UC campuses erupt

To: Retort
Via;: JD/SB

[Yesterday, in Berkeley, a frog was seen to leap out of its cauldron.  A cauldron stoked by the UC Regents and their hireling President Yudoff who in a summer coup invoked emergency powers, seized the reins of governance for himself and announced a raft of savage cuts. The day's events began with a rolling teach-in in the dappled sunlight of a beautiful Bay Area morning.  Dissent was palpably in the air.  The biologist Ignacio Chapela led one of his legendary peripatetic conversations on the creekside; Gray Brechin - a latter-day Upton Sinclair - anatomized the history of corruption, self-dealing and conflict of interest within California's ruling cliques, focusing on Regent Richard Blum's accumulated pelf; Eddie Yuen, on the back steps of California Hall, performed a vital role as remembrancer of campus movements past. The main rally at noon filled Sproul Plaza to overflowing. One banner caught the spirit: "Educated Angry Mob".  The speeches were very fine, and represented a rainbow coalition - in the best possible sense - of resistance by campus staff, faculty and students to Yudoff's butchery. (If things go well, the verb "to yudoff" will enter the language meaning "to lay off bosses without consultation".)  First to the podium was T. J. Clark with a speech of fiery eloquence and ice-cool analysis that will live long in the memory of those present. The shade of Mario Savio seemed for a moment to grace the Sproul Steps.  The long slumber at the University of California is over, at least for the moment. IB]


University of California campuses erupt into protest
Mary O'Hara
The Guardian
24 September 2009

In the sweltering California heat with their placards, posters, red armbands and chants of "no cuts, no fees, education should be free", the demonstrators packed in to Sproul Plaza at the centre of University of California Berkeley campus today meant business.

The crowd cheered and passing cars hooted as speakers implored them to fight state authorities' plans to hike student fees and lay off workers.

Daniella, a petite second-year Latina undergraduate sitting quietly in the shade echoed what many making the rallying calls were articulating. "My whole life I wanted to come here. If they increase the fees I will have to drop out. We have to fight this."

The Berkeley protest was one of many held across California in an unprecedented day of action directed at university authorities and state governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger as he attempts to curb the state's multibillion-dollar budget crisis. Faculty, students and unions from the University of California's 10 campuses including its two most prestigious, UCLA and Berkeley, joined forces in what was the biggest student protest for more than a generation.

The scale of the protests has come as a shock to state authorities. What began as a marginal dispute in the summer between university faculty and their management over cuts in salaries has in recent weeks escalated into a statewide walkout by students and faculty as well as a day of strike action by campus technical workers against layoffs and diminished terms and conditions.

The turning point came two weeks ago when university authorities warned of savage budget cuts to deal with a $750m (£466m) shortfall and mooted huge increases in the cost of tuition. "UC regents vote next week to raise student fees, already up 250% over the last decade, by an additional 30%," was how one group of protesters summed up the situation today.

In a move that will reignite debates around racial inequities in education one group demonstrating labelled the proposed hike in fees as "twisted and racist", saying it would mean more low-income and ethnic minority students would be unable to afford a college education. They also criticised proposals to increase the proportion of out-of-state students - who pay markedly higher fees - to 26% alleging it would further reduce the opportunities for young people from low-income groups or ethnic minorities living in California to secure a university place.

In a swipe clearly directed at the governor's office one provocative leaflet read: "Annually the state pays $49,000 per prison inmate and less than $14,000 per UC student. If the state can lock us up, it can invest in our education for one-third of the cost."

A spokesman for the group Graduate Students of Colour said: "Students of colour are asking a crucial question: Why now, and why us? California's population of college-age adults is majority black and brown. Whatever other reasons are cited, that underlying condition is left unspoken."

In recent years student demonstrations in California have been small-scale and largely single issue-led such as those held after Hurricane Katrina when students protested against the Bush administration's response in the immediate aftermath. Signs that the latest protests were different and that feelings were running especially high were evident in the run-up to the walkout with fringe meetings mushrooming across campuses to galvanise support. At UC Berkeley activists could be seen donning red armbands while at UC Davis one preliminary protest yesterday included a "naked" demonstration by a small group of students accusing authorities of "stripping" the education system.

Facebook and Twitter campaigns were also launched while over a thousand faculty members across all campuses signed an online petition rejecting budget cuts and proposing alternative ways to save money such as trimming the salaries of education bosses and senior officials plus tapping into reserve funds.

For many this latest wave of protest in California is reminiscent of the 1960s when UC Berkeley in particular earned a reputation as the epicentre of student activism when it spawned the Free Speech Movement. It was also the last time a former Hollywood actor, Ronald Reagan, was governor. Author and scholar at UC Berkeley's geography department Gray Brechin, who was an undergraduate at Berkeley during the 60s unrest said the current dispute had been "simmering" under the surface for months.

He said many in the university are concerned that California's budgetary problems are being used as "an excuse" to dismantle the state's public university system and move it toward a system reliant on private donors for funding. "California is beyond broke. The wealthiest state in the nation is bankrupt. These problems began a long time ago. What we need is a more progressive tax system to fund the university, not to dismantle it."

The UC system, the largest network of its kind in the US with over 220,000 students and more than 170,000 faculty, is widely regarded as a flagship public university often outperforming privately-funded prestigious schools such as Stanford just a few miles from Berkeley in the home of hi-tech, Silicon Valley. University authorities have staunchly denied suggestions of an attempt to undermine public education.

California's colossal budget crisis has become an ever-increasing thorn in the side of the governor as more people feel the pain of cuts in expenditure on schools and other services on top of the fallout from recession. The state is an estimated $15bn in debt with no way out in sight.

Today's protests come close on the heels of another politically sensitive initiative. Just last week the governor granted early release to thousands of prisoners in a cash-saving exercise. But if the prisoner release controversy was embarrassing, the dramatic public education furore looks set not only to be a more enduring and contentious problem but possibly one that attracts nationwide attention.
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Statement from the UC Santa Cruz campus occupation
September 24, 2009 

We are occupying this building at the University of California, Santa Cruz, because the current situation has become untenable. Across the state, people are losing their jobs and getting evicted, while social services are slashed. California’s leaders from state officials to university presidents have demonstrated how they will deal with this crisis: everything and everyone is subordinated to the budget. They insulate themselves from the consequences of their own fiscal mismanagement, while those who can least afford it are left shouldering the burden. Every solution on offer only accelerates the decay of the State of California. It remains for the people to seize what is theirs. 

The current attack on public education – under the guise of a fiscal emergency – is merely the culmination of a long-term trend. California’s regressive tax structure has undermined the 1960 Master Plan for free education. In this climate, the quality of K-12 education and the performance of its students have declined by every metric. Due to cuts to classes in Community Colleges, over 50,000 California youth have been turned away from the doors of higher education. California State University will reduce its enrollment by 40,000 students system wide for 2010-2011. We stand in solidarity with students across the state because the same things are happening to us. At the University of California, the administration will raise student fees to an unprecedented $10,300, a 32 percent increase in one year. Graduate students and lecturers return from summer vacation to find that their jobs have been cut; faculty and staff are forced to take furloughs. Entire departments are being gutted. Classes for undergraduates and graduates are harder to get into while students pay more. The university is being run like a corporation. 

Let’s be frank: the promise of a financially secure life at the end of a university education is fast becoming an illusion. The jobs we are working toward will be no better than the jobs we already have to pay our way through school. Close to three-quarters of students work, many full-time. Even with these jobs, student loan volume rose 800 percent from 1977 to 2003. There is a direct connection between these deteriorating conditions and those impacting workers and families throughout California. Two million people are now unemployed across the state. 1.5 million more are underemployed out of a workforce of twenty million. As formerly secure, middle-class workers lose their homes to foreclosure, Depression-era shantytowns are cropping up across the state. The crisis is severe and widespread, yet the proposed solutions – the governor and state assembly organizing a bake sale to close the budget gap – are completely absurd. 

We must face the fact that the time for pointless negotiations is over. Appeals to the UC administration and Sacramento are futile; instead, we appeal to each other, to the people with whom we are struggling, and not to those whom we struggle against. A single day of action at the university is not enough because we cannot afford to return to business as usual. We seek to form a unified movement with the people of California. Time and again, factional demands are turned against us by our leaders and used to divide social workers against teachers, nurses against students, librarians against park rangers, in a competition for resources they tell us are increasingly scarce. This crisis is general, and the revolt must be generalized. Escalation is absolutely necessary. We have no other option. 

Occupation is a tactic for escalating struggles, a tactic recently used at the Chicago Windows and Doors factory and at the New School in New York City. It can happen throughout California too. As undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and staff, we call on everyone at the UC to support this occupation by continuing the walkouts and strikes into tomorrow, the next day, and for the indefinite future. We call on the people of California to occupy and escalate.