Today marks two full weeks since the hunger strike at UC Berkeley officially began. Yesterday, the Daily Cal published an article on the protest action, but for some reason claimed that the strikers were only in their tenth day without food. What, weekends don't count? The least they can do is get the numbers right! [Update: Our bad -- we got confused because the article was published on Monday with the headline that said the strike was in its tenth day, but in fact it was referring to the rally last Friday. Sorry about that.]

As we've reported here, the strikers' demands revolve around the UC administration's decision to consolidate three departments -- Ethnic Studies, Gender and Women's Studies, and African American Studies -- under the umbrella of their austerity program "Operational Excellence." In this case, "consolidation" means cuts, including staff layoffs and what looks like it could turn into something like speed-up for faculty. While the administration has struck all the right rhetorical tones (equality, inclusion, diversity, etc), they refuse to do anything material to respond to the demands. And this when the university is selling billions of dollars worth of construction bonds to engage in massive and secretive building projects that, in at least some cases, have gone millions of dollars over budget.

The above video was filmed on May 6, the actual tenth day of the hunger strike. In addition to giving an update on the (almost) current state of the strike, some of the speakers provide some really helpful context about the history of ethnic studies. This is useful for those folks who don't know much about the Third World Liberation Front and the story of student strikes and protests (and, of course, police repression) at SF State and Berkeley that led to the establishment of Ethnic Studies as a department. Here's a pretty detailed timeline of the protests of 1968-69 at SF State.

Friday, August 27 -- Dance Party @ San Francisco State University

Location: The Dorms
Time: 9:30pm.

(via occupyca)

From occupyca:

SAN FRANCISCO, California – On April 7th, students at San Francisco State University attempted a sit-in. This is a short debrief from a participant:

In response to the political repression and student fees issued recently to Decemeber 9th occupiers @ SFSU, 30 students conducted a peaceful march from the Ethnic Studies building to the Administration building. Seeing as we had had a peaceful sit-in in this building before- we didn’t see the chance for any police confrontation upon entering the building. However, after approximately 15 students entered the building peacefully, cops illegally closed all the doors to the building, shutting the rest of the students out. The next few students trying to enter were met with physical confrontation by the police. One student was put in a chokehold by the police, and another was tackled and wrestled for around 30 seconds. Neither student did anything to provoke the police and both escaped without any charges or wounds, however we must not turn a blind eye to the violence conducted by the police at a peaceful action.

Here are some photos from Indybay.

Update: More info at the Golden Gate Xpress.