(For the record, we know Officer Timothy Zuniga #73 well -- he's the one who lied his ass off on the quote-unquote "stand" during two separate student conduct hearings and was basically laughed off the stage.)

For more coverage of the Tolman Hall occupation, see our previous post.

From Indybay:

As with the inaugural event of the California occupation movement two years ago -- when students barricaded themselves inside the Graduate Student Commons at UC Santa Cruz -- the occupation of Tolman Hall was both an act of material expropriation (or attempted expropriation) and an act of communication, meant to signal, to warn, to threaten and raise the alarm. . . It was both a declaration of resumed hostilities against the university and a form of communication with comrades here and elsewhere, both inside and outside the university. It was a warning directed at the small clique of arrogant, befuddled bureaucrats who run the university, as well as their armed thugs. But also a message sent to our comrades. For our comrades, the occupation was meant to communicate first and foremost a kind of excitement: Let's do this! Let's occupy everything! But behind the initial thrill it should communicate, also, a few critical lessons:

1) The first lesson is as clear as a geometric proof: Violence works. As with the threat of a two thousand person riot which freed the Wheeler occupiers on Nov. 20, defensive violence works particularly well. Faced with a group of largely passive occupiers, a group which seemed in no way prepared to resist a dispersal order, the police decided to enjoy their own capacity for arbitrary displays of power and bar the doors without giving any verbal warning. The occupiers, correctly, rushed the doors and tried to get out, pushing the cops out of the way and dearresting those whom the police grabbed. With over half of the crowd outside, the police finally secured the doors, throwing one of the last people to try and flee to the floor, bloodying his face and nearly dislocating his shoulder. They had started a riot. Outside, fewer than five officers faced off against a crowd of 30 or more in total darkness. Someone threw a metal chair at the cops. Others threw chunks of concrete and traffic cones. They chanted “Pigs just fucking try it. There's gonna be a fucking riot.” The cops were forced back into the building, at which point it seemed like only a matter of time before the crowd tore down some fencing and smashed open the doors (someone had already smashed one door). Realizing the volatility of the situation, the cops released the detainees on the inside. QED: violence works. Violence, in this case, is one of the most intense forms of solidarity. Only because of the mystification that surrounds the police, can this appear as anything other than an act of mutual aid. When a group of thugs kidnaps your friends and starts beating them, you fight back. This is common sense.

2) Second lesson: the police are the enemy. They cannot be convinced, cajoled, manipulated. They have been given orders to treat every demonstration as a criminal matter, an act of burglary and vandalism. The administration has indicated in explicit terms that only the police will deal with such situations. There will be no discussion, no phone calls or visits from the Deans. It does not matter if we have the support of the inhabitants of the building. Police are the proxy owners of the campus; they will go in and militarize occupations immediately. Unlike other places where the police might wait outside for hours or days or weeks until given orders to attack an occupation, police at Berkeley act on their own initiative, autonomously, attempting to take control of a space even before they contact their superiors. The image of officers rushing into the crowd as if they were running backs pushing through defensive line would be absurd elsewhere, but here it is par for the course. This makes the “open occupation” -- the occupation which attempts to claim space but allow for easy circulation in and out, creating a functioning autonomous space in which all kinds of activities take place -- rather difficult. It is pretty obvious at this point: we cannot be free with cops in the room. There is no struggle against fees and debt, no struggle against austerity that is not, at the same time, a struggle against the cops. We will have to find ways to physically prevent the entry of police into our occupations, unless they are politically prevented from doing so. This is our message to the administration: restrain your attack dogs or expect more riots.

3) A final lesson. This occupation failed for many reasons -- an inability to keep police out of the building, a lack of “planning for success” (ie, having clear ideas about what we wanted to do once we were inside). All of this meant, ultimately, that there were too few people to survive the first night without courting arrest. Still, as brief and disorganized as it was, the number of people entirely new to protest and occupation was incredibly encouraging. These new folks, of course, displayed a naivete that is no doubt frustrating -- wondering, for instance, why the presence of cops in the building was even an issue (they learned the answer quite quickly). But instead of engaging them, and attempting to explain what was happening, instead of attempting to help them understand the practice they were engaged in, many comrades simply left them alone, preferring to congregate with the likeminded. This is a real weakness, one we note in ourselves. It evidences a lack of patience, and a desire to avoid uncomfortable experiences that strikes us as rather prevalent in the Bay Area milieu (and prevalent, we note, in our own behavior). Our contempt for those who stand in our way, and who do so repeatedly, is good and important. But it seems we resort to contempt even when confronted with people who oppose us not out of some deep-seated ideological conviction but out of sheer lack of experience. Let's be clear: insurrection will not occur solely as the result of intentional action by a group of already committed radicals, a group of people who already display the “correct” thoughts and actions. It will occur as the result of transformative experiences -- experiences that always involve new forms of knowledge and political discourse -- and which drive people to do things they never imagined doing before. In short, we need to get better at talking. We're pretty good at fighting. We're pretty good at writing. We're pretty good at taking care of each other. But we're not so good at speaking publicly, it seems, under pressure, at the right moment. As a friend noted to us afterwards, perhaps this is because we hate leaders and fear becoming them, fear the banal acts of persuasion and oratory upon which the left thrives, and despise those who try to dominate others through such proselytizing. But saying what you think is not necessarily domination. Sometimes it's an act of friendship.

[Updated Monday 10:10am]: Check out "A Small Critique on Rhetoric," over at Gazuedro:

Perhaps it’s just rhetorical poisoning that my mind has suffered through the years by the media and the movement police, but it seems reckless to say, carte blanche, that “violence works.” This is not an ethical criticism of the argument, but rather a concern for the lack of clarity portrayed by this rather brief statement. I would take it, the “critical lesson” is that given the imminent political force of the crowd outside, and the aggressiveness of the police, the use of violent force to circumvent further atrociousness from the police was effective, worth the risk, and justified. Perhaps more importantly, that as a tactic, it’s easily justifiable to a community critical of police brutality against students who were merely demonstrating, and was thus something that might help bring a community together. I bring this up only to say that this argument isn’t given a fair chance by the brevity of the original statement (i.e. violence works) or by the dramatic and defiance-infused description of events that took place. In short, does all “violence work?” No of course not, it depends on the situation. It’s clear that this statement is a reaction to the moral condemnation of what happened, but as you realize, the problem with moral condemnation is its outright ignorance of how nuanced the issue is; and how general sweeping statements (i.e. moralisms) are aggravating excuses for failing to think critically. The approach of this argument falls under that same trap of being too general.

Similarly, stating “the police are the enemy,” seems a little extravagant. Certainly they often hold the role as the enemy, and are physically present to disable you from being effective. But the police are not the capitalists. The police are (massive) obstacles that must be dealt with. They are often the racist fuckers that shoot unarmed black men face down on the platform, but they are not the ones that solely perpetuate the system of oppression. If you’re purpose is to explain to the uninitiated that the police are not our friends, then you’re a folly of your own third lesson: failing to engage a diverse crowd the right way. An argument like this won’t reach folks. This kind of message, by far, is a lesson best learned through direct action: through the realization that your attempts to make the world better (and thus by extension communize) will be struck down with a baton every time if you fail to organize yourself to resist. This statement does help justify the event for those who were present, but it stops short of contextualizing the power structure thats at fault. It’s most certainly frustrating to have people constantly defend the police and absolve them of any wrongdoing, but the medium to change that won’t be in a brief communique.

I think generally, insurrectionary rhetoric like this overuses hyperbolic language and exaggeration. It usually comes off as grating rather than evocative of romantic adventurism and adrenaline-infused, humbled righteousness. I really appreciate the perspective and analysis though -- for which y’all should be much lauded.

From UC Rebel Radio:

Santa Ana, California - Today court resumed with closing statements in the Irvine 11 10 case. After the jury walked in, the judge took over 45 minutes to instruct the jury as to the procedure of trial and the law including a statement that pertained to "bias", declaring that it shouldn't influence the jury's judgement. The judge also read some of the statements made by the accused during the event in which they protested Israeli Ambassador, Michael Oren's Speech, but curiously the only statements read by the judge where those which called Oren a "murderer" or implied that he was akin to one.

Thereafter, the Prosecution took the stage and proceeded with their sports metaphors as usual (read previous post), arguing that the Irvine 11 had conspired to commit a "heckler's veto" of the Ambassador's Speech in order to "shut down" the event, a word that was used in a fancy overhead display in bold red letters to persuade the jury. The Prosecution then continued to lay out the case as they saw it, declaring that the Irvine 11 were guilty of violating "the rules that apply to society" since they did not heed the admonishment from Prof. Petracca of UC Irvine as he was heard to say the words "Behave yourself" in a video shown from the event. The Prosecution argued that Petracca's words (as well as Chancellor's Michael Drake's brief commentary) were in fact the "implicit customs" and "rules" of the meeting which were supposedly violated by the defendants. The Prosecution stated that the protest was "not freedom" but an example of "Anarchy". The prosecution added, "when you don't follow the law, our community breaks down" and "permitting censorship of ideeers [sic] destroys the marketplace". The Prosecution discussed that the accused could have effected their protest during a Q&A section at the end of Oren's Speech, but that the accused chose to violate the law instead.

Among other statements by the Prosecution, they argued that what happened to President Obama when someone yelled out "You lie" during an address to Congress was a very different case since what happened in Congress was "only two words" by an "individual". Other "evidence" presented by the Prosecution included several pie charts that depicted in black and red the "time" that they believed the protest lasted (as opposed to the time that Oren spoke) in order to show that the accused "substantially" disrupted the meeting. Also, a debriefing video of an unidentified person saying "we pretty much shut them down" was shown as evidence of the "intent" of the protest. Lastly, the Prosecution argued that the accused did "not resist" arrest, because it was part of their "plan" or "conspiracy".

After the Prosecution delivered their closing statement the court went to recess. During this intermission there was a Press Conference outside the courthouse with local leaders from the community in support of the Irvine 11, (See video of press conference, coming soon).

In the afternoon, the court resumed with the closing statements from Defense attorney Dan Mayfield. In his statement, Mayfield expressed that the Prosecution was leading the jury to believe that "when people are arrested they are guilty".Mayfield also argued that the pie charts presented by the Prosecution were inaccurate given that they counted the time "attributable to protesters" in which the crowd was shouting as well as when UC-Irvine Professor, Petracca chose to "hear his own voice" by expressing his "personal embarrassment" to the crowd. Upon this last reference there was the first incidence of clapping in the courtroom. Then laughter came as Mayfield introduced one of the accused as the "world's biggest teddy bears" during the part of his presentation dedicated to show that the protesters indeed had planned to "not resist" the police. Mayfield explained that the accused were very carefully planning to "abide" by the law, a word that was later emphasized by the other defense attorney in closing statements, Reem Salahi. Mayfield argued that if the planning that took place by the Irvine 11 was enough to convict them of "conspiracy" then the planning of the UCPD was also a "conspiracy" as Mayfield recalled a witness testimony from Police Chief, Hennesy stating the fact that there were "metal handcuffs" at the scene prior to the protest. Mayfield added that "Oren himself believed that he was not substantially interfered with" as he recalled Oren's statement "wishing those students" had "remained" in the room (See our previous post on the Irvine 11). Lastly, Mayfield argued that the "rules" or "customs" of the meeting were uncorroborated arguments since neither Petracca nor Drake ever took the stand to verify the meaning of their statements in court. Then Mayfield went on to have a mock witness examination of Drake and Petracca to demonstrate why it was important for them to testify to the accuracy of their statements by asking an empty chair if he [an imaginary Drake] had "other bosses" and whether they interpreted the "rules" and "customs" in the same fashion, as well as an imaginary Petracca, asking him whether he "had something to drink that evening". More laughter filled the packed courtroom (which had to employ over 5 bailiffs by the end of the day). Mayfield closed with a famous e.e. cummings poem to emphasize the importance of language.

Thereafter, Defense attorney Reem Salahi took the podium to address the jury. In her closing statement, Salahi emphasized Mayfield's argument that the UCPD's "plan" to counter the protest was planned in the same fashion as the accused "plan" for the protest. Salahi added that the statements given by UCPD Chief Hennesy were contradictory to evidence since he stated having no "prior knowledge" of a protest, when in UC-Irvine's Dean of Students, Edgar Dormitorio's statement, he mentions having found out about the plan for the protest from the Chief of Police himself. Salahi also mentioned that the Prosecution was relying on other testimony from an unknown subject since the person in the video presentation from the prosecution saying the words "we pretty much shut them down" (in reference to the meeting) could never be identified or ever brought to the courtroom. Salahi also stated that in Dormitorio's own words "no disruption would be allowed", thus violating the right to protest. Salahi then showed a series of videos which portrayed several protests taking place at the UC Irvine campus which were disrupted in the same fashion and in which "police" and "administration" "were present" and no arrest took place, thus emphasizing the disproportionate attention that this case has garnered. To close, Salahi was going to tell a personal anecdote, but the Prosecution objected as to its relevance and the judge sustained the motion. Salahi looked perplexed at first, but then she said, "I guess I can't tell you the story. I got shut down" and the crowd in the courtroom erupted in clapping and cheering.

After she sat, the judge declared a brief recess. When he returned (10 minutes late from the time he set), he admonished the crowd while the jury was still out, saying he would not permit anymore "gesturing". Then he let in the jury and told the crowd to leave and that the case would continue tomorrow morning...

For more information, check out Nora Barrows-Friedman's coverage at the Electronic Intifada.

The SF Appeal has a pretty decent roundup of mainstream media links, but an even better one by SFSU journalism student Katherine Grant is here. By far the best report is at the SF Bay Guardian (the worst, as usual, is the drivel from the Chronicle):

Before the banners and bullhorns came out, BART spokesperson Jim Allison told the Guardian that if BART police deemed a gathering inside the unpaid area of the station to be dangerous, "we would ask people to disperse." If they didn't disperse, "we would declare an unlawful assembly." Allison said protesters were free to exercise their first amendment rights to protest inside the areas of the station that don't require a ticket to enter. He said people could do that as long as they were not "interrupting or interfering" with regular service. When the Guardian caught up with Allison after the protest by phone to find out why his statements about the dispersal order were contradicted by police activity, he refused to answer our questions, directing us instead to watch a press conference on the BART website.

"I'm going off duty," he said after calling the Guardian in response to a page, after being asked several times why BART police had not issued a dispersal order before surrounding people and arresting them. "I simply cannot devote the rest of my night to answering your questions."

[...]

Before police closed in, the protest featured some 60 protesters chanting things like, "How can they protect and serve us? The BART police just make me nervous." One banner, from a group called Feminists Against Cops, read, "Disarm BART, Arm Feminists."

Things heated up when the protest got closer to the fare gates, at which point police may have determined that protesters were interfering with service. At one point, police tackled a masked demonstrator to the ground. However, when people were detained, they were not standing directly in front of the fare gates.

Police did not make any public statements indicating that the situation had been deemed unlawful before surrounding the group of detainees, nor did they issue a dispersal order. We were told that we were not free to leave.

While I was detained along with Luke Thomas, a reporter from the popular political Fog City Journal, and freelance reporter Josh Wolf, an officer told us that we were being detained on suspected violation of California Penal Code 369-i, which prohibits interfering with the operations of a railroad.

Thomas phoned Matt Gonzalez, former president of the Board of Supervisors and now a chief attorney with the Public Defender's office, to ask about that law. Gonzalez looked it up and told him that there was an exception to that law which "does not prohibit picketing in the adjacent area of any property" belonging to a railroad. So it would seem that the protesters, along with more than a dozen journalists, were being unlawfully detained. When we put this question to one of the officers who stood holding a nightstick and blocking us in, he refused to address the issue directly, repeating that we weren't free to leave.

Members of the press with San Francisco Police Department issued credentials were made to line up and present their press passes to San Francisco police officers, who had been called in to assist. The police officers took away media's press passes, saying it was SFPD property and could be retrieved later -- which meant that if journalists had opted to stay and cover any further police activity, we would have had no way of presenting credentials to avoid arrest. We were issued Certificates of Release and ushered outside of the station, where it was impossible to see what was happening, and therefore, impossible to do our jobs as reporters.

Meanwhile, over at the Glen Park BART station:

BART spokeswoman Luna Salaver says about a dozen men wearing black hoods smashed fare gates with hammers at the Glen Park station Thursday night. Eight gates were damaged.

The vandals also scrawled the name of Charles Hill at the station. Hill was a transient who was fatally shot by BART police after he allegedly lunged at them with a knife on July 3.

Salaver says BART police are investigating whether the vandalism is tied to a protest earlier Thursday at the Powell Street station — the latest in a series of protests that began after Hill's death.

Here's a statement posted by "Some Bay Area Anarchists" at Indybay:

On the evening of September 8th, 2011 we sabotaged the fare machines, turnstyles and facade of the Glen Park BART station in South San Francisco. Just as we have been inspired by comparable actions of anarchists world wide, we hope to act as a catalyst to incite similar actions against the state and it's apparatuses of control.

Our spray cans dispensed slogans and our hammers shattered screens and ticket readers. We look to each other to find meaning and reject the limiting discourse of rights and free speech as a vehicle for our rage. We communicate this now to denounce the authority of a society that violently represses us every time we step out of line.

All police are the enemy. We articulate this when we choose to honor the lives of Oscar Grant, Charles Hill and Kenneth Harding by fighting for our own lives. This same passion for freedom can be observed from Seattle to Greece to Chile. As anarchists we understand that the social control of transit fares exists in harmony with the deadly enforcement of the physical, emotional, and social desolation of our everyday lives. We aim to interrupt this concert at every feasible opportunity.

The police and the media will spin this event as petty vandalism. Some will condemn us and suggest that violence against property promotes state repression, but we have lost our fear. We do not seek approval from any authority and for this reason we abandon the tired structure of demand.We look to explore our capacity to exemplify our collective abilities and to encourage others to resist in ever more autonomous and uncontrollable ways. Freedom to those arrested at today's Powell Street action. See you at the barricades.

PS: mad props to the wildcat longshoremen of washington. keep it wild

As we emerge from the longest period of mass political demobilization in American history, it would be good to remember some basic, non-electoral forms of dissent which previous generations took for granted and which are currently being employed around the world in places like Chile, Greece, Spain, and Puerto Rico.

After a year of breathless coverage of the Arab Spring, we have seen how most US commentators find it easier to idealize social movements in other countries rather than in their own backyard. As crippling austerity measures take hold in the US, we believe it will be important to open a conversation about forms of political resistance which do not rely upon lobbying, the ballot box, or one more petition on Change.org.

We have collected together some links to online resources which offer basic definitions of civil disobedience, direct action, and beyond. The precise meaning of these terms is the subject of much debate, but please take a moment.



What is civil disobedience?

Why would people engage in civil disobedience in the first place instead of simply voting?



How have mainstream liberal and conservative critics distinguished civil disobedience from other forms of non-electoral political resistance?



What is direct action?

Let’s create a new kind of ANARCHIST GENERAL ASSEMBLY!

Saturday July 16th
12 – 5pm, BBQ to follow
6501 Telegraph Ave. (Near Ashby BART)
Oakland, CA

~~~

The first in an experimental series of regional anarchist general assemblies will be held in Oakland on July 16th, 2011.

The purpose of this assembly is to strengthen ties within the Bay Area's anarchist community by providing a regularly occurring event to share projects we’re working on, discuss the topics we are organizing around, promote collaboration and solidarity between different groups, spark new initiatives and build our collective capacity as a social antagonist force. The assembly will not be a decision-making body; it will not create platforms or manifestos.

More detailed information about the various sessions and breakout groups is available in the official announcement at Indybay. It's also worth listening to the following interview that aired on a recent broadcast of the show Relatos Zapatistas. You can listen to it here:

Last night, what may have been the last conduct hearing regarding the fall 2009 occupations at UC Berkeley took place. Josh Wolf, a graduate student in journalism as well as a press pass-carrying journalist, was in Wheeler Hall during the occupation to report on the action from the inside. The extended hearing involved the university's attempt to prohibit the use of Twitter and, more importantly, turned on the administration's inability to understand what journalism means. Jeff Woods, the prosecutor from the Office of Student Conduct (OSC), argued that Wolf should have physically intervened, attacking and overpowering the other students involved in the occupation instead of observing, taking notes, and filming. (How's that for health and safety?)

During this hearing, unlike the last two, Wolf was denied the right to have his adviser represent him, which many believe (including the ACLU of Northern California) constitutes a fundamental violation of the constitutional right to due process. In the last two hearings, in which advisers were allowed to speak for their clients, the defendants were found not guilty of any of the charges. Wolf, on the other hand, did pretty damn well for having to defend himself -- not guilty on the charges of endangering health and safety and unlawful assembly, but guilty on the charges of failure to comply, trespassing, and obstructing teaching. Fortunately, his performance was good enough to make the hearing panel recommend a sanction of... nothing! Not even a warning, which is the lowest possible sanction. (Maybe it had to do with the fact that he played this video during the hearing.) If you're interested in checking out line by line coverage, use this Twitter list (thanks to @callie_hoo).

It looks like Jeff Woods, perhaps the most incompetent bureaucrat to ever work for UC Berkeley, has lost another one.

Even if this round of conduct charges has concluded at UC Berkeley, that doesn't mean we can let our guard down. Student conduct -- as well as criminal charges -- are still being leveraged against student protesters at other campuses. Today, the Sacramento State administration is coming down hard against the protesters who launched the sit-in that would last four days before being evicted in the middle of the night by riot cops. Here's their call for support:

The Sac State 4 are four students who are being singled out by administration, and facing disciplinary action for their supposed involvement in the April 13th day of action and sit in.

They have a meeting today (4/28) with the administration to discuss what will be done. There will be a silent protest outside of Lassen Hall in support of these sudents. What the administration is doing to these students is unacceptable. Please show your support!!

Solidarity with the Sac State 4! Drop the charges! Abolish the Code of Conduct!

[Updated Thursday 7:22pm]: This just came over the Twitter:

In the early hours of the morning, police from both the CSU and SFPD, dressed in full riot gear entered the administration at Sacramento State -- which was going into the fourth day of occupation by student protesters -- advanced on sleeping students in attack formation and from multiple directions, and ordered them to leave. Occupiers left voluntarily, with no arrests. Here's part of their statement of the eviction:

This morning on the fourth day, April 16 at 3:24 A.M. we were met with the administration’s opposition expressed through a riot taskforce.

Earlier that morning at approximately 12:30 A.M CSUS police entered the building for the first time accompanied with San Francisco State police. We were told that the new forces were needed, and that our own police were showing them the layout of our building. At this time we asked to be updated about the situation and we were refused that request.

Our police liaison Yeimi Lopez, again approached CSUS police with questions and she was told that they could no longer release information, and that they were following the orders given to them.

At 3:24 AM there was a police officer at the front doors unlocking the entrance, when asked what was happening and why, we were told that he could not answer that question. At the same time police were assembling in a militant formation with full riot gear, batons, and a large amount of zip ties. They were approaching sleeping students from multiple directions within the building. They threatened with force that if we did not leave we would face arrest. Our police liaison met with Lieutenant Christine Lofthouse that if we did not leave the peaceful demonstration that we would face arrest.

This is to be expected. In the end, these administrations don't care whether student action, especially direct action like occupation, is "peaceful" -- in any form it constitutes a threat to their ability to impose whatever measures they deem appropriate. At UC Berkeley, for example, we experienced something similar in December 2009 during Live Week, when riot police descended at 3 am on sleeping students and arrested 66 of them. We scare them. As our compañeros at Anti-Capital Projects wrote,

From this perspective, the bottom line is: fuck yeah Sac State! Solidarity with occupiers everywhere!

* OCCUPY * DISRUPT * RECLAIM * FIGHT BACK *

The occupation at Sacramento State continues into its second night, after 18 students slept there last night and kept the building open. Check em out on the blog and the twitter. Here's the demands, as of this morning:

1. A moratorium on managerial raises and salaries; Funding must be focused on instruction and student services.

2. Publicly support AB 1326. The oil extraction fee for higher ed bill.

3. Publicly support SB 8. The transparency bill.

Their full communiqué is after the jump:

From occupyca:

Students and faculty at around 4 California State University campuses held sit-ins today in administration buildings. Sit-ins and marches to administrative offices took place at: CSU Fresno, Monterey, Sacramento, East Bay, Long Beach, Pomona, Northridge, San Francisco State University, and San Jose State University. Rallies, marches and teach-ins were scheduled at all 23 CSU campuses today as a part of a day of action. AP estimates more than 10,000 participated.

According to AP, around 1000 students and faculty at CSU Sacramento marched from the library quad to an administrative building to deliver a set of petitions, and around 100 demonstrators staged a sit-in demanding the resignation of the CSU Chancellor. Around 800 demonstrators at CSU Long Beach marched to the student services administrative building, but the building was already shut down. These actions take place in the face of the $500 million budget cut to the CSU system (out of a total of $1.4 billion in cuts to CA higher education).

UPDATE 7:30pm: Reportedly, Sac state students inside their administrative building are staying overnight.

(map from thosewhouseit)

[Update 1:38 am Thursday morning]: Sounds like the occupation at Sacramento State is going all night. They're calling for support at 7 am:

California Aggie, UC Davis: So LAO [Legislative Analyst's Office] also recommended a 7 percent fee hike in the next academic year — what do you think about that?

Yudof: Well, my position right now is, we’ve hit you so hard I’m not planning on recommending a fee hike beyond what is already on the books, which is 8 percent in September.

Today, the UC Regents (among which Yudof counts himself) met at UCSF Mission Bay. Here's what came out of that meeting:

SAN FRANCISCO -- Students are likely to bear the brunt of the University of California's budget crisis for years to come.

UC likely will face a $1.5 billion budget gap in the next few years even under the rosiest scenarios, UC regents were told Wednesday.

As a result, administrators said, the university probably will need to lean on students for annual tuition increases. Among four scenarios discussed Wednesday, only one would come close to bridging the deficit: annual tuition and state funding increases of 8 percent.

But a rebound in flagging state money is unlikely, so the university most likely would rely on a combination of cuts and tuition hikes. If the state contributes no additional money in the next four years and UC does not make additional cuts, for example, tuition would need to rise more than 18 percent per year to make up the difference, the university said.

In other words, 40 percent in the last two years wasn't enough -- despite their "good intentions," despite their sympathetic words, despite their lobbying in Sacramento, despite their bullshit "advocacy," they're still raising our tuition. The decisions apparently won't be finalized until May. But whatever happens, we can say one thing with certainty: the administration lies. Fuck the administration, fuck their cuts, and fuck their fee hikes!

FIGHT BACK - WALKOUT - STRIKE - DISRUPT EVERYTHING - OCCUPY EVERYTHING - TAKE WHAT'S OURS - DO IT NOW

Today the Daily Cal published an op-ed by the author of the blog post we linked to here, which builds on and develops a number of the ideas in the original. For us, the key question here is the nature of "students' rights." Check it out:

On Thursday March 4, I went to Wheeler Hall to teach section for Legal Studies 140 "Property and Liberty" -- a subject about which we learned a lot more than we expected that day!

Students were protesting in front of and on the balcony of the building, and police were standing around, but nobody stopped me from going inside. Students in my section showed up and we started the discussion.

Twenty minutes later, two police officers came and told us "the chancellor is closing the building."

But by what right does the chancellor get to close Wheeler Hall?

This campus exists because the land was donated by the state legislature to the university in exchange for its providing education to the citizens of California.

So who owns the university? If the labor of teachers is part of the educational mission, at what point do teachers get to decide what happens on school property? If you believe, as I do, that student labor is also part of education -- helping to create what is learned by all in the classroom, what right do students have to make use of the spaces whose existence is justified by an educational mission? If there is disagreement or diversity of opinion, who or what should arbitrate these rights?

I later got an e-mail from the chancellor saying that a "health and safety issue" in Wheeler Hall required its closing.

Immediately afterwards, a friend who was outside Wheeler Hall told me about police pepper-spraying and beating protesters with batons while attempting to remove them from the area. Was that the health and safety issue?

In November 2009, a police officer smashed the hand of and nearly took off the finger of a student participating in the protests, while at the November 2010 Regents' meeting, police pepper-sprayed nonviolent students in the face. On March 4, police prevented people from bringing water to those protesters who were thirsty and had requested it. Police presence appears to be a leading cause of these "health and safety issues," and yet they are still allowed on campus.

Another issue raised during previous protests was concern over damage to the building. But is damaging human bodies preferable to damaging buildings? Also, has anyone seen the bathrooms in Wheeler Hall? If police were to start beating people over building damage, 20 percent of students there on a regular day would need ambulances. Hiring back the laid-off janitorial staff would be a better response to this concern and a better expenditure of university resources than paying the wages of police who beat students.

Whose rights are being protected by the beatings, the pepper-sprayings, the denial of water to protesters?

Let's consider students' rights to pursue an education without disruption. We were carrying on our section without a problem until closure of Wheeler Hall happened, it was the police who kicked us out.

What of the rights of the students who have dropped out because of fee hikes (many of whom are locked into crushing debt), or the janitors and other staff members who will no longer be on campus because of the policies like fee hikes and the layoffs like those dictated by Operational Excellence? Did they have any rights to pursue an education? The founders of the UC system would have said that they did.

How do we measure these rights alongside those of students, protesting or not, currently attending UC Berkeley? Non-protesting students' rights to pursue an education have already been affected: Despite massive fee increases, the resulting funds have not gone towards actual education: Class sizes are increasing, labs are cut, libraries are closed or have shorter hours, teaching resources are cut, class sessions are cut -- my own course has four fewer classes than usual because of the cuts! Meanwhile, endless construction projects disrupt the campus more than any protest has, to date.

We all learned a tremendous amount about the power and meaning of property rights on March 4. We saw how the campus put property rights in objects over people's property rights in their own bodies.

Students' rights to bodily integrity, to pursue an education and to have a voice in University of California policy were less important than the chancellor's right to absolute control over the goings-on inside Wheeler Hall. But what, besides force of arms, supports the chancellor's right? What about the UC's mission as an educational institution?

More info at occupyca, photos at Indymedia PR.

Friday, March 11 is the World Day of Solidarity with the Students of the University of Puerto Rico:

March 11, 1971 was one of the bloodiest single days in the history of the University of Puerto Rico. The main campus at Río Piedras was occupied by the Puerto Rico Police, unleashing violent confrontations that ended the lives of two police officers, including the then chief of the notorious Tactical Operations Unit, and one student.

Barely one year before, on March 4, 1970, during a student demonstration, student Antonia Martínez Lagares was shot dead by police. These tragedies influenced a series of decisions that helped reduce the intensity of on-campus conflicts during the following decades, including the removal of the United States’ Army Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC), and an institutional commitment to resolving conflicts without police intervention.

Forty years later, the UPR community, led by the students, still struggles for a democratic and accessible institution, against the abusive and exclusionary policies of the latest colonial government. Among these, aside from its clear intention to privatize higher education as much as it can, said government has laid off over 25,000 public employees, and intends to build a gasoduct across the island that will displace entire communities and impact areas of high ecological and archeological value.

In this context, the Río Piedras Campus once again lived several months of police occupation, with the open support of the government and university administrators, in reaction to the strike democratically declared by the Río Piedras General Student Assembly, rejecting an unjust and arbitrary $800 hike in the cost of studying. The eyes of the world watched as Puerto Rico Police officers tortured peaceful civil disobedients with impunity, sexually accosted and attacked women students, discriminatorily harassed student leaders, and savagely beat people, even under custody, all before the television cameras.

There can be no doubt that the recent decision by Governor Luis Fortuño to withdraw the bulk of the police force from the Río Piedras Campus is a partial victory for the students, who with their bravery and determination have raised the political cost of sustaining that level of repression way to high for the government to afford. However, now is not the time to lower the guard. It wouldn’t be the first time that the Fortuño administration temporarily curtails its use of brute force, only to return even more violently under any pretext. We are convinced that if the Puerto Rico Police is not removed immediately, completely, and permanently from all UPR campuses, it will only be a matter of time before another March 11.

In addition, we are united by the firm conviction that the demands of the UPR community are just. The strike is still in effect, and the struggle (its current phase) will continue until the $800 hike is eliminated. In the longer term, we support a real democratization of the decision-making process in the UPR, so that it is the community that determines the best way to handle the institution’s financial and administrative problems.

For all of these reasons, Friday, March 11, 2011, fortieth anniversary of that fateful March 11, will be World Day of Solidarity with the UPR. On that day we will hold, in our respective cities, simultaneous demonstrations together with individuals and organizations that support just causes. At a time when the powerful voice of the brave Egyptian people and all arab nations is still ringing around the the globe, we are confident that the people of consciousness of the world will welcome this initiative and organize their own activities of solidarity on that day.

There will be a solidarity rally in San Francisco on Friday, March 11, 4:30-7:00pm at the 24th/Mission BART Station Plaza.

Yesterday was a Day of Action for Public Education in which you and many others made your voices heard in support of public higher education. Like all of you, I am dismayed at the staggering size of a $1.4 billion cut to all sectors of public higher education. I am fully sympathetic with your concerns about the State’s disinvestment in public higher education and have been working hard in Sacramento to address this issue.

However, you have chosen a method of protest that I cannot support. I am very concerned about your health and safety and urge you to end this unsafe action. In the interest of your safety and that of others, we have closed Wheeler Hall. Please consider your fellow-students’ right to attend classes.

These are some very strange things to say. What jumps out first are the usual propaganda strategies deployed by the UC administration: shift the target of criticism to dodge the blame. "Like all of you," Birgeneau writes in a desperate attempt to conjure up a feeling of solidarity -- the demands of the protesters on the ledge included rolling back the $1.4 billion budget cuts but Sacramento was far from the only target. The key target, which Birgeneau clearly understands, is the UC administration. As we wrote here last fall,

California's economic devastation has little to do with the UC administration's decision to impose austerity on the university. One of the most important goals of the protests on UC campuses [in 2009] was precisely to combat this rhetorical maneuver, to focus attention back on the administration. It's hard work -- politics is synonymous with government, and so it seems that the natural outlet for political protest is Sacramento. But Sacramento is everywhere. The regents, the administration, the built environment of the university itself. Not that it was necessarily our goal, but the protests last year caught Sacramento's attention -- they were the "tipping point" in the state government's decision to allocate hundreds of millions of dollars more to the UC in this year's budget. But as we've been saying all along, more money from the state is irrelevant without regime change in the administration. And, effectively, we've been proven right: this year [i.e. 2010] the regents came together to raise our tuition once again.

UC administrators were the ones responsible for turning to risky Wall Street investments, which cost us $23 billion when the economic crisis hit; UC administrators were the ones who committed themselves to using student tuition -- and the promise of future tuition increases -- as collateral for construction bonds to feed an insatiable appetite for capital projects. For their part, the UC regents are appointed by the governor -- they are extensions of the political center of the state, nodes in a plutocratic constellation of corporate interests and exploitation that hides behind the aura of the country's most "liberal" university. Sacramento, it bears repeating, is everywhere.

But there's a lot more here than just dodging the blame. For starters, look at the language: lots of "I" sentences. "I am dismayed," "I am sympathetic," "I cannot support." We don't care how you feel -- we just care what you do. "I am very concerned," Birgeneau writes, "about your health and safety." Health and safety. What is that most bureaucratic formulation? Not health, not safety, but health-and-safety. What is this compound noun, and what does it mean?

We're too tired to write anything right now, but we wanted to post a few links anyway. Also, check out our twitter feed for a minute-by-minute account of the day, and this twitter list from Student Activism for tweets from many of those on the scene.

Links:
- "Wheeler Locked Down Once Again" (thosewhouseit)
- "A Victory for Direct Action" (thosewhouseit)
- "Roof of Wheeler Hall Occupied" (occupyca)
- "Berkeley Students Occupy Ledge at Wheeler Hall" (student activism)
- "Wheeler Hall Occupied" (zunguzungu)

(pdf here)

State-wide actions are listed here (via Mobilize Berkeley).

[Updates Wednesday 5:32pm]: Pictures from the rally that's happening now in front of Wheeler Hall.

(via @jpanzar)

... and, as always, the cops are hovering in the background...


Images from UC Davis here. Some details from earlier in the day are here.

From thosewhouseit:

If you recall, we reported a little over a week ago that our comrade Julian Martinez’s student conduct hearing for the 11/20/09 Wheeler occupation ended before it even began. It was scheduled for Friday, February 18th, but the hearing panel spent most of the evening deliberating over several procedural matters, and neither side even had the opportunity to present their respective opening statements. After graduate student panelist David Fannon recused himself, Martinez’s hearing was rescheduled for February 28th. Martinez is not the only Wheeler student currently in the hearing stage of the student conduct process, but his hearing is the only one currently open to the public. Please come out and show your support!

We’ll have info on subsequent public hearings shortly. It sounds like one of our closest comrades will have his hearing for the Wheeler occupation a week from tomorrow. We’ll post details once it’s confirmed. In the meantime, please, please, please come out to Julian’s hearing and show him some solidarity.

The hearing will begin at 5:30 pm, Monday, February 28 in Building 14 on the Clark Kerr Campus.

[Update Monday, 12:45pm]: If you want to follow the hearing, it looks like @callie_hoo will be doing some live-tweeting.

[Update Tuesday, 7:58am]: Julian found "not responsible" (i.e. not guilty) for ANY of the charges against him! This is the one of the first times a protester from November 2009 has been cleared -- and, notably, it is the only time where the defendant's "adviser" (i.e. lawyer or lawyer-like helper) has been allowed to speak. Congratulations to Julian and to his adviser Thomas Frampton! Here's the summary from thosewhouseit:

For the first time, the Berkeley Office of Student Conduct (OSC) lost its case against a student protester who occupied Wheeler Hall on 11/20/09. Julian Martinez was found not guilty on all counts. The verdict was read around 1:30 am last night at his hearing on the Clark Kerr Campus. We highly recommend reading over the de facto summary on our comrade’s live-tweet. Thomas Frampton from the Campus Rights Project (CRP) ripped it. Highlights include Thomas telling the panel he is offended as a Berkeley student that this is the standard of justice on campus; pointing out that OSC threw a charge intended for rapists at most of the Wheeler occupiers; and telling the arresting officer that he is an embarrassment to UCPD. Congrats to Julian, Thomas, and CRP, and ironic kisses to the career functionaries at OSC.

We can draw several immediate conclusions from this decision. First, of course, it demonstrates the utter incompetence of OSC, which was unable to prove (even given the absurdly low standard of proof) that one of the protesters who was arrested in Wheeler Hall during the occupation was "responsible" (i.e. guilty) for even a single charge. At times like this, such incompetence ends up working out in the favor of student protesters; most of the time, however, it works against us. The reason is that the student conduct procedure is specifically designed to hold certain kinds of people (namely, students) accountable, while consistently letting administrators and institutions at large off the hook. Thus, we should not take this as a sign that "the system works" or let down our guard in any way -- rather, we should recognize that what just happened is a flaw in the system. We should also expect that flaw to be "resolved" quickly -- much like the comment made by undergraduate member of the hearing panel on her AOL Lifestream page four days after Julian's prehearing ("Never pass up an opportunity to castrate a man") has since been removed. Don't worry -- we saved a screenshot of it. [Editor's note: As of 6/23/2020 we have edited this post to remove the identifying information of the undergraduate member of the hearing panel.]

Second, this decision demonstrates the significance of affording students their full due process rights instead of the abridged version on which the student conduct procedure is based. Julian's case is the first time a protester from the 2009 occupations has been able to have his adviser speak for him; significantly, it is also the first time all the charges have been overturned. What this demonstrates -- and this is fairly obvious, but it still needs to be said -- is that someone who is trained in dealing with such pseudo-legal matters is obviously better at it than someone who isn't. By forcing students to defend themselves, OSC and the UC administration are blatantly attempting to skew the playing field.

Third, this decision calls into question all previous and future decisions regarding protesters from the 2009 occupations. What Frampton referred to as the "three P's" during the hearing -- procedure, politics, and proof -- are more or less the same in very case, and the university has failed in each of them. All previous decisions against student protesters have therefore been reached wrongly and should be retroactively dismissed; simultaneously, all future decisions must be seen through the lens of what happened here. This will be especially true if an adviser is not allowed to speak for his or her client.

The Campus Rights Project (CRP) at UC Berkeley has asked us to publicize the following two events that will be taking place this week on Berkeley campus:

1) The Live Week 12/11/2009 Meeting

The Campus Rights Project is working with Oakland Civil Rights Attorney Dan Siegel on issues regarding the December 11, 2009 arrests in Wheeler Hall. Dan is interested in meeting with people that were arrested to explore the possibility that the arrests violated civil rights law. At this preliminary stage, it is important for as many people as possible to meet with Dan. If he is able to proceed with a claim against the University or other officials involved with the arrests, he will need complete information and an opportunity to meet all of those who he is representing. Please attend this meeting. If you have any questions, contact CRP at crp.berkeley@gmail.com.

What: Information Meeting about Legal Claims from 12/11/2009 Arrests
Where: Boalt Hall Room 110
When: Tuesday February 15, 7PM
Who: Everyone who was arrested at Wheeler Hall on the Morning of 12/11/2009

2) Public Hearing for Julian Martinez

Thomas Frampton, who two weeks ago argued (and won) Boalt Law School's Honors Moot Court Competition in front of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, will be able to speak and advocate for his client. This will be the first time that the Office of Student Conduct (OSC) fulfills one (though by no means all) of its due process obligations and actually allows an adviser to speak for the defendant in the conduct hearings of the students who were charged with violating the code in November 2009. Should be quite a show.

Friday, February 18, 2011 at 1:30pm in Room 102 of Krutch Theater (building 14) on the Clark Kerr campus.

[Update Friday, 7:30 pm]: We were tweeting during the hearing, during which the hearing panel had to leave the room to confer privately twice (once for an hour, another for two), one member of the panel officially recused himself, and the hearing was adjourned at about 6:30 pm. The only issues covered were procedural -- no evidence was presented.

The following letter was written by a UC Berkeley graduate student facing conduct charges for participating in the action at the A&E building on November 18, 2009. Having seen first-hand the arbitrary nature of the student conduct procedure in general and the conduct hearings in particular, the student opted at the last minute to agree to an "administrative disposition" -- a plea bargain of sorts. In accepting the disposition, however, the student also sent this letter to the Office of Student Conduct (OSC):

Center for Student Conduct and Community Standards
2536 Channing Way, Building E
Berkeley, California 94720-2432

February 9, 2011

To Whom It May Concern:

I have decided to sign the attached Administrative Disposition. However, with a nod to the so-called “educational process” that this document represents, as well as the very real (albeit unacknowledged) set of legal constraints to which this “process” is required to attend, I would like to outline the sequence of events that has led to my decision.

In the fall of 2009, I was one of many dedicated students who were joined by workers and faculty in a series of uprisings against what we saw to be a fundamental change in the university. Sparked by the unfathomable 32-percent fee hike for undergraduates, these protests and actions fought against the financialization and privatization of public services more generally, as well as the foreclosure of public space and the effective exclusion of the “public” from public education. These actions were widely supported in California and beyond, and they were undertaken in concert with similar student uprisings across the globe.

I would like to say on the record that I wholeheartedly support occupations such as the occupation of Wheeler Hall, other occupations undertaken by workers and students across California and the globe, and currently, the occupation of Tahrir Square in Cairo. I would like to say that on the record because so many students and dedicated activists have been precluded from saying just that, because in the show trials that pass for an “educational process” at this university, it has become clear that you at the Center for Student Conduct are interesting in prosecuting not their actions, but their state of mind.

I regret nothing about my involvement in political activism since I came to UC Berkeley. If I were to regret something, perhaps it would be that I have not participated in a building occupation. Because to say that the mess of a sit-in that occurred on November 18 was an occupation is not only an absurd legal or academic charge; it also does injustice to the extraordinary strength, determination, and (one may imagine) planning demonstrated by the occupiers of Wheeler Hall and other spaces worldwide.

What I did on November 18, 2009, was no more illegal or unethical than it was brave or risky. I walked into a building that was open to the public, and when the police told me leave, I left voluntarily. This is corroborated by the official police report.

However, the university administration has treated this event in a manner that has betrayed a dedication to its own self-preservation at the expense of the educational and public mission of the university, and further, at the expense of free speech. Employees of the Center for Student Conduct have demonstrated brazen, unprofessional, and personally vindictive behavior, at every step of the way violating both the law as well as terms of the Code of Student Conduct they claim to enforce.

For over one year, I have waited for my hearing, and during that time, I and others like me who also face charges, have been told at every stage that it was not yet the moment to discuss our concerns over a lack of due process, a denial of our right to representation, and so on. We have been told that the juridical proceedings of the university are not subject to state or federal laws, that they are an “educational process” and as such, we as students are not rightsholders, even if the result is that we are denied our continued student status—and our degrees.

In my personal experience, I have watched as my hearing gets pushed further and further back for well over a year. I have consistently asked questions of the employees of the Center for Student Conduct, which never get answered. Although the Code of Student Conduct has changed since the date in question, I still do not know to which version of the code I’m being held accountable. When I asked for an explanation of my charges, I was told that they should be self-evident, despite their inflammatory nature. When I asked to see my personal file that was prepared specifically for me, the employee who had it in her possession, Laura Bennett, told me that I could not have it. When I asked why, she told me, “No reason.”

That was on the first date I was supposed to have a pre-hearing conference, September 16. On that date, I missed class in order to attend my appointment, seeing as it was the vital moment at which I could finally get questions answered, as well as the time to set final details for my hearing, which was scheduled for September 16. I waited in the hall for my conference to begin for over five and hours—into the evening and nearly missing a family engagement—before Associate Dean Gonzales indicated that I should leave.

When my pre-hearing conference was finally rescheduled for November 18 (exactly one year after the spontaneous sit-in), it again clashed with the same class. As opposed to the September date, I did not have a hearing scheduled at this time, and so I questioned the appropriateness of missing class so close to finals in order to have what appeared to be a superfluous pre-hearing conference. Additionally, one is allowed to miss class only a limited number of times without a grade penalty. Since I had already missed class for the previous appointment that never happened, I informed Susan Trageser that I would be unable to attend this appointment, and requested that we exchange evidence packets at a later date. Ms. Trageser sent me the following short response: “Thank you for your email. If there are questions you have for the faculty chair conducting your pre-hearing conference, please let me know and I will be glad to share them with the faculty chair. Your hearing packet will be available in the Center for you to pick up following the pre-hearing conference.” She and my hearing chair, Prof. [Lynn] Huntsinger, went on to have my pre-hearing conference without me, making decisions regarding the nature of the hearing and discussing my case in my absence.

The current circumstances preclude the possibility of a fair hearing. I have spent hours and days over the last year attempting to navigate this “educational process,” to the detriment of my actual education. Although I have become well-versed with the intricacies of the Code of Student Conduct, it matters little when those who claim to enforce it treat it merely as a set of guidelines and an effective tool for stifling student activism, which they may wield as they choose. I have come to believe that despite the code’s imperative that the student speaks, I will not be heard. And based on my experiences and what I have witnessed of other students’ hearings, I believe that to move on to hearing would only punish me further for my exercise of the freedom of speech.

For that reason, I have decided to sign the attached informal resolution of my charges.

Sincerely,

****************