UC President Mark Yudof and Governor Jerry Brown are working out a deal behind closed doors that will loosen the most important ties between the university and the state. Although they will both praise the deal by saying that it “stabilizes” funding while granting greater “flexibility,” its essence is that each will let the other off the hook: UC will mute complaints that it does not get enough money from the state and the state will stop holding UC accountable for the money it still gets. The likely result is that UC will dump a larger number of eligible Californians onto the CSU and Community Colleges, which will in turn pass on their overflow to for-profit schools, where students take [...]
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“In support of the Berkeley Faculty Association, the Irvine Faculty Association calls upon UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau to request specifically that the Alameda County District Attorney’s office drop charges it has filed against at least 8 people (students, faculty, and a coordinator for BAMN) involved in a campus protest last November 9. As is well known, UCPD beat nonviolent protesters at that gathering. Chancellor Birgeneau’s recent statement (http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2012/03/14/campus-administration-sends-message-to-da-about-november-protest-charges/) forwards the BFA’s petition in support of protesters and reminds the District Attorney, vaguely, to be mindful of the campus context, instead of stating his own view. It calls for consideration of the petition, rather than endorsing the petition. UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi took a stronger stand following the pepper-spraying [...]
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On March 1, Alameda County District Attorney Nancy E. O’Malley sent criminal complaint and summons to eight (update: nine) participants in the protests on UC Berkeley’s campus on November 9th. For at least one of the eight, English Professor Celeste Langan, the charges were filed under California Penal Code Sections 148, covering Resisting, Delaying, or Obstructing a Police Officer. Another of the indicted, Zachary Habash, is also accused of battery of a police officer. Reclaim UC has more information. Those who have read a lot of LA noir, have read Langan’s account, and have seen video of the incident, including this clip of a police attack on the line of demonstrators, will appreciate the irony of the DA indicting Langan [...]
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The past six months have brought increased awareness about growing inequalities and the capture of public resources by a small minority of private individuals and interests. Protests on our own campuses at the University of California have joined the global and national movements against these inequalities. We call for the UC to re-affirm its commitment to serve the public good, to reset its priorities to put students first, to reverse the growth in administration and foster instruction and research, and, by taking all of these actions, to restore its role as the university of the people of California. We call on the State of California to fully fund the California Master Plan. We are in solidarity with the non-violent protest [...]
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A democratic assembly of UC Santa Cruz students, workers and community members has decided on a strike to shut down the campus on Thursday, March 1. Save for emergency vehicles, residents of campus, and other necessary exceptions, we will block all traffic from entrance onto campus. We act because the UC Regents who control our university system are continuing to push drastic increases to the cost of higher education and decreases in the number of California students with access to the UC. On that same day, we will put forward a Tent University, an alternative vision of education to counter that advanced by the UC Regents and similar elites. The Tent University will be an open setting at the base [...]
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