The following statement was read to a crowd of thousands during today's rally at UC Davis and posted on the front page of the UCD English Department's website:

The faculty of the UC Davis English Department supports the Board of the Davis Faculty Association in calling for Chancellor Katehi's immediate resignation and for "a policy that will end the practice of forcibly removing non-violent student, faculty, staff, and community protesters by police on the UC Davis campus."

Further, given the demonstrable threat posed by the University of California Police Department and other law enforcement agencies to the safety of students, faculty, staff, and community members on our campus and others in the UC system, we propose that such a policy include the disbanding of the UCPD and the institution of an ordinance against the presence of police forces on the UC Davis campus, unless their presence is specifically requested by a member of the campus community. This will initiate a genuine collective effort to determine how best to ensure the health and safety of the UC Davis campus community.

Aerial View of UC Davis Today From http://publiclaboratory.org/home

[Update 2, 11/27, 10:11pm: In the comments below, the person who originally posted the statement on their blog as having been written by Spivak notes that the whole thing was a misunderstanding. Spivak apparently had forwarded the statement in an email, but had not in fact written it. We apologize for the confusion. See the original post, which has been updated, here.]

[Update: As the title of this post mentions, this was not written by Reclaim UC but rather by the well-known postcolonial theorist Gayatri Spivak and posted here. Thanks to those commenters who have pointed out some errors in her observations. Most important is the fact that the person who accompanies Katehi as she leaves the building is not, in fact, the chief of police. Please keep this in mind as you read.]



UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi



Lt. John Pike

From trinketization:

It has now been covered in the NY Times, USA Today, Time Magazine, CBS, CNN, and across the entire mediasphere. The various UC Davis police assault videos have been watched hundreds of thousands of times. Various searches related to UC Davis and pepper spraying were the *top searches on Google* in the US today — think of what that means. By mid-afternoon, UC Davis had already backed down and the Chancellor had released a damage-controlling and mealy-mouthed promise to investigate. But it was too late.

By monday, millions will know about Lt. Pike and his chemical assault squad, and the $400K per year (plus free housing, travel, and vehicle) Chancellor who gave the order to cut the protesters down to the point that some were hospitalized, and including forcing open students’ mouths and spraying directly into them. I kid you not.

And something remarkable happened at Davis tonight. I’ve been watching the live streams and following the blogs since late this afternoon. It was a very important moment.

Chancellor Katehi was preparing to give a news conference to take another crack at spinning this story and controlling the growing, viral character it has acquired.

UC Davis students showed up in large numbers to this conference, and were kept out of the small building (Surge 2, for those who know the campus) for lack of press passes (ha ha). They surrounded the building and their numbers grew over several hours to over 1000 student protesters. Reports came that Chancellor Katehi was afraid to leave and go through the student protesters, or even that she was being kept from leaving, as if it were a hostage situation. Cops were *not* summoned, however — or at least they were kept back. UC Davis appears to have learned at least a tactical lesson already.

Through patient OWS style organizing, worked out over dozens of mic checks, they arranged to clear a wide path, determined that they would be silent and respectful when she came out, and sent word that they were not keeping her hostage in the building, just there to call for her resignation. Hours went by as the situation got more and more tense, but the students showed remarkable discipline and organization as their numbers kept growing. Finally, they negotiated with Chancellor Katehi’s people and she left the building to walk to her taxpayer-paid $70,000 Lexus SUV with one aide. The students maintained *absolute, total order and silence* — really, not a word — and stood aside, except for the couple of journalists asking her questions on the livestream feed. It was eerie and powerful and Chancellor Pepper Spray was clearly feeling the shame of a thousands of eyes on her around the nation (the livestreams were overloaded as they were joined by students across California and then the nation).

Only once she began to pull away did the crowd erupt into a roar: WHOSE UNIVERSITY? OUR UNIVERSITY! dozens of times as they marched off to consume the pizza ordered for them by people around the nation.

It was so powerful — and remember this all happened on a day when virtually no news (except Demi and Ashton’s divorce or the 30 year old Natalie Wood death investigation) gets reported on mainstream outlets. This *all* happened online, and drew a huge national audience in the process, enough so to force a major university into damage control freakout.

Last night’s video now has nearly 25,000 views. A better one has now been released of Katehi’s “Walk of Shame.” Turns out that was not just any “aide” — it was the UC Davis police chief (Spicuzzi) walking with her [Update: we've heard that the person accompanying Katehi was actually Kristin Stoneking, a minister who wrote a brief analysis of her role in the walk of shame here]. This new video shows the final mic check to get everyone to be silent and stand back before Katehi and Spicuzzi leave the building. If you are sending this story around, this video is better in that it shows how deliberate and well orchestrated the silence was:

Chancellor Linda Katehi calls in riot police to remove peaceful student protestors. Seated students are maced at close range. At about min. 6 students encircle police and then force them off campus. UC Berkeley, UC Davis, and Davis officers are present.

Davis Chancellor’s office (530) 752-2065, UC Davis police (530) 752-1727, The officer who pulled out the pepper spray was Lieutenant John Pike. 530-752-3989 japikeiii@ucdavis.edu.

And after the pepper spray, the batons, and the 10 arrests, an open letter is written to UC Davis Chancellor Katehi:

Without any provocation whatsoever, other than the bodies of these students sitting where they were on the ground, with their arms linked, police pepper-sprayed students. Students remained on the ground, now writhing in pain, with their arms linked.

What happened next?

Police used batons to try to push the students apart. Those they could separate, they arrested, kneeling on their bodies and pushing their heads into the ground. Those they could not separate, they pepper-sprayed directly in the face, holding these students as they did so. When students covered their eyes with their clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their throats. Several of these students were hospitalized. Others are seriously injured. One of them, forty-five minutes after being pepper-sprayed down his throat, was still coughing up blood.

This is what happened. You are responsible for it.

You are responsible for it because this is what happens when UC Chancellors order police onto our campuses to disperse peaceful protesters through the use of force: students get hurt. Faculty get hurt. One of the most inspiring things (inspiring for those of us who care about students who assert their rights to free speech and peaceful assembly) about the demonstration in Berkeley on November 9 is that UC Berkeley faculty stood together with students, their arms linked together. Associate Professor of English Celeste Langan was grabbed by her hair, thrown on the ground, and arrested. Associate Professor Geoffrey O’Brien was injured by baton blows. Professor Robert Hass, former Poet Laureate of the United States, National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winner, was also struck with a baton. These faculty stood together with students in solidarity, and they too were beaten and arrested by the police. In writing this letter, I stand together with those faculty and with the students they supported.

[...]

Your words express concern for the safety of our students. Your actions express no concern whatsoever for the safety of our students. I deduce from this discrepancy that you are not, in fact, concerned about the safety of our students. Your actions directly threaten the safety of our students. And I want you to know that this is clear. It is clear to anyone who reads your campus emails concerning our “Principles of Community” and who also takes the time to inform themselves about your actions. You should bear in mind that when you send emails to the UC Davis community, you address a body of faculty and students who are well trained to see through rhetoric that evinces care for students while implicitly threatening them. I see through your rhetoric very clearly. You also write to a campus community that knows how to speak truth to power. That is what I am doing.

I call for your resignation because you are unfit to do your job. You are unfit to ensure the safety of students at UC Davis. In fact: you are the primary threat to the safety of students at UC Davis. As such, I call upon you to resign immediately.

From the Bicycle Barricade:


When they raised tuition, they told us they had no choice. When they cut our programs and majors and increased our class sizes, they said they had no choice.

When we protested, they told us to go to Sacramento.

When we refused to be misdirected, they beat and arrested us.

When they told us we couldn’t change anything, some of us believed them. After all, the fees kept going up. But some of us kept fighting. We occupied buildings and highways, we confronted the cops they sent to hurt and intimidate us, and we kept talking to our friends.

And some of our friends listened. The nationwide Occupy Wall Street movement draws inspiration from the California student movement begun in Fall 2009. The slogan “Occupy Everything,” once derided as absurd or vanguardist, is now on everyone’s lips. And when the Occupy movement came back home to the University of California last week, the administration responded with violence, sending sheriff’s deputies onto the Berkeley campus to beat students engaged in non-violent protest. A student was hospitalized, and several others came out with bruised and broken ribs.

Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau justifies his actions by claiming that the students, when they linked arms to counter the threat of violent dispersal were themselves “not non-violent.” In other words, the forming of a human chain is now declared to be an action which forces police to break students’ ribs with batons. This is the familiar logic of the authoritarian mind employed by abusive parents to justify the harm they inflict on their own children—”You made me do it. I had no choice.”

But we are not children, and we will not stand for this. We know by now that the only thing that has restored state funding, even temporarily, to the University of California has been the threat of student protest. We know that the only reason the regents have tabled their planned mid-year tuition increase is the threat of student protest. And we know that what the mis-managers of this institution fear most is when we stand together and put our bodies on the line to say “Stop!”

Last Wednesday, after being brutalized by the police, 3000 students and faculty at Berkeley rallied and called for a system-wide strike. This Tuesday we will walk out of our classes and strike in solidarity with our friends and colleagues across UC campuses. We demand an end to police violence and an end to the systematic looting (privatization) of our public universities.

For two years we’ve been chanting “Our University!” It’s time for us to prove it. Faculty, students, and workers: Join us at noon this Tuesday, Nov 15th, on the Quad, to renew the fight to take it back.

from fb:

noon - 3pm

The time has come to voice our rage at the ongoing attack on public education in California and across the globe. This past July the UC regents raised tuition by almost 10%, bringing the total tuition increase for the fall to 17.6%.

President Yudof and the regents will be meeting November 15th to discuss still more austerity measures for years to come. We need to let them know that there will be consequences for the actions they choose to take.

It's time for students at UC Davis and across the state to stand united against such belligerent acts and to send a clear message to the administration that we will not sit idly by as they devastate the future of our communities.

SPREAD THE WORD!

From today's article in the California Aggie, following up on the UC Davis administration's decision to establish an official "team" to monitor and infiltrate the student protest movement:

The team's name was changed several times, once called the 'Activism Response Team' and 'The Freedom of Expression Support Team,' as revealed by various drafts of protocol and training guides.

Check out the rest of the article.

UC Davis professor Joshua Clover writes an op-ed in the California Aggie:

Over the last year, the UC Davis administration has pursued an extensive program to place staffers in and around student-worker protest. They have done so not, as you might expect, to join in the struggle against indecent cuts and backdoor privatization, but to deliver surveillance on participants.

This "Activism Response Team" was, for example, trained to "collaborate with police," and advised by university counsel on negotiating possible rights violations of those undergoing surveillance. When asked directly whether they were supplying information to the administration, ART members denied this. Once caught, the chancellor assured us that -- suddenly! -- she would like to make public what in truth had become public only via the legal compulsion of the Freedom of Information Act.

The chancellor's justification (see "Embracing Student Activism," March 14) has two main claims, strikingly different in tenor. First, the paternalistic hymn of "we have your best interests at heart." Second, the childish denial that resembles getting caught cheating on an exam, mumbling that you "could have done a better job of educating the campus community" regarding your scheme -- and would now prove your virtue by publishing your crib notes.

Now, Holmes is suing UCPD, the Yolo County Sheriff's Department, and the DA. Pay close attention to what the pigs were posting on Facebook, and remember that cops always think that other cops "acted appropriately" -- even when they crush people's hands. As reported by the California Aggie:

[O]n Feb. 4, 2011, Holmes filed a civil lawsuit alleging unreasonable seizure, excessive force, malicious abuse of process and battery. She is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

According to the complaint, the arresting officers, Yolo County Sheriff's Deputies Ryan Mez and Gary Richter, violently slammed Holmes onto the hood of a patrol car and pinned one of her arms that had gotten tangled in the strap of her bag. The two officers repeatedly jerked and grabbed Holmes, ignoring her screams that her arm was stuck and in pain.

UC Davis Spokesmen Andy Fell said the police officers acted within their rights.

"Based upon the information available to us, we believe the officers acted appropriately and certainly have no legal vulnerability," he said in a statement.

While preparing for the civil lawsuit, Holmes and her attorney, Stewart Katz, reviewed Facebook updates by one of the arresting officers, Deputy Sheriff Mez.

In a Facebook status on Sept. 25, 2010, Mez posted, "is looking to ruin somebody's day! Anybody wanna go to jail today?"

Then a few months later in November, he posted, "I hate the people I'm with. Fucking Davis people!"

Katz said the Facebook postings might be relevant to the officer's state of mind during the arrest and whether or not he is liable for punitive damages.

"If he operated under ill will or malice, that would be a factor to be considered in terms of whether or not he should be assessed for punitive damages."

Mez was not available to comment in response to the Facebook postings.

What follows is a chunk of an investigative report that will be published soon in The California Aggie. It's based on documents obtained through a request under the California Public Records Act, the same way we were able to get our hands on that 300+ page document dump filled with internal UC Berkeley administration emails from the protests in November 2009 and live week. The new documents on which this article is based are available here. (Note, for example, the reference to our compañeros at the Bicycle Barricade on page 8.) Anyway, the article has been circulating by email at UC Davis, so we figured we'd post it here as well:

For several months, administrators, students, and police have been coordinating an under-the-radar response team to infiltrate student protest groups, relay information to administrators and police leadership, and control peaceful gatherings in response to tuition spikes and budget cuts.

At least one undercover police officer infiltrated the most recent protests on March 2: Officer Joanne Zekany of the UCDPD was dressed in casual business attire as she marched with students last Wednesday afternoon. When asked about her affiliation, Officer Zekany lied to students, saying she was an administrator with the Neuroscience Department in Briggs Hall, and made a disparaging comment about the intelligence of a student. Officer Zekany has worked for the UCDPD for over two years and was caught disseminating information regarding the plans and whereabouts of the peaceful protestors.

This comes in tandem with discoveries that have been made about the existence of a complex protest response plan established jointly between police, students, and administrators, on the wake of protests throughout the 2010-11 academic year.

According to documents released in response to a filing under the California Public Records Act, UC Administrators established the “Activism Response Team”-- a network of student leaders, high-ranking administrators, and police leadership in the fall of 2010 to keep peaceful protestors under the administration’s control through direct communication with University leadership, including Chancellor Linda Katehi. The group served to “accompany students” throughout protests, “observe the [protest] situation”, “update staff” about the situation, and “point out safety issues and risks to students”, according to an agenda schedule from August of last year.

Within the program, a “Leadership Team” was established that included many top-ranking UCD administrators, including Vice Chancellor Fred Wood, Vice Chancellor John Meyer, former Provost and Current Dean of the College of Engineering Enrique Lavernia, and Assistant Executive Vice Chancellor Robert Loessberg-Zahl. According to program documents, this group “makes decisions in communication with Chancellor [Katehi], Chief of Police [Annette Spicuzza], and Assistant Vice Chancellor [Griselda Castro]”. The documents do not address the potential political implications of allying the Chancellor and Police against student protestors.

A “Student Activism Team” was also established, and included a far-reaching network of UCD administrators employed in ASUCD, CAPS, Financial Aid, SJA, the Student Academic Success Center, and Student Housing to help monitor student activity.

According to a document titled “Student Activism Response Protocol” dated August 18, 2010, administrators were given the responsibility to “receive information from all Student Affairs staff regarding any anticipated student actions, not just those of registered student organizations”, “inform police and request standby support if appropriate”, and “notify and maintain communication with news service”.

Furthermore, the program encouraged police collaboration at times: A “Support Team” was established to “provide a presence at student actions and rallies”, “offer action sponsors suggestions on how to handle the crowd”, and to “request ... Police presence if needed”.

Emails between administrators and police officers recovered under the Public Records Act also reveal that administrators and police were forwarding one another protest pamphlets, and Facebook links regarding protest information.

[Update Wednesday, 5:41pm]: Important follow-up from thosewhouseit, tracing the spread of surveillance and monitoring techniques on other UC campuses, from Berkeley to Santa Cruz.

Mrak Hall sit-in forces administration to sign onto demands. More updates here.