From the text, composed and laid out by a comrade in the encampment working group:

And that is how the university system is governed: through the dictatorship of the Regents. There is little, perhaps zero, democracy involved in the administration of our universities. The Regents have the power to set policies throughout all UC campuses and they also determine the UC budgets. Basically, as stated before, they have total authoritative control of the UCs. Most interestingly, though, I don't remember voting these people into positions of power, and neither should you because they are not elected public officials. Instead, the 18 voting members are handpicked by the Governor of California and approved by the State Senate. Since the Regents control all the money and property under the UCs, which is valued at roughly around $53 billion, the position of Regent is one of the most prestigious appointments the Governor can give. As a result, those that tend to give the Governor hefty campaign donations tend to also become Regents.

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A few months ago, we wrote about a number of construction projects that are on the horizon at the UC and specifically about the way these projects are funded. As usual, the UC sells its highly rated construction bonds to raise the capital to carry them out. And ever since Professor Bob Meister published his now-infamous essay "They Pledged Your Tuition," we've known that student tuition, along with the promise of future tuition increases, are critical to the university's ability to maintain its high bond rating. As he wrote in the fall of 2009, "since 2004, UC’s highest priorities have been set by bond raters, and not by the State of California."

To be fair, sometimes there are other sources of revenue, but these cases are the exceptions. One of the examples we cited in the earlier post was the development project in Lower Sproul Plaza at UC Berkeley. The reason it came up at the time was that, even before the project had gotten underway, it had already gone $10 million over budget. Funding for that project comes, as the Daily Cal reported, from "contributions from the campus, the UC Office of the President and student fees approved . . . in the 2010 ASUC General Election." As we wrote at the time:

In other words, not only are students paying directly for the project -- after all, we voted for it! Democracy in action! -- we're paying for it indirectly as well, through tuition increases that have already taken place (that money goes into the general fund) and the promise of future tuition increases that the UC now owes the bond raters.

Today, the Daily Cal reports that this same construction project, which will take many years to complete, is already showing a negative cash flow. The article draws on a presentation given by an outside consulting firm, Brailsford & Dunlavey, which is based in Washington, DC. (It's not entirely clear how much the firm is charging for its services, but it's possible that we might be seeing a repeat of the scandalous Bain & Company contract worth $7.5 million.)

The consulting firm's presentation is noteworthy, though not in the sense that Messrs. Brailsford & Dunlavey were hoping for. For example,

A deficit as high as $800,000 may occur between 2019 and 2022, after an expected bump in revenue due to increased student fees in 2018, according to the presentation.

Either the consultants are privy to information about future tuition increases that the rest of us aren't or they're just making shit up (in which case why is UC Berkeley hiring them?). It's important to remember that privatization is not a response to immediate crisis but a long-term strategy. Tuition hikes, it appears, are plotted out years in advance. While they are adjusted to take immediate political concerns into account (like state budgets, for example), these adjustments are little more than slight deviations here and there from the original projections. [Update 7/12 10am: Our mistake. The comment below is correct on this point, that the fees in question are not actually tuition but rather the student fees approved in the vote. However, this doesn't change the fact that the construction project is still financed through multiple sources, including the sale of construction bonds backed by student tuition as collateral. In any case, you can find the schedule for increased student fees for the project here. Further update 7/14 12:39pm: For a full discussion of what the vote actually approved, and why the earlier comment isn't exactly right, check out the comment from Zach Williams below.]

But most important are the comments from Assistant Vice Chancellor for Physical and Environmental Planning Capital Projects Emily Marthinsen:

“If the students are footing the bill for things that are not only the students’ responsibility, then those things have to be very defensible,” Marthinsen said.

If the students are footing the bill... From her isolated office in the A&E Building, Marthinsen can't understand the full implications of her words. Because what Meister shows us is that as students we foot all the bills: "Because UC pledges 100% of tuition to maintain its bond rating, it has also implicitly assured bond financiers that it will raise your tuition so that it can borrow more. Since 2004, UC has based its financial planning on the growing confidence of bond markets that your tuition will increase." Defensibility, furthermore, performs an interesting function here. What administrators find defensible is obviously not defensible for the rest of us -- students, workers, faculty, those of us who use the university. But beyond that, the logic of defensibility is the logic of the liberal technocrat, the enlightened bureaucrat who cannot be held accountable for decisions and as such offers little more than explanations and well-formulated "defenses" -- at best -- that lock the rest of us into decades of debt.

From our perspective, however, the administration's drive toward privatization is simply not defensible. There is little use in appealing to their hearts or letter-writing campaigns or attending glossy presentations by highly-paid consultants. These are the administration's bureaucratic fortresses, sites designed specifically to be highly defensible. And paradoxically, our participation only makes them stronger.

We generally rely on other folks to analyze the budget at the state level, especially as it relates to public education but more generally in the current context of austerity. Instead we usually prefer to focus our attention on the UC administration and the UC regents. But so far we haven't found anything that lays out the process and timeline for the austerity measures that are going to be imposed on the UC in the near future. That's what we want to do here.

First of all, there are a couple of upcoming dates that are important. Today, June 15, marks the deadline by which the state legislature has to pass a budget. If they don't pass one by midnight, their salaries will be permanently docked, as stipulated by a new ballot measure that was approved here last November. Without getting into the boring and mostly irrelevant details of the party politics involved in these decisions, the bottom line is that the Democrats have finally produced a budget proposal, one that they can pass without any Republican votes. Included in the proposal are another series of cuts -- surprise surprise! -- including a additional $300 million of cuts to the UC and CSU systems ($150 million to each), on top of the $500 million already cut, as well as the deferment of $540 million already owed to the UC and $750 million from canceling "old school debts" (money owed to public schools?). As thosewhouseit noted this morning, these cuts will devastate K-12 and higher education in California -- both of which, as we well know, have already been decimated by massive cuts.

So, as expected, this is a shitty deal. It's austerity, plain and simple. It's not necessarily going to pass, since Governor Brown could theoretically veto it [Update Thursday 11:13 am: Brown has officially vetoed the budget plan], but what's important is the generalized agreement by pretty much all of the political elites involved in the decision-making process, regardless of their party of affiliation. In broad strokes, they are all in agreement as to what the problems are and as a consequence the solutions as well. Take a look, for example, at Brown's recent video statement on the budget.



What Brown presents in the video -- and remember, of course, the Brown is a Democrat -- is a series of austerity measures. He calls explicitly for "deep and permanent cuts to ongoing state programs" and what he labels "reforms," which refers above all to the reformulation of public sector pensions and, as he puts it, "a cap on ongoing state spending." Furthermore, the taxes that Brown is calling for are temporary.

Which brings us to the next set of important dates. July 1 is the beginning of the new fiscal year, which means (for our purposes here) that the state sales tax will decline by 1 percent and the vehicle registration tax by 1/2 percent. Governor Brown's tax proposal, then, has two parts: first, it postpones the expiration date of these taxes until mid-September; at which point, second, a special election will take place in which California voters will vote on whether or not to extend these same taxes for another five years. At worst, then, the vote will fail, and the taxes will not be extended -- this seems like the most likely outcome at this point. But what's most depressing about the whole thing is the fact that the taxes are at best temporary. In other words, the entire premise of Brown's proposal is that services provided by the state must be eliminated -- the only question is how fast the transition will be. It's not that we didn't know this already, of course. From the beginning, Brown's politics have been characterized by a commitment to austerity.

In some sense, the special election in September will have large consequences for California public education. If it fails, UC spokespeople have stated, tuition will be jacked up by another 32 percent at the beginning of the winter 2012 semester. (And remember, that's on top of the 8 percent hike that's already been programmed for fall 2011.) This would bring in-state tuition in the UC system to $15,000 a year. But at the same time, the UC administration has already made the choices that have condemned the entire UC system to privatization. The regents are incapable of making a case for public education not because they're bad speakers or because they've misunderstood the subtle details of the university system but because they don't give a shit about public education. As in the case of the $500 million already cut from the UC in the first round of budgeting, every defeat becomes the point of departure for the next one. More than just a losing strategy, we could easily read this as purposeful -- it allows the administration to continually deflect blame while moving the university toward a privatized model.

Right on cue, the UC once again trots out the same old arguments. Here's what UC spokesperson Steve Montiel told the Sacramento Bee about the Democrats' new budget, which includes the $150 million cuts mentioned above:

"We are assessing the latest proposal from the state Senate, and it's too soon to say with certainty what the impact would be. But there's no question that additional cuts would not be good news for UC and the Californians it serves. The university already has taken steps to absorb a $500 million cut, and we have been preparing contingencies in the event of an all-cuts budget. Any further cuts would threaten our ability to provide access, affordability and academic excellence."

And now, UC president Mark Yudof and UC regent chairman Russell Gould have released the following statement:

UC, like the California State University, already has taken steps to absorb a $500 million cut with substantial impacts to programs on the campuses. An additional $150 million in cuts will impair our ability to provide access at an affordable price while preserving academic excellence and allowing students to complete their degrees in a timely way. If this budget plan stands, the likely result will be a double-digit tuition increase on top of the 8 percent hike already approved for next year.

It's the usual trope -- both formulations turn on words like further and additional. What's especially revealing here is the way that Montiel, Yudof, and Gould frame the consequences of these further/additional cuts. Because the talking point of the managerial trinity of "access, affordability, and academic excellence" on the proverbial chopping block has been active since early January at the very latest, when Yudof laid out the changing relationship toward what he called the UC's three "compass points":

Yudof said the university has long operated on three "compass points" -- access, affordability and excellence.

"We are moving dangerously close to having to say: pick two of the three. That’s my view, and the excellence is nonnegotiable," he said. "We are going to have to look at access and affordability."

To return to the statement by Yudof and Gould for a second, take a look at the sentences that come right after the above quote:

And to require UC to carry a $500 million "loan" balance into fiscal year 2012-13 because the state can't provide UC with the fully budgeted allocation will only force the university to incur extra costs that are passed on to students and their parents. In addition, this budget plan poses a threat to UC and higher education in future years as it fails to achieve a sustainable, balanced budget. Without a stable, predictable funding base, our long-term quality is seriously threatened.

It's worth noting that the regents haven't had any problem with passing on "extra costs" to students and parents in the past. That's why tuition has increased 40 percent in the past two years, and 300 percent over the past decade. But what's especially interesting here is the tension between the seemingly out of place call for a balanced budget and a "stable, predictable funding base." After all, the requirement of a balanced budget is precisely the reason that these new cuts have been proposed -- according to the new ballot proposal, the Democrats in the legislature must pass a balanced budget or face a pay cut. So what they've done is cut us instead.

In the end, the "stable, predictable funding base" called for by our corporate overseers gives us the key to unraveling their odd statement. They know, as we do, that the state will never provide the kind of financial stability or predictability they seek. Yudof has long called the state an "unreliable partner" and he has been given no reason to think differently. What this statement does is begin to lay the groundwork for a full shift toward the corporate university -- the "stable, predictable funding base" that the state cannot supply will be sought elsewhere. And we all know where that elsewhere is.

After last Sunday's elections, plazas and public spaces across Spain have continued to be occupied by tens of thousands of protesters. Now, about two weeks after the protests began, the police are finally starting to attack. These images are from the Plaça Catalunya, where riot cops were sent in to evict the occupation, striking with batons and firing blanks and rubber bullets, at about 7 am local time. El país reports that two people were arrested and 121 lightly injured, including 37 cops. Authorities justified the eviction, saying it was for "reasons of hygiene" (motivos de salubridad). After clearing the plaza, the police withdrew. Soon the protesters had returned and retaken the space.



(photo above via)

[Update 12:49 pm]: Retaking the plaza...

From Chris Newfield:

The supposed impossibility of that version of California is not a fact of nature. It has been and is continually created by the decisions the major players make on a daily basis. This includes UC’s Regents and Office of the President. In these cases, their agency is regularly concealed behind a consistent strategy of blame-shifting onto the state legislature and, behind them, the voting public and their alleged universal rejection of the very concept of a public good. The university's decline has been accelerated by a culture of helplessness at the top, one which assigns blame elsewhere and helps to demobilize its own community.

Read the whole thing.

We're a little late here, but on April 26, students took over a Tucson school board meeting and chained themselves to the seats of the board members to prevent the meeting from going forward. They were protesting a resolution that would remove ethnic studies from the core curriculum of the schools in the Tucson Unified School District as a result of a bill passed by the anti-immigrant legislature at the state level (HB 2281). Despite differences in terms of the political context, there is a certain resonance with the restructuring happening at UC Berkeley, where the administration has decided to consolidate three departments -- Ethnic Studies, Gender and Women's Studies, and African American Studies -- as part of the austerity program "Operational Excellence." Then, on May 3, when students and allies returned to the follow-up board meeting, they found that had been effectively militarized with over 100 riot cops and a canine unit. Nevertheless, they were able to intervene effectively and shut down the meeting. The Arizona Daily Star reports that the school board decided that the vote would be delayed until a public forum could be held on the issue:

The TUSD Governing Board decided Tuesday night to delay making changes to the ethnic studies program until it holds a public forum on the controversial proposal.

Board President Mark Stegeman made the recommendation to hold off on the vote on his proposal to make some ethnic studies courses electives, capping a tumultuous four-hour meeting that included numerous interruptions, the removal of at least seven audience members and an armed police presence.

After the forum is held, Stegeman said he plans to bring the proposal back to the board. Details on when and where the forum will be were not announced.

Wonder why they're not saying when the forum will be...

(video via the Real News).

First, this article from last Friday that our compañeros at thosewhouseit caught as well. In it, UC President Mark Yudof declares that tuition could double if no tax increases are incorporated into Governor Jerry Brown's budget:

UC President Mark Yudof had a simple message to deliver Friday morning when he testified before the state senate's budget committee: If the legislature opts for an all-cuts budget to fill its remaining $15.4 billion deficit, "all bets are off" at the University of California.

If the $500 million cut already made to the university earlier this spring were to double to $1 billion under an all-cuts budget, Yudof said the 10 campus system would be put on a path that could lead to a mid-year tuition increase next January, employee layoffs, program closures throughout the university and -- ultimately -- a doubling of tuition to $20,000 a year.

[...]

Friday's committee meeting marked the first time Yudof has publicly acknowledged what the consequences of a $1 billion cut could look like, though Gov. Jerry Brown had predicted in April that tuition could rise to $20,000 or $25,000 under an all-cuts plan. Yudof agreed, saying to the committee that he had looked at the numbers until he was "blue in the face" and that "the governor is not far off in his prediction."

At this point, it's hardly news that the state has cut funding for higher education -- they've been doing it for decades. But this isn't about speaking out against cuts. It's about positioning. Yudof testified to the state senate's budget committee that "the system can absorb the initial $500 million cut" -- the one that has already been programmed into the UC budget for this year -- "but if the state increases the size of the cuts the university will have little choice but to raise tuition 'geometrically' and cut services." In addition to erasing the violence of austerity ("Don't worry about it, we'll be fine... as long as you only cut $500 million." Um, really?), this strategy charts a path of rhetorical retreat. Obviously this isn't a rousing defense of public education. But it leads to another danger: every time the budget is cut, it's a "disaster"... until the cuts go through. At that point it becomes the new normal. In effect, it represents an attempt to limit political struggle to a relatively minor question about what's currently on the table -- everything else simply disappears.

Now take a look at this article published in today's paper. It reports on the results of an audit of UC finances that shows the system's increasing liabilities relative to its assets. Of course, the UC administration isn't having any of it. UC spokesperson Steve Montiel, always ready for a vapid soundbite, tells the paper that "financially, the university is pretty strong." Thanks, Steve. But then we get this:

The report also states that capital spending -- funding that goes towards long-term assets that help in the production of future goods and services -- throughout the UC continues at a "brisk pace" in order to provide the facilities necessary to support the university's teaching, research and public service mission and for patient care.

Facilities include academic buildings, libraries, student services, housing and auxiliary enterprises, health science centers, utility plants and infrastructure and remote centers for educational outreach, research and public service.

[...]

Additionally, in 2010, $2.8 billion of debt was issued to finance and refinance facilities and projects at various UC campuses, though the report did not specify those projects.

Wherever there's a budget crisis, there's capital projects. The Daily Cal does an interesting job of translation here, with that little clause to tell us what "capital spending" is: it's spending, they say, that leads to accumulation. Another way of saying it would be it's spending that transfers the burden of debt from the university to the student. As Bob Samuels recently wrote, "In this modified credit swap, students are forced to take out subprime student loans, often charging 6 per cent interest, so that the university can borrow money at a reduced rate." And then there's that short sentence at the bottom on construction bonds, the debt issued by the UC to engage in further construction projects. Another $2.8 billion. And as usual there's little transparency -- no mention of where that money is going. Will it be used to pay for important renovations? Or new stadiums and laboratories? All we can do is guess, but at this point we have little reason to trust the UC administration's word on any of this. [Update Wednesday 5/11: The Chronicle just published a relevant article on the UC's maintenance backlog: "the university predicts it will need nearly $2 billion over the next five years to address capital renewal and deferred maintenance." There's not much analysis in the article about why this is the case, but it does note: "Money for capital projects at UC or CSU is often earmarked for specific projects, such as the $321 million bond for renovation of Cal's Memorial Stadium. None of that money can be used, for example, to repair the stairwell at the life sciences building." But presumably the administration could sell bonds dedicated to repairs -- the real question is why they don't. But in reality it's not much of a question at all.]

Once again, Steve Montiel: "'We've got great ratings services. The university has really high ratings from many ratings services,' Montiel said. 'I don't know there is any need to reduce liability.'" What ratings is he talking about? Bond ratings. As Bob Meister wrote back in October 2009,

Why haven’t you been told that UC has been using your tuition as collateral to borrow billions of dollars? The obvious reason is that tuition increases are justified (to you) as a way to pay instructional expenses that taxpayers refuse to pay. If that’s why they’re being imposed, it’s natural to assume that tuition increase will be used to minimize cuts to education. But when UC pledges your tuition to its bond trustee (Bank of NY Mellon Trust), it’s really (legally) saying that your tuition doesn’t have to be used for education, or anything in particular. That’s why it can be used to back UC construction bonds, and why the growth in tuition revenue, as such, is enough to satisfy UC’s bond rating agencies (S&P and Moody’s), whether or not UC can pay its bills. The effect of UC’s pledge is to place a new legal restriction on the use of funds that it must first say it could have used for anything, including education. Thereafter, construction comes ahead of instruction.

Some of UC’s new, and self-imposed, constructions costs will come off the top of its annual budget, despite this year’s “extreme financial emergency.” When UC chose t0 take on $1.35B in new construction debt for 70 projects in August 2009 -- one month after imposing employee furloughs that “saved” $170M -- it committed to spending $70-80M in extra interest payments for years into the future -- they’ve just released the interest rates for each new bond series. Earlier in the year, UC had already issued $.8B in tuition-backed bonds in spring 2009, only some of which were for refinancing older projects at lower interest rate. It’s thus likely that the interest due on new projects funded during 2009 alone will have eaten up more than half of UC’s “savings” from the furloughs. Would the furloughs have been “unavoidable” if UC were not secretly planning to incur additional interest expenses for new bond-funded construction?

Note that the graphic above shows that $2.5 billion of the UC's short-term liabilities are classed as "securities lending collateral." We're not entirely sure what this means, but it might refer to the $2.8 billion in construction bonds mentioned by Montiel. Why the $300 million difference?

Now that we once again have the UC administration's obsession with construction over instruction in mind, take a look at another article out of today's Daily Cal. This one is about the ongoing process of developing a plan for renovating and redesigning Lower Sproul Plaza at UC Berkeley, a project that's budgeted at $223 million. And guess what:

As the exact design of the new Lower Sproul Plaza continues to form, an estimate of the cost for the current design is over budget by about $10 million.

The money for the project comes from a number of sources: "contributions from the campus, the UC Office of the President and student fees approved . . . in the 2010 ASUC General Election." In other words, not only are students paying directly for the project -- after all, we voted for it! Democracy in action! -- we're paying for it indirectly as well, through tuition increases that have already taken place (that money goes into the general fund) and the promise of future tuition increases that the UC now owes the bond raters.

This isn't about budget cuts -- it's about priorities.

From AWDU:

We have just learned that the elections committee of our local convened today at 12:30pm and agreed to restart the counting at 9am on Thursday (5/5) -- this is a huge victory for rank-and-file members who joined or supported the sit-in at the statewide offices in Berkeley and LA!! By drawing on the proud tradition of rank-and-file activism and direct action in the US labor movement, the tradition which built the UAW in the first place, members made clear that they would not stand by and allow themselves to be disenfranchised.

AWDU candidates and supporters look forward to the resumption of the count and will be present to help ensure it proceeds without unnecessary delays or suspensions. It has been our position all along that win or lose, AWDU is committed to an elections process that is free and fair, and that allows ordinary members to decide how their union should be run, and by whom. Given the extraordinary and outrageous circumstances in which the count was suspended, we plan to continue the sit-in until the voting process is fully complete and a certified result has been issued.

There are currently about 15 union members in the UAW statewide office, located at 2070 Allston way, suite 205 in Berkeley. A rally is scheduled for 11:30 on Sproul Plaza, and will turn into a march over to the union office to support and/or join the occupation. We will continue to provide updates as the day goes on.

Here's an email from Mandy Cohen, current head steward for UAW 2865 and running for recording secretary on the AWDU slate, announcing and explaining the action:

This weekend I witnessed one of the craziest things I've ever seen in my life. On Friday the counting of votes in our union leadership election began in LA. I drove down with other Berkeley and Santa Cruz AWDU members when we heard that all of Berkeley's votes had been challenged (meaning they might be invalidated). We arrived in the early hours Saturday morning and were able to help count the votes for Santa Cruz, Davis, Irvine, San Diego, Riverside and Santa Barbara. by 5pm all of those campuses were almost complete--and AWDU actually seemed to be breaking even.

The elections committee called an hour recess--and three hours later came back to say that the count was suspended, the results so far calculated were certified, and the rest of the count (including all 1500+ votes from LA and Berkeley) and all of the challenges were passed on to the Joint Council--which doesn't meet until July! The elections committee then immediately fled the building and abandoned the ballots.

All the members at LA sat down in the union office to make sure the votes were secured and to start lodging our protests with media, union officials, etc.

Late last night we drove back to Berkeley, had a meeting, and are now sitting down (in good UAW fashion) in the statewide union office until the elections committee agrees to resume the vote count. We have one demand: COUNT OUR VOTES.

We cannot let our votes be thrown out! This is exactly why we were forced to form the Academic Workers for a Democratic Union more than a year ago, though these actions are almost incomprehensible in their disregard for union democracy and members rights. Please join us at the office as soon as possible (2070 Allston Way, Suite 205) or come to the rally at Sather Gate at 11:30 and march to the office.

A call is planned at 1pm today between incumbent leadership, AWDU members, the elections committee chair and our international representative from UAW. We need to show that our members will not allow their votes to be thrown out, that the count must be finished and new leadership instated.

For more info, including our responses to the attacks that have been emailed by Daraka Larimore-Hall, see: http://www.awdu.org/ and http://berkeleyuaw.wordpress.com/

[Update Monday 1:49pm]: Occupiers just voted unanimously to remain in the office indefinitely until their demand -- that all the votes be counted -- is met.

Here's our take on the whole story with the election fraud perpetrated by the Administration Caucus/USEJ. On one hand, we're so skeptical of these corporate hack careerist bureaucrats that at some level we're really not that surprised by their decision to exclude the ballots from Berkeley and UCLA and "partially certify" the results of the vote. On the other hand, it's so over-the-top, absurd to the point of being a cliche, that it's really difficult to understand how they could do something so obvious. It's like they're following a script written by third-rate union-hating conservative propagandists.

At any rate, we wanted to reference a couple of updates that our compañeros over at thosewhouseit have been posting. First, the hilarious claims made by Daraka Larimore-Hall, the Admin Caucus/USEJ’s candidate for President and the current President of UAW 2865, that in reality it's AWDU that's trying to steal the election. The evidence he presents is the above photo, which supposedly shows a member of AWDU tampering with a ballot box. There's just one small problem -- it was taken before the voting even began. "If it’s the end of the day," writes thosewhouseit, "then why is the sun shining from the east?" He's assembling the box.

Also, we wanted to post some info about the rally tomorrow (Monday) at UC Berkeley to demand that all the votes be counted:

I want to give you all a personal update on what has happened with the UC grad student union elections over the weekend. Most importantly, I am asking for everyone -- students and non-students -- to come out to Sather Gate TOMORROW (Monday) at 11:30am to demand our union count every vote. I know this sounds absurd, especially during finals week when we’re all stressed, but at this point we have to fight for our votes to be counted!

Here’s what happened:

Elections for UAW Local 2865 -- representing 12,000 graduate student workers UC-wide -- ended on Thursday afternoon. All ballot boxes were taken to UCLA to be counted on Friday. There were many challenges concerning the boxes, their seals etc, but on Saturday morning the elections committee decided to go on with the count and then deal with each challenge afterward, as according to our bylaws.

Halfway through the count on Saturday, it became possible that AWDU (the reform slate I’m affiliated with) had won the elections. Rather than continue the count, the chair of the elections committee decided that the elections were “partially certified” and that the more than 1,500 ballots from Berkeley and UCLA (nearly half of all ballots cast) will not counted till the next meeting in July.

To put this in perspective: This is as if, in the 2008 national elections, the Republicans had decided to not count the votes of California and Hawaii, and to let a Republican-controlled congress decide how to deal with those ballots later. Would you find such a process fair? I didn’t think so. Would you do something about it?!? Hell yeah!

We need YOUR help to make sure all votes are counted!

1. Gather for a rally TOMORROW at 11:30 at Sather Gate. Then we will march to the union office in downtown Berkeley to demand that our votes are counted (meet us there at 12:30 if you can’t make it to Sather -- 2070 Allston Way). We really need everyone to come out to put the political pressure on!

2. Email the current UAW President Daraka Larimore-Hall larimorehall@uaw2865.org and demand that all the votes are counted! Please bcc me [awadu@googlegroups.com] so we can keep track of how many emails are getting sent.

3. Tell your friends! Please forward this email far and wide -- we need all the support we can get, from students and non-students alike!

Thank you to those of you who voted in this last election and showed your support in so many tremendous ways. In some terrible twist, if it hadn’t had been for all of your efforts, our current union leadership would not be acting so scared right now. But right now, this isn’t about which side will win or lose the elections -- this is about upholding democracy and our right to vote. Please come out and show your support.

[Update Monday 9:45am]: Here's a statement from the guy in the photo:

I am the person in the picture. I would estimate that it was taken around 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday, April 27. It could be a little before or after; I wasn't keeping track of the exact time. I was setting up the polling place at Sather Gate on Wednesday morning. This is a picture from just before I opened up the poll. I had tested the ballot box, and the way the slot had been cut, you could not get ballots to go in because the second layer of flaps blocked the opening. So I opened the box to tape those flaps down, then closed it again. After doing that, I finished arranging the materials on the table and opened the polling place. My solution to the ballot box design flaw didn't work particularly well, because the flaps inside came un-taped and the ballots got a bit gummed up inside. But I didn't open it again, because by that point voting had started.

Again. Thosewhouseit has the press release. Here's the key paragraph:

In the wake of a hotly contested election for leadership UAW local 2865, reports from inside the vote count indicate UAW officials may be trying to steal the election. The count is unfolding currently in Los Angeles, where one member has challenged every box of ballots from UC Berkeley on fabricated grounds. The ballots being challenged represent 25% of all votes cast: about 800 of approximately 3,200 total votes in this election. The challenge threatens to disenfranchise every voter on the campus with the union’s largest membership. UAW local 2865 represents over 12,000 Academic Student Employees across the UC system.

Here's another update from last night:

Des Harmon, someone who is not a graduate student, not a teaching assistant, and not a member in good standing has challenged hundreds of ballots from Berkeley on grounds that are completely fabricated. And the current UAW administration has the votes on the elections committee here to let this farce stand.

Des Harmon is the Los Angeles Recording Secretary for UAW local 2865. Where does he stand on the election, you ask?

Note: Within 10 minutes of campaigning at the polls for AWDU on the first day of the election, I met Des Harmon. He tore the AWDU leaflet in front of my face – I’m sure this gives you a sense of where he stands. – Renee Hudson

Members of AWDU Berkeley left late last night to go down to LA to try to monitor the vote count and prevent this fraud from taking place. It's hard to say with complete accuracy at this point, but the word is that AWDU folks have responded by making some of their own challenges. We'll try to keep the updates coming. Regardless, if fraud were to happen, it would be the second fraudulent vote in the union in the last six months. Last December, you remember, there was a vote about whether to approve the shitty contract that our negotiators were telling us -- falsely -- was actually pure gold. (And look where that got us.) AWDU and others organized a "NO!" campaign, which quickly generated an astonishing amount of support. It's impossible to say for sure, simply because there weren't enough safeguards in place to keep track of what's happening, but it seems likely that the count was fraudulent. And this one is starting to look the same way.

Tragedy, meet farce.

[Update Sunday 9:20am]: Once again, it's fraud:

This just in: After leaving the counting for 3 hours, Admin Caucus members Jorge Cabrera and Travis Knowles, the latter of whom is the chair of the Elections Committee, certified the results without counting ballots from UCLA or Berkeley. We’ll post developments as they come in. As things stand, they are trying to postpone the count for a full two months until the next Joint Council meeting. Why else would they do this unless they were certain they lost?

The following is an open letter that's just come through the email:

May 1, 2011

Open letter from an outraged member of UAW and AWDU supporter.

This message goes out to everyone on the USEJ slate, everyone on the Elections Committee, and everyone who voted in the election.

I am hugely appalled by the incumbent caucus’ decision to prevent the counting of votes at UCLA and UC Berkeley. I have just read the official UAW email claiming that the election has been “partially certified.” AWDU members present at the Los Angeles UAW office have informed me that “At 8 pm after a break begun at 5pm in which election committee chair Travis Knowles was absent with opposition candidate Jorge Cabrera for 3 hours, the election committee returned and certified the election without counting Berkeley or UCLA ballots.” What, I wonder, could “partial certification” mean, and according to what definition of democracy? To be clear about what’s happened: imagine a U.S. Presidential election in which, in the eleventh hour of vote counting, the incumbent party—lets make them Republicans, for the sake of argument—decided not to count the remaining votes from, say, California, New York, Ohio and Tennessee. Let’s say that the incumbent party’s spokesperson went on air with the message, “Because there were challenges from both sides, and because things have been contentious, and because we’ve been counting for so long—48 hours!—we decided to call it a day.” What would you think? Would you believe the principles of democracy were being upheld?

I am even more appalled because today is May 1st, the one day of the year devoted to working men and women, not only in American, but in all nations. This is not the day to trample on the democratic rights of workers, but that is what the power-holders in USEJ have chosen to do. This is not the day to communicate to the honest workers of our local that their votes were not even counted for fear of the results. This is not the day to pretend that the “contentiousness” of an election is grounds for the nullification of the democratic process. On any other day, this behavior would be shameful and intolerable. But today, it is a gross insult and a travesty of the values of “social and economic justice” for which the incumbent caucus claims to stand. It is an insult to all of us, on both sides of the election campaign. This is not the day to defile the honor of public-sector workers; this is a day to stand together, and to cherish one of the few rights afforded us as workers in this country: the right to participate in collective bargaining. Recent events in Michigan, Wisconsin, and elsewhere have shown that this right is under serious threat from the political Right. For too many American workers, May Day has already been tarred by political defeats and betrayals. Still, I did not expect I would be spending my May Day contemplating my own union’s betrayal of my rights as a worker.

Let me pose a question to the supporters of USEJ. When you cast your vote in the election, what image of democracy did you have in mind? Would you have felt comfortable voting for the incumbent caucus knowing that they would try to tilt the election in their favor by whatever means necessary? Are you aware, for instance, that the photograph touted in a recent USEJ email as evidence of voter fraud at Berkeley--it shows a man reaching into the ballot box--was taken prior to voting, while the polling station was still being set up? (Which is precisely what the photograph depicts: a volunteer, not an AWDU member, preparing the polling station for voting.) If you had known to what lengths the incumbents were willing to go to ensure victory, would you have voted for USEJ or for AWDU? As for candidates on the USEJ slate, I cannot understand what you mean by the phrase “social and economic justice.” Is it socially and economically just to shut out voters at UCLA and Berkeley? What should we call justice that exempts itself from judgment? What would you propose? Or are you as appalled as I am? If so, I strongly urge you to condemn your caucus’ leadership for making a mockery of the election, a mockery of union democracy, and a mockery of justice. Moreover, I urge you to join AWDU. The stakes of our caucus are real: union democracy urgently needs defenders. We want to fight with you, not against you, to build a stronger union for all of us.

Make no mistake: infamy is at work in the union. It has draped itself in the costume of “partial certification” and the legitimacy of the Joint Council of the Union, but it is infamy nonetheless. We have all been stained by this insult, and we ought all to fight it—today, tomorrow, and every day until our union is again worthy of that title. Otherwise there will be no union, and anyone who says otherwise is a liar and a fraud.

If you share this opinion, send a message or email djmarcus@berkeley.edu to have your name added to the list of signatories.

Daniel Marcus
UC Berkeley

Rally Friday Noon California Hall!

(thanks to bearcardo for the video)

About 20 students at Rutgers University have taken over the administration building to protest tuition hikes and the anti-democratic decision-making of the Board of Governors (like the UC Regents). They've released the following demands:

1. We want President McCormick to FREEZE tuition so Rutgers students do not have to take out excessive loans to pay for a PUBLIC education.

2. We want SCHOLARSHIPS for underprivileged / first generation college students.

3. We want Rutgers to provide FREE transcripts for its undergraduate students.

4. We want support for the rights of ALL University affiliated workers.

5. We want the Rutgers University population to have a voice in decisions made by the Board of Governors—INCLUDING TUITION COST! THREE voting Student Members, ONE voting Staff Member, ONE voting Faculty Member—all elected by their respective constituencies: NO APPOINTEES!

Police are in the building and are apparently preventing friends and supporters from sending food and water into the building, but protesters say that at least nobody will be arrested tonight. Follow their Twitter feed here and send solidarity messages to their email address: keepRUpublic@gmail.com.

[Update Wednesday 9:56 pm]: Protesters are still in the building. The New York Times has an article up. Here's the key quote:

Last year, a cap limited the increase in tuition to 4 percent, but this year, public colleges are likely to have the ability to set their own rates, meaning the rise could be higher. At a recent legislative budget hearing, [Rutgers President Richard L.] McCormick predicted that tuition increases at the state’s public colleges would be less than 10 percent.

The Rutgers University Board of Governors typically sets tuition and fee rates in July, after the State Legislature has determined the state budget and financial support for higher education.

From thosewhouseit:

[Today, Tuesday] through Thursday -- April 26, 27, and 28 -- is the election we’ve all been waiting for. Let’s make sure that these Administration Caucus/USEJ bureaucrats -- many of whom aren’t active GSIs, readers, or even students -- are no longer allowed to represent those of use who actually do have interests as workers on UC campuses across the state. We’ve already reported on the way these incumbents pursue a strategy of astroturfing, and nothing has changed since. They haven’t updated their blog in over a week, and the last update was a piddling attack on AWDU for engaging in “dirty tricks” . . . such as questioning the candidacy of a non-member who is not even eligible to run in the first place. If that’s dirty, we no longer know what it means to be clean. Similarly, their Twitter feed has a grand total of 6 followers and hasn’t been updated since “dirty tricks” was released. Same deal for their Facebook page. Then last week, after two different UCLA grad students -- an AWDU member and an independent -- wrote scathing critiques of the AC/USEJ leadership, four of their candidates actually defected from their slate.

So tomorrow is the big day, or at least the first of three. The campus chapters of AWDU at UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC Davis, and UC Irvine have made polling times and locations available on their own sites; for a full schedule, check the official UAW 2865 site’s listing here. Let’s get these bureaucrats out of office once and for all and take back our union.  All power to the rank-and-file! Vote AWDU!

The Social Sciences Tower at the Twin Cities campus of the University of Minnesota was occupied yesterday. Occupiers apparently stayed in the building throughout the night even though it was supposed to be closed down at 11 pm. They have a blog and their twitter feed is @umnsolidarity. As of this morning, they have released a list of demands:

Because we are residents of Minnesota, and because this is a public, land-grant university,

We demand the right to peacefully occupy space at our university,

We demand that the general public has reasonable access to university resources;

We demand that the university respect the rights of all workers to organize and to earn at least a living wage;

We demand tuition and fee reductions;

We demand that regents be democratically elected by the university community;

We demand that the university treat student groups fairly and equitably with respect to funding and space. We demand student groups on the 2nd floor of Coffman Union be able to keep their spaces.

In doing so, we stand in solidarity with the people of Wisconsin, and students and workers worldwide.

As everybody who's been following this stuff is aware, UC Berkeley's Code of Student Conduct and the Office of Student Conduct (OSC) that administers it are a complete disaster. One concrete issue for which we've only just begun to scratch the surface has to do with systematically and structurally downplaying or overlooking sexual violence -- not to mention, in a number of cases, exacerbating its emotional impact on survivors. We will be following up on this in further posts.

But for now we wanted to follow up on a different thread. Another problem with OSC and the Code, which generally falls under the rubric of what's been called "the rule of the arbitrary," comes down to the fact that -- totally apart from the arbitrary uses to which pathetic OSC bureaucrats put it -- the Code enshrines the arbitrary as the basic mode of operation: "even when the Code is followed to the letter, its 'rule' is inescapably arbitrary and subject to the whims and political interests of the administration." There are two ways of making this argument: one frames it as a problem with the way the Code is written, that it contains certain unconstitutional provisions, for example, which could be resolved by re-writing them; the other sees these problems as structural, rooted in and basic to the daily operations of the neoliberal university, embedded to the point that no revisions could hope to resolve them satisfactorily. The latter formulation looks to abolish the Code and OSC, while the former looks to the administration-led Task Force that is currently working on a new set of revisions to the Code.

On this note, we've received an email that was sent by Vice Chancellor Harry Le Grande, who is heading up the Task Force, to the rest of the members, in which he proposes inserting an additional clause in order to codify a certain "flexibility" with regard to the Code. As a suggestion, he includes a provision that appears to come from the UC Santa Cruz Code of Student Conduct. Here's the email:

All,

I would like to discuss the possibility of having a clause in the code that would allow for the process to be suspended, but still allow for due process and provisions to remain. I think it would mostly result in being used in large disciplinary cases that the normal process has little ability to impact without it being an exception.

Below is text from another UC that allows that option. I would like to discuss this at our next general meeting.

"104.32 In the interest of fair administration of these regulations and procedures, and consistent with law and university policy, the chancellor or designees may interpret and make reasonable adjustments to jurisdictional and other provisions."

This clause would codify the "rule of the arbitrary" in the Code's provisions -- it would allow the administration to do literally anything it sees fit, from suspending the timeline, to eliminating the role of the adviser, to getting rid of the student's right to remain silent. Anything you imagine would be subject to the will of the administration. That this clause is currently part of Code at UCSC is extremely worrisome, and suggests that it's not simply a case of administrative overreach that will necessarily be overruled at the next Task Force meeting. But it is exactly what we should expect, to the extent that the university claims absolute jurisdiction over both the individual student's body and the collective student body. This is the paternalistic claim that Le Grande and his cronies in the administration stand for: "University knows best."

[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:

1. University police conducted a 24-hour manhunt (With UC student funds) for a student who is charged with a few misdemeanors.
2. These police were from SF and went all the way to Merced to do this.
3. Police created a situation of intense surveillance of the Merced campus, including a coffee shop that students use and call their own space. 
4. Serious attempts were made to enter his house, including searching for a Plain-View Doctrine reason and questioning the integrity of his housemates. 
5. 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.

Posted on Facebook:

Hello community,

The following is an e-mail/letter that the Raza Center and the Raza coordinators (together and individually) will be sending to the Dean of Students in support of the student protesters. In our last general body meeting we were able to hear the students and we learned that they are being offered an unjust 6 month suspension. We also decided that we would support them by sending this e-mail/ letter. So we worked on it and we encourage you to read through it and shape it to your Organization or to you personally. Also if you can encourage your members to also send this e-mail that would bombard Dean Poullard with letters & e-mails so he feels pressured to listen to our concerns. If anyone needs help with their letter please ask me, I am making myself available for this matter. Our goals is to deliver and send all the e-mails before Finals start. Our community members need our help to be able to stay at Cal. If time is a problem I can also send every org liaison an e-mail/letter already set just for them to send. Your support and cooperation will be greatly appreciated. Come by the Center to drop off your letters please!

The e-mail should be sent to Dean Poullard- poullard@berkeley.edu
and Cc'd to:
Chancellor Birgeneau- chancellor@berkeley.edu
Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs: vcsa@berkeley.edu
Mayor of Berkeley Tom Bates: mayor@cityofberkeley.info
Oakland Tribune Local news editor: mreynolds@bayareanewsgroup.com

Best,
RAZA Coordinators 09-10

To the Dean of Students Jonathan Poullard,

On behalf of the Raza Recruitment and Retention center we would like to express our concern with the student conduct actions that are being taken against the students who were involved in the Wheeler Occupation on November 20, 2010. We are highly disappointed and ashamed that the administration has not acted to rectify the unfair actions that your office has taken to date.

A number of the students who are unjustly being offered a suspension without due process are active members in the Latino/Latina community on campus. As you hopefully are aware, the percentage of Latino/Latina students on this campus by no means begins to come close to the percentage of Latinos/Latinas that populate the state of California. Since 1976 the Raza Recruitment and Retention Center has worked to demystify higher education for Latino/Latina students and for students of color in general. Through outreach and recruitment, the Center has been able to create a path to higher education for tens of thousands of students since 1976. Our retention efforts serve to ensure that Latino/Latina students succeed academically and continue on to pursue a Graduate or Professional Program. Unfortunately only 1% of Latino/Latina students at Cal actually move on to Graduate School. Furthermore, our retention and community building efforts serve to build bridges and to provide ourselves with the support and trust that unfortunately Cal falls short in addressing.

We understand that the events that took place on November 20, 2009 might not have been the most appealing to the administration, but that day those students inspired our community and the broader Cal community to get involved and make their voices heard to the administration and to Sacramento. Seven of our community members are now facing an unprecedented suspension that will ultimately harm them, their families, and the community. As a community of color we can tell you that only a small number of us are given the opportunity to attend a four year university, and so these suspensions will have a major (and disproportionate) impact on these students and our communities of color.

At this point we do not know how else to address this problem, but to go to the administrator whose role is to serve us as students. As the Dean of Students, your role is to serve all students regardless of political or activist involvement. We can think of various occasions where students have been involved in altercations that required a suspension or even an expulsion, yet no student conduct actions were taken. On the other hand, the university is punishing a group of students who did what we learn many times in our classrooms about the history and tradition of activism of this University. Day to day professors, lecturers, and Graduate Student Instructors challenge us to think about how we can change the world and how we must take action. We learn of social movements like the Civil Rights Movement and the Chicano/Chicana Movement and how these movements were greatly impacted by student involvement. We learn of the bill that was written by the Associated Students of the University of California that divested funds from South African Apartheid. We learn these issues, yet you and the administrations expects us to stay quiet when we are directly being harmed by a 32% fee increase that was proposed by people who do not have education backgrounds and who are only seeking monetary benefits. UC Berkeley has never been known for its passive students, instead our predecessors have been known for their passion and desire to stand up against injustice regardless of who they are fighting. We want you to understand how invested we are in our community and how much we will fight to keep our community members here. We will not be silenced by an unfair bureaucratic process that harms the communities who have struggled the most to reach a higher education.

With that said, the Raza Recruitment and Retention Center demands that the suspensions be rescinded and that the administration protect and serve the students who make up the University of California Berkeley. We will fully support the students through these harsh times and we will continue to advocate for their stay. We will continue to lobby Mayor Tom Bates, Congresswoman Barbara Lee, and any elected official we have to contact in order to have our concerns heard. We will also inform the broader Bay Area community by contacting the media. We have cc'd Chancellor Robert Birgenau, Vice Chancellor of Equity & Inclusion Gibor Basri, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Harry Le Grande, Mayor Tom Bates and Congresswoman Barbara Lee in order to stress how important our concerns are. We have not yet received any support or an audience from administration regarding this issue, so we hope our words can change that.

We refuse to condone or accept this process and on behalf of the university and our community, we will continue to hold you accountable for the duties of your position. We look forward to hearing from you promptly to work on a solution that will be acceptable to our community.