x-posted: howtheuniversityworks.com
Arrests of 52 students at UC Davis and others at UCLA ended one-day occupations at both places, and at San Francisco State, but a new occupation has begun at Berkeley, where the occupiers report that police beat and pepper-sprayed students to re-take the building’s first floor. Students appear to hold the second floor at this time. Two buildings remain occupied by hundreds of students at UC-Santa Cruz, which has been the epicenter of the California occupation movement. Update: follow the Berkeley standoff via microblog, and see this video of a unionized campus worker taking the mike before hundreds of students on the third day of occupation at UCSC.
Since the first UCSC occupation featuring only a few dozen students earlier this term, their rhetoric and tactics have spread across the state: Even the the more respectable “UC solidarity” movement uniting staff, faculty, and students has taken up their mantra, to “escalate” the struggle.
The expanded wave of occupiers, featuring a reported 200-300 students in the Kerr admin building and 500 students in the Kresge town hall, have articulated detailed demands: see below.
Thanksgiving Without The People of the Corn
I’ll be in London as a visiting scholar at Queen Mary University’s School of Business and Management over US Thanksgiving. You know, in a culture where you can actually talk about the failures of capitalism — even in a business school — and not have the droolies come rising out of the corn: the Market is God … must kill the dissenter … he has an Agenda different from Holy Reagan … my cartoon of Adam Smith proves the Intelligent Design of capitalism ….
While I’m off the beat, the best source for occupation news is here and here. The mainstream press in California and CNN have noticed these events.
Unfortunately, besides my work here in the “ideas & opinion” portion of the paper — my tiny blogger stipend representing about 1/15 of a reporter’s salary — all The Chronicle has been able to muster is a California stringer doing a quickie voiceover of a video clip I embedded in this column (and referring, wierdly, to raising “New York City tuition”), and a brief mention of just one of the wave of occupations — at Berkeley, natch.
“Would you like a happy ending with that?”
Well, that’s not quite all.
Senior “reporter” Paul Fain — or someone using his name — did take time out of his busy day massaging the egos of higher-ed leadership to upload snotty comments on my last post, inaccurately accusing me of having a personal agenda, overblown rhetoric, and the like.
I mean he makes me sound like I’m a blogger with left-wing tendencies filling the token left-of-liberal slot in an ideas and opinion segment of the paper. Shocking! Gee, Paul, it must be a pretty slow news day at the leadership-ego massage parlor for you to jump on that headline.
If Fain or the person using his name were actually following the story, he’d have known that anti-capitalist rhetoric is part of the global movement, as well as here in California, and that critique of capitalism has been on uptick everywhere in the mass media/entertainment complex. To the extent the first wave of occupiers spoke out, they were fairly bluntly anti-capitalist, without my help.
And battling Yudof and Schwarzenegger, or corporate management of higher ed generally, hardly qualifies as a “personal agenda.”
As anyone who has followed my columns knows, I’ve been curious as to where occupations would go, and have hardly taken for granted that they’d increase: the trope of a “pillar of fire” refers not to an inferno, but to an enigmatic sign.
My suggestion to Fain or the person borrowing his moniker is that The Chron might want to get Fain off his cushy “beat” lecturing executives on how to manage the bad press generated by their greed and selfishness, and do some reporting.
Or at least get the two-by-four out of your own eye before pointing to the ideological specks in others.
1. Repeal the 32-percent fee increase
2. Stop all current construction on campus
3. UC funds and budget are made transparent
4. Verbal and written commitment to Master Plan
5. Total amnesty to all people occupying buildings and involved in student protest concerning budget cuts including: Doug G., and Brian Glasscock and Olivia Egan Rudolph
6. Keep all resource centers open: engaging education, women’s resource center, and all other diversity centers
7. Keep the campus child-care center open
8. Repeal cuts to the Community Studies Field Program
9. Re-funding the CMMU field-studies coordinator positions
10. Get verbal and written agreement from admins to shut down campus for one day for the purpose of educating students on the budget cuts
11. Said support for AB656
12. Said commitment to work-study for all who are eligible
13. Making UC Santa Cruz a safe campus for all undocumented (AB540) students and workers
14. Keeping LALS professors Guillermo Delgado & Susan Jonas
15. Repeal all furloughs to all campus employees, renege the 15-percent cut in labor time for custodians
16. Stop the gutting of funding for fellowships and TAships and the re-instatement of TA’s who lost their jobs due to the budget cuts from this quarter
17. Re-prioritizing funding so that essential student services — i.e., the library — get adequate funding to ensure regular library hours
18. Censure Mark Yudof
19. Un-arming UC police of all weapons including tasers
20. NO SCPD police allowed on campus
21. An apology from the regents and the state
22. Creating a free and permanent organizing space on campus for student activists and organizers (first options: Kresge Town Hall)
23. Due process for students:
a. trial by peers
b. constitutional rights for students tried under the UC judicial system
24. Making rent affordable for Family Student Housing, ensuring that the price does not exceed that of operating costs
Long Term:
1. no student fees
2. return to master plan
3. abolition of regents’ positions
4. abolition of all student debts
5. tripling of funds from the state to public universities
6. all eligible students get work-study
7. highest UC salaries are tied proportionally to the lowest waged workers
8. Impeach Mark Yudof
9. Representation of students and faculty equal to UCOP/UC Regents
10. All UCSC tuition fees stay at UCSC
11. UC Money is only invested to education
a. cut ties with Lockheed Martin, Los Alamos & Livermore National Labs
12 Responses to Occupation Movement Sweeps California
paulfain - November 20, 2009 at 4:25 pm
Just dropping a line to say that the Paul Fain who works for The Chronicle did write the comment in question. As for my workload today, I’m reporting a story about a no-confidence vote at a public university in California.
vfichera - November 20, 2009 at 9:35 pm
The CHE: a “busy day massaging the egos of higher-ed leadership.”Thank you, Marc Bousquet, for using the voice of a blog host to state the obvious about the CHE, a journalism emperor with no clothes. Note, however, that those of us among the “lowly” non-higher-ed administration readership who express similar sentiments often find our comments deleted by the CHE “moderators.”The CHE takes its cues from press releases issued by higher ed administrations, of course. While even FoxNews covered Berkeley’s student occupations today, the CHE is still waiting for instructions from California’s campus presidents.
vfichera - November 20, 2009 at 10:21 pm
Here it is — the CHE coverage: http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Protesters-Take-Over-Academic/8937/?sid=pm&utm_source=pm&utm_medium=enI'm posting the link here because “Ticker” items cycle off of the main chronicle.com page and become difficult to find again.
doccnagel - November 21, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Movement, indeed. At my little political backwater of a campus, suddenly there’s student activism, three actions so far this fall, including two marches through the administration building… and, oh yes, a vote of no confidence in our campus president (in whose widely-circulated opinion public higher education is a triple-oxymoron). I’m waiting – but not hopefully – for media coverage of our campus’ political climate – classes and contingent faculty slashed at the highest rate in the system. I imagine almost no one has heard about our situation, because reporting in local media is always a management white-wash.
t_paine - November 21, 2009 at 11:46 pm
Marc: “lackeys”? (I think you wet your tie-dyes). Calm down.
ledzep - November 22, 2009 at 12:31 am
If they can make the system prioritize the right things, then great. I’m a little surprised by 19 and 20 in the list of demands, though:”19. Un-arming UC police of all weapons including tasers20. NO SCPD police allowed on campus” I don’t really know the ins and outs of “escalation” tactics and strategy, but this looks more than a little symbolic and unrealistic. If there’s ever a time these demands have any prayer of being met, it’s certainly not in the middle of an occupation. It makes me wonder whether the budget-related demands are more reality-based. I hope so.
vfichera - November 22, 2009 at 11:53 pm
This is an example of why tasers are on the list: http://chronicle.com/article/Video-At-UCLA-Tuition-Hike/49221/Of course, from the content of the video voice-over, and with a title like “At UCLA, tuition-hike protests turn raucous” (“raucous”?) well, we are once again reminded of the Chronicle’s journalistic perspective as a higher ed administration “mouthpiece.”
22097984 - November 23, 2009 at 8:03 am
I wish someone in the university system on CA would tell me what they would like the government to do? The state budget deficit is $22 Billion. Obviously, massive cuts and higher taxes (including indirect taxes/user fees such as tuition) are going to be used to get the budget into its constitutionally mandated balanced state. Clearly, the colleges are going to recieve less state aid and are going to be expected to follow sound accounting budgeting to help get out of this kind of short-fall. Finally, the employees and retirees of the state of CA are obviously going to recieve less financial assistance from the state.What the heck do the faculty and students think is going to happen? These people are nuts if they don’t think cuts and price increases are coming.I especially like the list of long term goals: Long Term: 1. no student fees 3. abolition of regents’ positions 4. abolition of all student debts 5. tripling of funds from the state to public universities 6. all eligible students get work-study 7. highest UC salaries are tied proportionally to the lowest waged workers 10. All UCSC tuition fees stay at UCSC 11. UC Money is only invested to education a. cut ties with Lockheed Martin, Los Alamos & Livermore National LabsAre these students aware of the budget problems?
akafka - November 23, 2009 at 9:17 am
Paul Fain is an exceedingly hard-working, serious reporter, not to mention a great guy. Marc, if you have legitimate concerns about the way he or anyone else at The Chronicle handles their beats or their editing, I hope and trust that you’ll go on airing them. I cherish the right you have to speak your mind — even if you aren’t cherishing your Brainstorm salary — and value your insights, your passion, and your integrity. But I think you took some really cheap, nasty shots here, and could have gotten across your point of view in a more dignified way. And vfichera, at the risk of asking the obvious, if we’re an emperor with no clothes, taking our “cues from press releases issued by higher ed administrations,” than why do we have Marc Bousquet blogging for us to begin with?-Alex, an editor at Brainstorm
t_paine - November 23, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Seriously CHE:Marc B, with his old-timey party line and his breathless enthusiasms, his wet dream of a workers revolution, and, most of all, his ad hominum lashings out against anyone who disagrees with the line (they must be evil or ignorant, else they would not oppose me)is getting tiresome. Not to mention the grad-student juvenalia “droolies arrising from the corn” indeed.Marc has no honorable opponents. We are all the enemy, and he does not mean well. He hasn’t said anything new about higher education since I have been reading the Chronicle. He is a bore to your readers and an embarresment to you.Just re-post his last posting endlessly; no one will notice and you can save your “tiny blogger stipend.”
vfichera - November 23, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Fellow readers-commenters: I replied to Alex Kafka but he deleted the posting. It contained nothing but a protest of censorship and a seconding of the comments of Marc Bousquet in his blog. I assume this new comment, too, will be deleted. So much for dialogue at the CHE.
jffoster - November 24, 2009 at 6:44 am
Actually, Mr. Bousquet has sometimes been pretty perceptive in analyses of particular cases and situations, as for instance his work identifying the Unholy Alliance in Louisville between several local colleges and UPS. But his ideological, er, Marcsism has become increasingly bizarre and almost pathetic. And he seems increasingly unable to distinguish between momentary protests and widespread “movements”; or between protests of the truly downtrodden versus “revolts” of the relatively well off. California higher education has been over extended and under priced for some time and the piper is demanding his pay.