, you took time to pause and consider the real human impact of the Law School's privatization program. Before we came to Boalt, we considered ourselves to be human beings and were attracted to this school in our capacity as such. Now we know that everything we were told about Boalt is an empty promise and that we are in fact nothing more than biological collateral for federal loan dollars being spilled into ill-conceived expansion projects that have little to do with the quality of our or anyone else's education.
As you write to invite us to another Student Town Hall, we submit that our participation within this institution is now, just as it has been, barely a courteous formality. The one hour meeting offered by the law-school administration, we are told, provides “an opportunity for the community to discuss the overall state of the law school as well as student fees.” At least you are honest enough to concede that nothing we say at the Town Hall will have any effect on how the law school is actually run.
There is nothing to ‘discuss’. If privatization is a certainty, then so is insurmountable student debt, the evisceration of workers’ rights, the subordination of human need to the logic of the market. This is a future we will not accept. Privatization in an economy with rapidly decreasing real wages and insurmountable loan debt is guaranteed student death. We refuse to die. Since the administration has already implemented its project of privatization, our only choice is to halt its progress and work to destroy the process itself. So on November 16 and 17, 2010 we will.
Bob Meister's back with a new article that rips apart Yudof's "Blue and Gold" plan. Enjoy the whole thing. Here we've posted just the part dealing with B&G.
You have also recognized that financing higher education through increased personal debt is a growing problem for many students. That’s why you argue that UC tuition increases will not deter attendance provided that the Blue and Gold program, which relieves families from paying tuition, is available to a wider income band. Much of the press and the public seem to have bought your claim that higher tuition can actually make UC more accessible by extending UC’s Blue and Gold program to families with annual incomes of up to $80,000. But the high tuition burden still falls disproportionately on those just above this cut-off, so you mitigate this obvious problem by giving students a one-year reprieve on tuition increases if they are otherwise eligible for aid and if they come from families with incomes of $120K or less, after which they will simply have to borrow more. You then claim that higher tuition would leave the majority of UC students (55%) with undiminished or improved access. This claim is based on two assumptions: first, that the incomes of UC graduates will continue to grow -- and to grow much faster, than those of other Californians, much as they did during the high tech boom; and, second, that Blue and Gold means that most UC students on financial aid will need to borrow less in order to attend.
According to your own, internal, financial aid studies, both of these assumptions are false. The first assumption is false because the income of UC graduates has not increased at all for the past ten years, and neither has the willingness of most students who borrow to take on greater debt. As a consequence of their growing debt-resistance, UC has a growing middle income access problem -- it seems that students in the income band that takes on the greatest proportional debt are also transferring down within the Master Plan scheme -- and that 70% of Community College transfer students now go to for-profit institutions. So, we now have a Master Plan that seems to operate in reverse.
Once again, the Regents will meet to increase fees, decrease access to the UC and give themselves big bonuses. Let’s stop them!
Nov. 16: Early morning picket of California Hall. Be there at 6:30 AM so we can greet the senior administrators as they come in to work. We’re demanding that they actively oppose the fee increase, abandon Operational Excellence and its 200 layoffs, end the repression of student protesters via the widely-criticized Office of Student Conduct, and endorse and help negotiate a fair contract for GSIs and other staff in contract negotiations. Please arrive at 6:30 AM. We will be there all morning. Rally @ 12 noon.
Nov. 17: Early AM protest at the Regents’ Meeting (UCSF, Rutter Center). Let’s shut it down! We need as many people as possible at the Regents Meeting as early as possible. From the East Bay, take BART to the downtown San Francisco Embarcadero Station and then transfer to the MUNI T-Line. There are some buses leaving from UC Berkeley. You can reserve a seat here.
Finally, here are links to some inspiring news from London, where 52,000 people have mobilized in defense of education and against austerity. It’s nice to be reminded that we are part of a global anti-austerity movement:
BERKELEY, California -- Last Fall saw a 32 percent tuition increase in the UC system, but perhaps equally memorable was the array of occupations throughout the UC and CSU systems. At Cal, dozens of occupiers, now better known as the Wheeler 43, took over Wheeler Hall on November 20, 2009. Only now, nearly a year later have we seen any judicial proceedings on the matter -- albeit, proceedings in a kangaroo court. Laura Zelko opted and fought to hold her hearing open to the public; even after 12 hours at the initial meeting that continued past midnight, the hearing panelists were unable to decide the verdict. This case will continue today at 5:30pm. (SF Chronicle published a story on Ms. Zelko’s case.)
According to ReclaimUC, the possibility of a lawsuit potentially being brought against the UC Berkeley Office of Student Conduct is unnerving the administration a little. Additionally, Cal is now paying tens of thousands of dollars on merely technical and staffing aspects of the hearings, let alone legal costs potentially yet unreported. So far, the sanctions against student protesters include such things as 7-month suspensions and reflective essays that serve more to “re-educate” protesters on the the proper protocols of innocuous political demonstrations than actually provide insightful ruminations. Seemingly, the high cost of punishing demonstrators is well worth it for the UC administration as long as it’s able to push its political will onto campus. With the coming 8% tuition increase and a slew of mini-crises hitting the UC -- including the troubling police and judicial repression of protest to the pension fight of low-paid workers to the contract struggle for teaching assistants -- it’s a wonder the university isn’t splitting at the seams.
Update [Wed 11/10, 12:25 am]:@reclaimuc live-tweeted the hearing. OSC recommended a sanction of a 1-year suspension. The panel's final recommendation, however, was:
Now the only question is whether the UC administration will once again arbitrarily impose a harsher sanction, as they did in the previous hearing.
Second spokescouncil to get organized for the regents' meeting will take place on Thursday, November 4 from 6-9pm in 370 Dwinelle Hall. Here's the description (from Those Who Use It, copied from Facebook):
People are frustrated with the General Assembly model... so we’re trying something completely different!
WHAT IS A SPOKESCOUNCIL?
Not a decision making body. It is a non-hierarchical means of communicating between/across affinity groups.
A spoke (or representative) of an affinity group goes to the spokescouncil to represent the intentions/plans/skills/offerings of their AG and sees how they might or might not collaborate with other... AGs... The spoke takes info from the spokescouncil back to their affinity group.
WHAT IS AN AFFINITY GROUP?
Small group of people that acts/organizes/makes decisions together, that trusts each other, and takes care of each other.
Unaffiliated people are welcome.
AGENDA FOR THURSDAY: coordinating for the Regents mtg
People were happy with the first spokescouncil and called for a second one. Please come prepared to talk about your group’s plans for plugging into action on 11/16 and ideas for 11/17.
Last week some groups sent a spoke while other groups came as a unit. You’re free to do either, but this time let’s try to give priority to having the spokes speak and the rest of each group (if present) hang back…
BE ON TIME. RESPECT EVERYONE’S TIME.
All: feel free to use the comment section below to add to this loose description/report/agenda...
Last December, Governor Schwarzenegger invoked a rhetoric of terrorism to describe protests that had taken place on UC Berkeley campus:
California will not tolerate any type of terrorism against any leaders including educators. The attack on Chancellor Birgeneau’s home is a criminal act and those who participated will be prosecuted under the fullest extent of the law. Debate is the foundation of democracy and I encourage protestors to find peaceful and productive ways to express their opinions.
At the time, Schwarzenegger's hyperbolic language, along with that of UC Berkeley administrators, was widely ridiculed. But now the University of California Office of the President (UCOP) is looking to insert specific language about "terrorism" into the guidelines that determine how the Codes of Student Conduct on individual UC campuses are written. The proposal is to incorporate this language into the section on hate crimes.
The following was circulated in an email from Jerlena Griffin-Desta, director of student services at the Student Affairs Office of the President. These changes may be included in the discussion at the November Regents' meeting. The first point is particularly problematic, but note that the third almost as bad:
REVISED: Proposed Policy Changes to Address Hate Crimes
1. Terrorizing Conduct
The following new language would be added to the Policy on Student Conduct and Discipline (section 102.00 Grounds for Discipline):
“[The following is prohibited:] Conduct, where the actor means to communicate a serious expression of intent to terrorize, or acts in reckless disregard of the risk of terrorizing, one or more University students, faculty, or staff. ‘Terrorize’ means to cause a reasonable person to fear bodily harm or death, perpetrated by the actor or his/her confederates. ‘Reckless disregard’ means consciously disregarding a substantial risk. This section applies without regard to whether the conduct is motivated by race, ethnicity, personal animosity, or other reasons. This section does not apply to conduct that constitutes the lawful defense of one’s self, of another, or of property.”
2. Sanction Enhancement for Violations Motivated by Hate
The following new language would be added to the Policy on Student Conduct and Discipline (section 104.00 Administration of Student Discipline):
“Sanctions [for any violations of the Grounds for Discipline] may be enhanced where the victim was selected because of the victim’s race, color, national or ethnic origin, citizenship, sex, religion, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, pregnancy, marital status, ancestry, service in the uniformed services, physical or mental disability, medical condition (cancer related or genetic characteristics), or perceived membership in any of these classifications.”
3. Discipline for criminal convictions
The following new language would be added to the Policy on Student Conduct and Discipline (section 102.00 Grounds for Discipline):
“[Students may be subject to discipline, i.e., discipline is possible, not mandatory, on the basis of] A conviction under any California state or federal criminal law, when the conviction constitutes reasonable cause to believe that the student poses a current threat to the health or safety of any person or to the security of any property, on University premises or at official University functions, or poses a current threat to the orderly operation of the campus.”
From the UC Santa Cruz Strike Committee (via email):
The University of California Administration and the UC Regents in particular have continued to demonstrate their callous disregard for the lives and futures of the Students and Workers who make up the University. The malicious assault which they are now leading against the pensions of employees, the conditions and wages of academic workers, and the future of students with a new proposed fee hike of as much as 20 percent, demonstrates not only the depth of their commitment to privatization but also their amnesiac forgetfulness regarding the events of last year. In the relative calm of the last few months they have forgotten the magnitude of the discontent which exploded in the form of mass occupations and strikes last November and on March 4th. As the regents meet to consider further austerity measures, we must act to demonstrate that if they fail to repeal the fee hikes implemented so far, if they continue to impose intolerable conditions on the Students and Workers of the University of California, we will render the University ungovernable. The UCSC Strike Committee calls upon Students and Workers across the UC system to take action on their campuses November 16th, both to demonstrate the continuing strength of our resistance and build the social power which can make the threat of an ungovernable university a reality.
As we reported here, last fall the UC regents voted once again to raise tuition by 8 percent (on top of the 32 percent increase the previous year) during a meeting at the isolated and heavily fortified facilities at UCSF Mission Bay. Around 400 students and workers showed up to protest the decision. During the protest, the police used pepper spray and batons to attack the protesters, and at one point an officer named Jared Kemper drew his pistol on a group of unarmed students. A number of students were arrested that day, and two of them -- Peter Howell and Eric Wilson -- are preparing for their upcoming trials.
