Occupy UC Davis @occupy-ucdavis-blog - Tumblr Blog

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michaelisntbored-deactivated201

Hello West Coast. We’re going on tour. Gonnnnna be awesome.

occupy-ucdavis-blog

Reminder that I'm doing this

thep0int

tents on the quad at occupy davis

#occupy davis

#occupy #occupy uc #ows

Open Letter to the Public from Bernie Goldsmith, Occupier

Open Letter to the Public I keep hearing, "Why can't Occupy UC Davis be like those great protests of our past? Like the peace protests? Everyone was behind those students at Kent State." A Gallup Poll conducted one week after the Kent State shootings found that 58 percent of the public blamed the students themselves, while only 11 percent blamed the National Guardsmen. Newsweek, May 18, 1970, p. 30. They got what was coming to them. We look into the past at successful social justice movements and idealize them. Of course the civil rights movement was right. Of course women should have the right to vote. Of course abolitionists would prevail. We take these things for granted; who could ever have disagreed with these sentiments? We forget that these movements had an uphill battle for a reason, that, in their time, their heroes were condemned as radicals, thugs, troublemakers, dirty bums, agitators, and more, just as protesters of today are condemned. We also have a very selective memory. Many people mention Kent State, but have you ever heard anyone ever invoke the massacre at Jackson State University, just ten days later, where police indiscriminately barraged a student dormatory, killing two students of color? When creating our glorious narrative of that era of civil disobedience in the name of social justice, how easily we gloss over certain events and emphasize others. We must remember, after the pepper spray wears off and the necessary inconveniences of a protest continue, not to apply the standards of this idealized past to the activists of social conscience of today and tomorrow. Bernie Goldsmith, Occupier

Open Letter to the Chancellor from the Master’s of Public Health Student Working Group

Open Letter to the Chancellor Dear Chancellor Katehi, As students in the Master’s of Public Health program here at UC Davis, we agree that the health and safety of students is a priority for the administration and the UCD community as a whole. However, we resist the use of concern for health and safety as a justification for police use of excess force against student demonstrators. In fact, it is the very issue of continued tuition fee hikes that will ultimately threaten the health and safety of our future generations. If the UC administrators are concerned about health and safety, perhaps they can consult the large body of research pointing to a strong correlation between level of education and long term health outcomes. Across every intersection of society, higher education buffers communities against poorer health. Those who sat in the quad demanding accessible education and a stop to the increasing fees have a strong claim to concern for health and safety based on evidence that education is a social determinant of health. Increasing fees will do more than decrease access to education, it will further burden marginalized communities with the chronic cost of poor health. Additionally, as students of this University, we also call for an end to the disproportionate increase of fees. The UC system is a public system meant to serve Californians with affordable education, but unfortunately, this is becoming more and more difficult as fees continue to increase. Rising costs of education equal rising debt. In Public Health, we seek to promote healthy and thriving communities. Our ability to adequately address the populations most in need will likely be determined by the salary offered instead of our conviction for a program’s capacity to improve our communities. We deserve the opportunity to grow from our education at UC Davis and the flexibility to serve those who need Public Health services the most. We also view rising debt as a stressor that will continue to deter from the potential of populations to thrive. The lack of access to education and the burden of student debt is a tax on California’s most vulnerable populations. As a public land-grant university, the University of California system has a responsibility to the public to maintain accessible education. We are aware of the arguments for austerity coupled with increasing cost. However, you have failed the students of this university and the public of California by forgetting to factor in the long term costs to the health of our communities caused by your and your fellow administrators’ disregard for the right to an affordable education. Sincerely, Master’s of Public Health Student Working Group: Ashley Scarborough Katrina Wyatt Lesly Martinez Haley McDermott Edward Cruz, MD Rachel Aumann, MSW Jennifer Shoemaker Carla Stack Rachel Hollander, MD Melissa Spahr

Here are more pictures that I took. Karina Chadha and my tumblr is kchadster.tumblr.com

Jon Stewart talked about Occupy UC Davis last night!

Submitted by: kchadster

Submissions

If you have any thoughts, pictures, or videos of any of the recent actions at UC Davis feel free to submit them to here.

Make sure to include your name/tumblr account.

We'd love to see what you have to share!

kchadster

These are a few pictures I took on my phone on November 15th, 2011

This was before the pepper spray incident on 11/18/11 that can be viewed here

This is on the UC Davis campus during the first gathering of Occupy UC Davis

occupy-ucdavis-blog

A few more photos of the Rally on 11/15/11

Regents of the University of California, meeting for the first time since campus police used pepper spray and riot batons to disperse student protests at Berkeley and Davis, listened to nearly three hours of public complaints about those incidents and tuition increases before chanting protesters disrupted the meeting and drove them from the room. The Regents then reconvened in a smaller room down the hall from the protesters, where they voted to raise the salaries of nearly a dozen university administrators and lawyers by as much as 21.9 percent. [...] The regents also approved salary raises for 10 administrators and managers, including a 9.9 percent increase for Meredith Michaels, vice chancellor of planning and budget at UC Irvine, whose annual salary will increase to $247,275 from $225,000. Six campus attorneys also received salary increases. The largest increase, 21.9 percent, went to Steven A. Drown, chief campus counsel and associate general counsel at UC Davis. His yearly salary will rise to $250,000 from $205,045.

#UC Davis #Public Education #University of California #UC Regents #Decline of Public Education

Dutton Hall Occupied

The UCD general assembly inside occupied Dutton Hall has unanimously agreed to continue occupying the building for 2 weeks to blockade the university’s administrative and financial functions. Following UCSC’s lead, the GA also decided on 3 main demands: 1) The immediate resignation of Katehi 2) Cops off campus, replaced with an alternative safety group 3) Freeze on tuition increases

#Dutton Hall #occupy uc davis #UC Davis #OWS #Occupy Davis #Defend Public Education #Nathan Brown

General Strike

If you'd like to participate in one of the many Teach-Ins and Workshops going on throughout the day, and through the rest of the week, go here.

Also, if you'd like to be updated on any major actions occurring throughout today, text "UCDACTION" to 23559.

#General Strike #Occupy UC Davis #Defend Public Education

Letter to Yudof and Regents from California Scholars for Academic Freedom

November 23, 2011

Dear President Yudof , Chancellors, Academic Senate Chairs, and Regents:

We write on behalf of California Scholars for Academic Freedom** to condemn in the strongest possible terms the egregious attacks by police forces on protestors at UC Davis and UC Berkeley in these last weeks, to object to the violation of their rights of protest, free assembly, free speech, and academic freedom. We have watched with great concern as waves of revulsion and shock have swept across the global media at the violent and injurious actions on the University of California campuses. We propose the following immediate steps. We petition for an independent investigation of these actions to be conducted by faculty senate members and student representatives appointed by their own assemblies from the UC system free of administrative intervention or oversight. The mandate of such an investigation should establish who has authorized the police to unleash such brutal tactics of suppression and injury on protestors, and to establish a precise chain of command so that subsequent and appropriate actions, which would include censure demands for suspension and resignation, can be brought to bear on all those responsible. It is completely unacceptable to appoint a former LAPD police chief to investigate police brutality within the UC system. William Bratton’s role as police chief during instances of police brutality against those at an immigrants’ rights rally in Los Angeles in 2007 hardly qualifies him to oversee an independent investigation into police brutality. In terms of Bratton's approach to "excessive force," he specializes in training police to deploy space-cordoning and crowd-control methods that are less violent, but which end up eliminating the idea of public space and public visibility altogether. This kind of vision is problematic for public spaces, but utterly incompatible with the notion of common spaces in public universities. More importantly, such an investigation should be led by those whose interests were directly affected by such police violence, and those whom this University is designed to serve, namely its students and faculty. These attacks on students, staff, and faculty have been repeated over the last few years against peaceful demonstrations that have objected to the privatization of the public university system, the devastating hikes in student tuition and fees, the extreme burdens of student debt, the cutting of long-term and essential staff positions, and the increasing precariousness suffered by part-time laborers in the university system. In particular, we object to the use of police forces with weapons to quell peaceful protests and civil disobedience actions. Protestors have a constitutional right to free speech under the US constitution, but they also have, as members of the university community, specific rights to exercise their academic freedom unimpeded and free of violent attacks. At the time of this writing, it remains unclear who precisely authorized the violent attacks on student demonstrators during the weeks in November, 2011. It will not do to say, as President Mark Yudof does in his missive of November 20th, that he is “appalled by images of University of California students being doused with pepper spray and jabbed with police batons on our campuses,” without taking any responsibility for these acts of police violence against peaceful protestors. Nor will it be sufficient for the President to initiate reviews of these incidences at all campuses, or to propose engaging in “discussions’ with all of the chancellors. Vague gestures designed to give the impression of administrative action—without any assignation of responsibility or any revision of policy- remain both implausible and inadequate. Although Chancellor Katehi of UC Davis claims not to have anticipated the use of pepper spray, she nevertheless takes full responsibility for her action. If she did not authorize those actions, who did? And the Chancellor of UC Merced claims that she “will neither order nor condone police aggression or force during a protest on campus in the absence of an imminent and substantial threat of harm to persons or property” (11/20/11). If this is so, does she break with UC system-wide policy in making this claim? If the UC administration claims that it was following “established procedure,” and that established procedure violates the academic rights of students, staff, and faculty engaged in peaceful protest, then that established procedure must also come under scrutiny. The Regulations Governing Conduct passed recently by the UC Regents provoked many objections from faculty and students in the notice and comment period. The justifications offered by the administration for much of the violence of the last few weeks are spurious, citing the university’s prohibition of (among other things) structures and tents on campus (something that happens regularly for sports events, freshman receptions, and large parties). In defending the police brutality at UC Berkeley, Chancellor Robert Birgenau disqualified the linking of arms as a “nonviolent” act. Do President Yudof and the Regents endorse these blatant attempts to cast peaceful protestors as violent thugs and terrorists, by twisting the very definition of nonviolence? In the absence of any response to the contrary, these assertions suggest that the UC administration needs reminding of what kinds of actions constitute peaceful, nonviolent, and morally-motivated political protest, and require protection as such. The definitions of civil disobedience and non-violent protest are well-established and cannot be subject to ignorant or strategic interpretations of police or administrators. It is unacceptable for any campus to criminalize free speech, freedom of assembly, and academic freedom. It is unacceptable to unleash police to commit criminal acts of violence against those who are exercising constitutionally protected rights or who are expressing viewpoints that are critical of the UC administration. It is unacceptable to pretend as though police officials who are hostile to the idea of public visibility, with records of involvement in instances of police violence, can “independently” oversee any investigation of such matters. And, it is unacceptable to distort the very meaning of nonviolent protest in order to justify such acts of institutional violence. Finally, we propose that if the chain of command is clearly established and those responsible for authorizing the use of police force to injure protesters can be clearly documented and named, that (a) those responsible be relieved from their official duties, and (b) that the UC system, in tandem with the CSU system, develop a policy that requires police to forego the use of any weapons in the monitoring of free and peaceful demonstrations on any of our campus.

Sincerely, California Scholars for Academic Freedom** CONTACT PEOPLE: Judith Butler Maxine Elliot Professor Rhetoric and Comparative Literature University of California, Berkeley 510-642-1415 Email: [email protected] Lisa Rofel Professor Department of Anthropology University of California, Santa Cruz Phone: 831-459-3615 Email: [email protected] Carole H. Browner Professor and Chair Department of Anthropology University of California, Los Angeles Tel: 310 825 4119 email: [email protected] Suad Joseph Professor of Anthropology and Women and Gender Studies University of California Davis, CA 95616 Phone 530-752-1593 Email: [email protected] Julia Elyachar Associate Professor Department of Anthropology UC Irvine [email protected] 949 824-1489. Beshara Doumani Professor, Middle East History Dept. of History University of California, Berkeley [email protected] 510 643-3147 Paul Amar Associate Professor Global & International Studies Program University of California, Santa Barbara Email: [email protected] Fax: 805-893-8003 **CALIFORNIA SCHOLARS FOR FREEDOM is a four-year old group of more than 150 academics who teach in 20 California institutions of higher education. The group formed as a response to rash violations of academic freedom that were arising from both the 9/11/2001 climate of civil rights violation and to the increasing attacks on progressive educators by neo-conservatives. Many attacks were aimed at scholars of Arab, Muslim, or Middle Eastern descent or at scholars researching and teaching about the Middle East, Arab and Muslim communities. Our goal of protecting California Scholars and students based mainly in institutions of higher education has grown broader in scope. We recognize that violations of academic freedom anywhere are threats to academic freedom everywhere.