The last post was an email from the Dean at Berkeley Law. Unsurprisingly, when a University proves that it is not a cemetery, as UC was described by President Mark Yudof, the fingerpointing has to start.
The information attached to Dean Edley's email is from the UCOP who realized months ago that the finger needed to point to Sacramento. Never mind the billions of dollars in reserve or the $1.35 billion in new debt to finance unnecessary and ill timed capital projects. Forget about the fact that UC bureaucracy is growing many times faster than faculty and yet we still hire PriceWaterhouseCooper to do our financial housekeeping. The problem is in Sacramento where a mere 2% (which is less than the new debt for construction) of the UC budget was cut.
Dean Edley may have only realized that Boalt Hall was not a cemetery last week after a contentious 'town hall' meeting where students clearly articulated their disgust at Boalt's departure from anything resembling a school with a public mission. The Dean's presentation last week focused both on how little the state budget cuts affected Boalt and, yet, how necessary the budget cuts made fee hikes. No, the state budget cuts this year did not precipitate massive fee hikes. The professional fee hikes at Boalt, like most other professional fee hikes this year, were long planned. The UC Budget 'crisis' seems to be a convenient point to accelerate them, making sure that students will bear the cost of corporate privatization more quickly and in greater proportion.
It seems disingenuous for Dean Edley to pass the buck now when less than two years ago, he threatened to leave the school along with a cadre of 'top faculty' if fee increases were not accelerated. The idea that Dean Edley's advocacy for public education can be improved is certainly one that I can agree with. His support for public education is nonexistent. Just as Yudof's fanciful New York Times interview elicited a respectfully outraged response from UC faculty, it is time for professional faculty and students to demand a meaningful leadership for public education. Or perhaps our self-described 'man of the people' realizes exactly who approves his $350,000 salary.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Dean Edley to the Faculty:
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: UCOP thoughts on budget crisis, etc.
Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:14:51 -0800
From: Christopher Edley
To: Faculty Announcement List
Colleagues, I found the attached document from UCOP very useful in that it gathers together in summary form the "message points" and key factoids undergirding the Administration's stance.
Subject: UCOP thoughts on budget crisis, etc.
Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:14:51 -0800
From: Christopher Edley
To: Faculty Announcement List
Colleagues, I found the attached document from UCOP very useful in that it gathers together in summary form the "message points" and key factoids undergirding the Administration's stance.
The Bricks We Throw at Police Today Will Build the Liberation Schools of Tomorrow
by Three Non-Matriculating Proletarians
“If you’re scared today you'll be scared tomorrow as well and always and so you've got to make a start now right away we must show that in this school we aren't slaves we have to do it so we can do what they're doing in all other schools to show that we're the ones to decide because the school is ours.”
The Unseen, Nanni Balestrini
Days later, voices in unison still ring in our ears. “Who’s university?” At night in bed, we mumble the reply to ourselves in our dreams. “Our university!” And in the midst of building occupations and the festive and fierce skirmishes with the police, concepts like belonging and ownership take the opportunity to assume a wholly new character. Only the village idiot or, the modern equivalent, a bureaucrat in the university administration would think we were screaming about something as suffocating as property rights when last week we announced, “The School is Ours!” When the day erupted, when the escape plan from the drudgery of college life was hatched, it was clear to everyone that the university not only belonged to the students who were forcefully reasserting their claim but also to the faculty, to every professor and TA who wishes they could enliven the mandatory curriculum in their repetitive 101 class, to the service workers who can't wait for their shift to end, and to every other wage-earner on campus ensuring the daily functioning of the school.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Statement in support of the UC Mobilisation
24 November 2009
We the undersigned declare our solidarity with University of California students, workers and staff as they defend, in the face of powerful and aggressive intimidation, the fundamental principles upon which a truly inclusive and egalitarian public-sector education system depends. We affirm their determination to confront university administrators who seem willing to exploit the current financial crisis to introduce disastrous and reactionary 'reforms' (fee-increases, lay-offs, salary cuts) to the UC system. We support their readiness to take direct action in order to block these changes. We recognise that in times of crisis, only assertive collective action – walkouts, boycotts, strikes, occupations... – offers any meaningful prospect of democratic participation. We deplore the recent militarization of the UC campuses, and call on the UC administration to acknowledge rather than discourage the resolution of their students to struggle, against the imperatives of privatization, to protect the future of their university.
We the undersigned declare our solidarity with University of California students, workers and staff as they defend, in the face of powerful and aggressive intimidation, the fundamental principles upon which a truly inclusive and egalitarian public-sector education system depends. We affirm their determination to confront university administrators who seem willing to exploit the current financial crisis to introduce disastrous and reactionary 'reforms' (fee-increases, lay-offs, salary cuts) to the UC system. We support their readiness to take direct action in order to block these changes. We recognise that in times of crisis, only assertive collective action – walkouts, boycotts, strikes, occupations... – offers any meaningful prospect of democratic participation. We deplore the recent militarization of the UC campuses, and call on the UC administration to acknowledge rather than discourage the resolution of their students to struggle, against the imperatives of privatization, to protect the future of their university.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Behind the Privatization of the UC, a Riot Squad of Police
This was bound to be a big week in California regardless, as the threat of a 32 percent tuition and fee increase across the University of California system made a crashing entrance into reality with Wednesday’s vote by the UC Board of Regents. Perhaps the Regents and UC President Mark Yudof expected that their diversionary tactics--lament the crisis and direct blame to Sacramento’s budget cuts--would pay off. But this was not to be.
Read More.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Communiqué from an Absent Future: On the Terminus of Student Life
Another from anticapitalprojects.wordpress.com
INTRODUCTION: 7 AGAINST POMPEII
WE LIVE AS A DEAD CIVILIZATION. We can no longer imagine the good life except as a series of spectacles preselected for our bemusement: a shimmering menu of illusions. Both the full-filled life and our own imaginations have been systematically replaced by a set of images more lavish and inhumane than anything we ourselves would conceive, and equally beyond reach. No one believes in such outcomes anymore.
The truth of life after the university is mean and petty competition for resources with our friends and strangers: the hustle for a lower-management position that will last (with luck) for a couple years rifted with anxiety, fear, and increasing exploitation—until the firm crumbles and we mutter about “plan B.” But this is an exact description of university life today; that mean and petty life has already arrived.
Read More.
INTRODUCTION: 7 AGAINST POMPEII
WE LIVE AS A DEAD CIVILIZATION. We can no longer imagine the good life except as a series of spectacles preselected for our bemusement: a shimmering menu of illusions. Both the full-filled life and our own imaginations have been systematically replaced by a set of images more lavish and inhumane than anything we ourselves would conceive, and equally beyond reach. No one believes in such outcomes anymore.
The truth of life after the university is mean and petty competition for resources with our friends and strangers: the hustle for a lower-management position that will last (with luck) for a couple years rifted with anxiety, fear, and increasing exploitation—until the firm crumbles and we mutter about “plan B.” But this is an exact description of university life today; that mean and petty life has already arrived.
Read More.
The Necrosocial: Civic Life, Social Death, and the UC.
Occupied UC Berkeley, 18 November 2009.
Being president of the University of California is like being manager of a cemetery: there are many people under you, but no one is listening.
UC President Mark Yudof
Capital is dead labor which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor.
Karl Marx
Politics is death that lives a human life.
Achille Mbembe
Yes, very much a cemetery. Only here there are no dirges, no prayers, only the repeated testing of our threshold for anxiety, humiliation, and debt. The classroom just like the workplace just like the university just like the state just like the economy manages our social death, translating what we once knew from high school, from work, from our family life into academic parlance, into acceptable forms of social conflict.
Who knew that behind so much civic life (electoral campaigns, student body representatives, bureaucratic administrators, public relations officials, Peace and Conflict Studies, ad nauseam) was so much social death? What postures we maintain to claim representation, what limits we assume, what desires we dismiss?
Read More.
Being president of the University of California is like being manager of a cemetery: there are many people under you, but no one is listening.
UC President Mark Yudof
Capital is dead labor which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor.
Karl Marx
Politics is death that lives a human life.
Achille Mbembe
Yes, very much a cemetery. Only here there are no dirges, no prayers, only the repeated testing of our threshold for anxiety, humiliation, and debt. The classroom just like the workplace just like the university just like the state just like the economy manages our social death, translating what we once knew from high school, from work, from our family life into academic parlance, into acceptable forms of social conflict.
Who knew that behind so much civic life (electoral campaigns, student body representatives, bureaucratic administrators, public relations officials, Peace and Conflict Studies, ad nauseam) was so much social death? What postures we maintain to claim representation, what limits we assume, what desires we dismiss?
Read More.
Monday, November 23, 2009
no capital projects but the end of capital
Below is the statement of the group that occupied the Architecture & Engineering building on Wednesday, November 18; the first day of the UC system wide strike.
The University of California is occupied. It is occupied as is the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, and the Technical Institute of Graz; as were the New School, Faculty of Humanities in Zagreb and the Athens Polytechnic. These are not the first; they will not be the last. Neither is this a student movement; echoing the factory occupations of Argentina and Chicago, immigrant workers occupy forty buildings in Paris, including the Centre Pompidou. There is still life inside capital’s museum.
We send our first greetings to each of these groups, in solidarity. We stand with everybody who finds themselves in a building today because they have chosen to be, because they have liberated it from its supposed owners — whether for the hint of freedom’s true taste, or out of desperate social and political necessity.
The University of California is occupied. It is occupied as is the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, and the Technical Institute of Graz; as were the New School, Faculty of Humanities in Zagreb and the Athens Polytechnic. These are not the first; they will not be the last. Neither is this a student movement; echoing the factory occupations of Argentina and Chicago, immigrant workers occupy forty buildings in Paris, including the Centre Pompidou. There is still life inside capital’s museum.
We send our first greetings to each of these groups, in solidarity. We stand with everybody who finds themselves in a building today because they have chosen to be, because they have liberated it from its supposed owners — whether for the hint of freedom’s true taste, or out of desperate social and political necessity.
UCOP is Occupied!
Breaking news: 150 students are occupying Pres. Mark Yudof's Office in Downtown Oakland. Please go and show your support and solidarity with the student occupiers.
Riot cops are coming. They need support.
For updates visit Twitter: http://twitter.com/ActionNewsSF/uc-berkeley-protest
The address is 1111 Franklin St., near the 12th St. Bart Station.
View Larger Map
Riot cops are coming. They need support.
For updates visit Twitter: http://twitter.com/ActionNewsSF/uc-berkeley-protest
The address is 1111 Franklin St., near the 12th St. Bart Station.
View Larger Map
Open letter to the Chancellor from UC Berekely Faculty
Uncivpro.com Editor's note: While I fully agree that the police were brutal on Friday, I do not think that this letter's prescriptions are correct. Time and time again, law enforcement around the world is used to quell student dissent at strategic times. This will never change, regardless of policy amendments. Currently, police violence is the issue on everyone's lips. The administration is now winning the battle of public discourse because fee hikes and furlough's belong to the past. The police are but a tool employed by a violent UC administration dead set on privatizing the campuses. Chancellor Birgeneau used the brutality of the Berkeley, Oakland, and University Police Departments to quell student voice and break the autonomous spirit of the Wheeler Occupation. The correct response to this disgusting tactic is for students to take the University because it is theirs.
November 22, 2009
Open Letter from Concerned Members of the Faculty to Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau,
We, the undersigned faculty, are writing to voice our strenuous objection to the use of unwarranted violence by the police forces enlisted by the University of California at Berkeley to patrol the student demonstration outside of Wheeler Hall on Friday, November 20th. It is now abundantly clear that in addition to UC Police, there were squads from the City of Berkeley and Alameda County, and that some of these police forces acted with undue violence at various points during the day, most conspicuously at mid-day and then again in late afternoon when they used batons against students and a faculty member. In some cases this occurred to defenseless people who had already been pushed to the ground, among them several who sustained injuries to hands, heads, and stomachs, and were forced to seek urgent medical care. These abuses of police power were captured on video recordings and in photographs, corroborated by numerous witnesses. They have now been widely circulated on the web and throughout the national and international media. We will send you a composite of those websites and testimonies under separate cover.
These documents clearly show that the students were acting in a non-violent manner when their civil rights were abrogated by police harassment and assault. Such instances of unprovoked police brutality would be appalling and objectionable anywhere, but we find it most painful for these events to have taken place on the UC Berkeley campus, given the important tradition of protecting free speech that you, Chancellor Birgeneau, have only very recently defended. Hence we regard with dismay and astonishment your euphemistic reference to these Friday’s violence: “a few members of our campus community may have found themselves in conflict with law enforcement officers.” There is no doubt that our students and colleagues did find themselves subject to unwarranted and illegal police brutality. It is therefore incumbent on the Chancellor of UC Berkeley to condemn such actions unequivocally and to make sure that such actions are subject to comprehensive review and disciplinary action.
Accordingly, we the undersigned demand that the university assume full accountability for the actions of the police forces active on campus on Friday, November 20th. We call for the administration immediately to convene an impartial and comprehensive investigation of the abuse of police power that resulted, making broad use of available testimony on the part of victims and observers, including photographic images, video and personal narration of those at the scene in order to establish a clear record of the facts. We ask as well that you speak directly and honestly to the students about what has happened. They are entitled to know that the university does not condone acts of police violence such as these; as of this writing, they have received no word from the administration acknowledging accountability for such appalling actions. Indeed, the administration was markedly unreachable on Friday, when faculty were most pressed to take on a mediating role.
We ask that you widely publicize the current protocols governing police conduct at demonstrations, and ascertain whether protocol was followed or abrogated on Friday. The entire community is also surely entitled to know that clear steps will be taken to revise protocols regarding police conduct at student demonstrations--protocols that will be binding on any police force brought on campus. It should also make clear that disciplinary actions will be taken against police officers found guilty of assault. Finally we ask for a public statement reconfirming the University’s commitment to protect the rights of free expression and assembly for students on the Berkeley campus.
We want to underscore how important it is for the campus for you to convene an investigation and to take administrative responsibility for protecting the safety of students as well as their rights of assembly and expression. Friday’s failure to do so is a most painful public display of how far UC Berkeley has strayed from its historical responsibility as a national and international institution pledged to rights of free speech and assembly and to the ideals of social justice. It is surely difficult enough to see our reputation as an excellent and affordable university jeopardized through budget cuts and fee hikes. Must we see as well the dissolution of the ideal of protecting free speech for students for whom the very future of their education is at stake?
Signed:
Elizabeth Abel, English
Alice Merner Agogino, Mechanical Engineering
Norma Alarcon, Ethnic Studies
Albert Russell Ascoli, Italian
Paola Bacchetta, Gender and Women’s Studies
Jeanne Bamberger, Music and Urban Education
Patricia Baquedano-López, Graduate School of Education
Joi Barrios-Leblanc, South and Southeast Asian Studies
Brian Barsky, Computer Science
Lisa Bedolla, Education
Emilie Bergmann, Spanish and Portuguese
John Bishop, English
Déborah Blocker, French
Jean-Paul Bourdier, Architecture
Daniel Boyarin, Near Easteren Studies and Rhetoric
Karl Britto, French and Comparative Literature
Natalie Brizuela. Spanish and Portuguese
Wendy Brown, Political Science
Michael Burawoy, Sociology
Judith Butler, Rhetoric and Comparative Literature
Brandi Wilkins Catanese, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
Timothy Clark, History of Art
Catherine Cole, Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies
Vasudha Dalmia, South and Southeast Studies
Prachi Delpande, History
Clelia Donovan, Spanish and Portuguese
Beshara Doumani, History
Robert Dudley, Integrative Biology
Laurent El Ghaoui, Engineering
Peter Evans, Sociology
Jerry Feldman, EECS
Keith Feldman, Ethnic Studies
Mariane Ferme, Anthropology
Mia Fuller, Italian
Peter Glazer, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Ethnic Studies, Gender and Women’s Studies
Steven Goldsmith, English
Ramón Grosfoguel, Ethnic Studies
Suzanne Guerlac, French
Andrew Paul Gutierrez, Ecosystem Science
Angela Harris, Boalt School of Law
Gillian Hart, Geography
Cori Hayden, Anthropology
Tyrone Hayes, Integrative Biology
Lyn Hejinian, English
David Henkin, History
Charles Hirschkind, Anthropology
John Hurst, Graduate School of Education
Toni Johnston, Education
Andrew Jones, East Asian Languages and Culture
Alan Karras, IAS
Elaine Kim, Ethnic Studies
Patrick Kirsch, Anthropology and Integrative Biology
Georgia Kleege, English
Jake Kosek, Geography
Claire Kramsch, German
Chana Kronfeld, Near Eastern and Comparative Literature
George Lakoff, Linguistics
Katherine Lee, College Writing
Gregory Levine, History of Art
Michael Lucey, French and Comparative Literature
Richard Norgaard, Energy and Resources
Saba Mahmood, Anthropology
Francine Masiello, Spanish and Comparative Literature
Susan Maslan, French
Minoo Moallem, Gender and Women’s Studies
Davitt Moroney, Music
Carlos Muos, Ethnic Studies
Ramona Naddaff, Rhetoric
Rasmus Nielsen, Integrative Biology
Dan O’Neill, East Asian Languages and Literatures
Abena Dore Osseo-Asare, History
Stefania Pandolfo, Anthropology
Nancy Peluso, Environmental Science
Della Peretti, Education
Daniel Perlstein, Graduate School of Education
Kevin Padian, Integrative Biology
Kent Puckett, English
Robert Rhew, Geography
Christine Rosen, Haas School of Business
Ananya Roy, City and Regional Planning
Jeff Salbin, Boalt School of Law
Debarati Sanyal, French
Scott Saul, English
Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Anthropology
Sue Schweik, English
Ingrid Seyer-Ochi, Education
Katherine Sherwood, Art Practice
Kaja Silverman, Rhetoric and Film Studies
Jeffrey Skoller, Film Studies
Sandra Smith, Sociology
Katherine Snyder, College Writing
Janet Sorensen, English
Ann Smock, French
Shannon Steen, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
Alan Tansman, East Asian Languages
Estelle Tarica, Spanish and Portuguese
Barrie Thorne, Sociology, Gender and Women’s Studies
Sylvia Tiwon, South and Southeast Asian Studies
Soraya Tlatli, French
Linda Tredway, Education
Trinh Minh-Ha, Rhetoric, Gender and Women’s Studies
David Tse, EECS
Susan Ubbelohde, Architecture
Paula Varsano, East Asian Languages
Sophie Volpp, Comparative Literature
Anne Wagner, History of Art
L. Ling-Chi Wang, Ethnic Studies
Michael Watts, Geography
Leon Wofsy, Molecular and Cell Biology
Alexei Yurchak, Anthropology
November 22, 2009
Open Letter from Concerned Members of the Faculty to Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau,
We, the undersigned faculty, are writing to voice our strenuous objection to the use of unwarranted violence by the police forces enlisted by the University of California at Berkeley to patrol the student demonstration outside of Wheeler Hall on Friday, November 20th. It is now abundantly clear that in addition to UC Police, there were squads from the City of Berkeley and Alameda County, and that some of these police forces acted with undue violence at various points during the day, most conspicuously at mid-day and then again in late afternoon when they used batons against students and a faculty member. In some cases this occurred to defenseless people who had already been pushed to the ground, among them several who sustained injuries to hands, heads, and stomachs, and were forced to seek urgent medical care. These abuses of police power were captured on video recordings and in photographs, corroborated by numerous witnesses. They have now been widely circulated on the web and throughout the national and international media. We will send you a composite of those websites and testimonies under separate cover.
These documents clearly show that the students were acting in a non-violent manner when their civil rights were abrogated by police harassment and assault. Such instances of unprovoked police brutality would be appalling and objectionable anywhere, but we find it most painful for these events to have taken place on the UC Berkeley campus, given the important tradition of protecting free speech that you, Chancellor Birgeneau, have only very recently defended. Hence we regard with dismay and astonishment your euphemistic reference to these Friday’s violence: “a few members of our campus community may have found themselves in conflict with law enforcement officers.” There is no doubt that our students and colleagues did find themselves subject to unwarranted and illegal police brutality. It is therefore incumbent on the Chancellor of UC Berkeley to condemn such actions unequivocally and to make sure that such actions are subject to comprehensive review and disciplinary action.
Accordingly, we the undersigned demand that the university assume full accountability for the actions of the police forces active on campus on Friday, November 20th. We call for the administration immediately to convene an impartial and comprehensive investigation of the abuse of police power that resulted, making broad use of available testimony on the part of victims and observers, including photographic images, video and personal narration of those at the scene in order to establish a clear record of the facts. We ask as well that you speak directly and honestly to the students about what has happened. They are entitled to know that the university does not condone acts of police violence such as these; as of this writing, they have received no word from the administration acknowledging accountability for such appalling actions. Indeed, the administration was markedly unreachable on Friday, when faculty were most pressed to take on a mediating role.
We ask that you widely publicize the current protocols governing police conduct at demonstrations, and ascertain whether protocol was followed or abrogated on Friday. The entire community is also surely entitled to know that clear steps will be taken to revise protocols regarding police conduct at student demonstrations--protocols that will be binding on any police force brought on campus. It should also make clear that disciplinary actions will be taken against police officers found guilty of assault. Finally we ask for a public statement reconfirming the University’s commitment to protect the rights of free expression and assembly for students on the Berkeley campus.
We want to underscore how important it is for the campus for you to convene an investigation and to take administrative responsibility for protecting the safety of students as well as their rights of assembly and expression. Friday’s failure to do so is a most painful public display of how far UC Berkeley has strayed from its historical responsibility as a national and international institution pledged to rights of free speech and assembly and to the ideals of social justice. It is surely difficult enough to see our reputation as an excellent and affordable university jeopardized through budget cuts and fee hikes. Must we see as well the dissolution of the ideal of protecting free speech for students for whom the very future of their education is at stake?
Signed:
Elizabeth Abel, English
Alice Merner Agogino, Mechanical Engineering
Norma Alarcon, Ethnic Studies
Albert Russell Ascoli, Italian
Paola Bacchetta, Gender and Women’s Studies
Jeanne Bamberger, Music and Urban Education
Patricia Baquedano-López, Graduate School of Education
Joi Barrios-Leblanc, South and Southeast Asian Studies
Brian Barsky, Computer Science
Lisa Bedolla, Education
Emilie Bergmann, Spanish and Portuguese
John Bishop, English
Déborah Blocker, French
Jean-Paul Bourdier, Architecture
Daniel Boyarin, Near Easteren Studies and Rhetoric
Karl Britto, French and Comparative Literature
Natalie Brizuela. Spanish and Portuguese
Wendy Brown, Political Science
Michael Burawoy, Sociology
Judith Butler, Rhetoric and Comparative Literature
Brandi Wilkins Catanese, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
Timothy Clark, History of Art
Catherine Cole, Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies
Vasudha Dalmia, South and Southeast Studies
Prachi Delpande, History
Clelia Donovan, Spanish and Portuguese
Beshara Doumani, History
Robert Dudley, Integrative Biology
Laurent El Ghaoui, Engineering
Peter Evans, Sociology
Jerry Feldman, EECS
Keith Feldman, Ethnic Studies
Mariane Ferme, Anthropology
Mia Fuller, Italian
Peter Glazer, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Ethnic Studies, Gender and Women’s Studies
Steven Goldsmith, English
Ramón Grosfoguel, Ethnic Studies
Suzanne Guerlac, French
Andrew Paul Gutierrez, Ecosystem Science
Angela Harris, Boalt School of Law
Gillian Hart, Geography
Cori Hayden, Anthropology
Tyrone Hayes, Integrative Biology
Lyn Hejinian, English
David Henkin, History
Charles Hirschkind, Anthropology
John Hurst, Graduate School of Education
Toni Johnston, Education
Andrew Jones, East Asian Languages and Culture
Alan Karras, IAS
Elaine Kim, Ethnic Studies
Patrick Kirsch, Anthropology and Integrative Biology
Georgia Kleege, English
Jake Kosek, Geography
Claire Kramsch, German
Chana Kronfeld, Near Eastern and Comparative Literature
George Lakoff, Linguistics
Katherine Lee, College Writing
Gregory Levine, History of Art
Michael Lucey, French and Comparative Literature
Richard Norgaard, Energy and Resources
Saba Mahmood, Anthropology
Francine Masiello, Spanish and Comparative Literature
Susan Maslan, French
Minoo Moallem, Gender and Women’s Studies
Davitt Moroney, Music
Carlos Muos, Ethnic Studies
Ramona Naddaff, Rhetoric
Rasmus Nielsen, Integrative Biology
Dan O’Neill, East Asian Languages and Literatures
Abena Dore Osseo-Asare, History
Stefania Pandolfo, Anthropology
Nancy Peluso, Environmental Science
Della Peretti, Education
Daniel Perlstein, Graduate School of Education
Kevin Padian, Integrative Biology
Kent Puckett, English
Robert Rhew, Geography
Christine Rosen, Haas School of Business
Ananya Roy, City and Regional Planning
Jeff Salbin, Boalt School of Law
Debarati Sanyal, French
Scott Saul, English
Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Anthropology
Sue Schweik, English
Ingrid Seyer-Ochi, Education
Katherine Sherwood, Art Practice
Kaja Silverman, Rhetoric and Film Studies
Jeffrey Skoller, Film Studies
Sandra Smith, Sociology
Katherine Snyder, College Writing
Janet Sorensen, English
Ann Smock, French
Shannon Steen, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
Alan Tansman, East Asian Languages
Estelle Tarica, Spanish and Portuguese
Barrie Thorne, Sociology, Gender and Women’s Studies
Sylvia Tiwon, South and Southeast Asian Studies
Soraya Tlatli, French
Linda Tredway, Education
Trinh Minh-Ha, Rhetoric, Gender and Women’s Studies
David Tse, EECS
Susan Ubbelohde, Architecture
Paula Varsano, East Asian Languages
Sophie Volpp, Comparative Literature
Anne Wagner, History of Art
L. Ling-Chi Wang, Ethnic Studies
Michael Watts, Geography
Leon Wofsy, Molecular and Cell Biology
Alexei Yurchak, Anthropology
Saturday, November 21, 2009
An open letter about UC violence
Please forward to faculty, grad students, and friends ; also see videos on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWGCnVjWRd0&feature=player_embedded
Dear UC Faculty and Friends,
There are few words that can describe the horror of police violence against students on UC Berkeley's campus Friday November 20. Chancellor Birgeneau's dispatches to the campus community, most recently those today pre-empting a critical outrage to what transpired, are disgraceful and must be met with a forceful response by UC faculty and students. What started as aggressive and unjustified provocation by UCPD was soon supplemented by the vicious behavior of officers from Berkeley Police Department and the Alameda County Sheriff. As students peaceably assembled in support of those occupying Wheeler Hall, Chancellor Birgeneau ordered or approved the deployment of hundreds of police brandishing their batons to beat the spirit of ownership out of them.
Chancellor Birgeneau characterizes the role and presence of armed and aggressive police officers that engaged in violence against students on this campus as positive and necessary in resolving the situation. When I arrived on campus early in the morning as a supportive alumnus, two UCPD officers attempted to ram a metal barricade through a crowd of students I was in -- without announcement, notice, or even a chance to move out of the way. Students had no choice but to push back in self defense to prevent injury to themselves and their peers. Yet Chancellor Birgeneau says that the situation "ended peacefully," and thanked the police for their allegedly positive role.
On at least two later occasions students at the front of barricade lines were threatened with batons thrust into their chests, stomachs, shoulders, and backs. Berkeley Police Department officers once again violently confronted students, placing barricades on police lines. Their blows rained down on the students at the front line, who had absolutely no opportunity to follow police instructions to move because the crowds were too thick. Apparently the officers did not care about this fact or did not understand it because they struck student after student, marks on whose bodies are still apparent today -- even as Chancellor Birgeneau announces the situation "ended peacefully."
A graduate student's fingers were maliciously destroyed by an officer who struck her with a baton for placing her hand on the barricade. She requires reconstructive surgery, as after the beating her fingers were left hanging by a thread of flesh. And yet Chancellor Birgeneau claims that the student protests ended "peacefully."
At least one undergraduate student was shot by an officer with an unidentified projectile. There is a mark on his stomach today, but Chancellor Birgeneau claims that the student protests ended "peacefully."
I saw one camera man threatened by a police officer who screamed: "if you're close enough that my baton can hit you, I will hit you!" And yet Chancellor Birgeneau says that the police "did very well under difficult circumstances" and that the situation ended "peacefully."
Students who intended nothing more than to sit-in on their own campus to confront imminent issues were met by the Chancellor's police officers who showed nothing but disrespect, violence, and brutality. In some areas these violent acts were more prevalent than others. But in all spaces the police presence was overwhelming; a University campus was transformed into a battle ground under police authority. UC Faculty must move to hold Chancellor Birgeneau accountable for endangering the safety of students by exposing them to violent police forces and completely mishandling and misunderstanding the nature of student protest actions on this campus.
Faculty must lead an effort to collect student testimonies and anecdotes about the police violence of the Friday Nov 20 protests. Those mentioned above are only those witnessed first-hand by myself or by people I know personally. Surely there are countless others instances to be documented and for which the Chancellor must be held accountable.
As the Chancellor characterizes the unreasonable presence and activity of police officers on campus as a faithful attempt to restore some sort of "normalcy" to this threatened and beleaguered campus, several clarifications are in order. The students on campus Friday were not rioters. The police presence neither in fact nor in aspiration offered safety or protection to the student body. Police were likely not justified in any use of violence against students yesterday. Chancellor Birgeneau did not resolve or contain the situation. His actions have only highlighted how out of touch he is with the student protesters. On whose behalf he ordered or facilitated the deployment of hundreds of armed police officers on campus is unclear -- but it was certainly not on behalf of the thousands of students assembled to achieve a degree of control over their own education and fate yesterday.
I hope you will forward this letter to other faculty and that action can be taken soon to hold Chancellor Birgeneau accountable, to conduct credible inquiries into student interactions with police, and to adopt a faculty statement against the deployment of non-UCPD personnel against students on this campus in the future. In addition to students' limbs, something has been broken, and Chancellor Birgeneau's cover-up will not fix it. Corrective action must be taken, and faculty are in the best position to do this.
Thank you, sincerely,
Yaman Salahi
Dear UC Faculty and Friends,
There are few words that can describe the horror of police violence against students on UC Berkeley's campus Friday November 20. Chancellor Birgeneau's dispatches to the campus community, most recently those today pre-empting a critical outrage to what transpired, are disgraceful and must be met with a forceful response by UC faculty and students. What started as aggressive and unjustified provocation by UCPD was soon supplemented by the vicious behavior of officers from Berkeley Police Department and the Alameda County Sheriff. As students peaceably assembled in support of those occupying Wheeler Hall, Chancellor Birgeneau ordered or approved the deployment of hundreds of police brandishing their batons to beat the spirit of ownership out of them.
Chancellor Birgeneau characterizes the role and presence of armed and aggressive police officers that engaged in violence against students on this campus as positive and necessary in resolving the situation. When I arrived on campus early in the morning as a supportive alumnus, two UCPD officers attempted to ram a metal barricade through a crowd of students I was in -- without announcement, notice, or even a chance to move out of the way. Students had no choice but to push back in self defense to prevent injury to themselves and their peers. Yet Chancellor Birgeneau says that the situation "ended peacefully," and thanked the police for their allegedly positive role.
On at least two later occasions students at the front of barricade lines were threatened with batons thrust into their chests, stomachs, shoulders, and backs. Berkeley Police Department officers once again violently confronted students, placing barricades on police lines. Their blows rained down on the students at the front line, who had absolutely no opportunity to follow police instructions to move because the crowds were too thick. Apparently the officers did not care about this fact or did not understand it because they struck student after student, marks on whose bodies are still apparent today -- even as Chancellor Birgeneau announces the situation "ended peacefully."
A graduate student's fingers were maliciously destroyed by an officer who struck her with a baton for placing her hand on the barricade. She requires reconstructive surgery, as after the beating her fingers were left hanging by a thread of flesh. And yet Chancellor Birgeneau claims that the student protests ended "peacefully."
At least one undergraduate student was shot by an officer with an unidentified projectile. There is a mark on his stomach today, but Chancellor Birgeneau claims that the student protests ended "peacefully."
I saw one camera man threatened by a police officer who screamed: "if you're close enough that my baton can hit you, I will hit you!" And yet Chancellor Birgeneau says that the police "did very well under difficult circumstances" and that the situation ended "peacefully."
Students who intended nothing more than to sit-in on their own campus to confront imminent issues were met by the Chancellor's police officers who showed nothing but disrespect, violence, and brutality. In some areas these violent acts were more prevalent than others. But in all spaces the police presence was overwhelming; a University campus was transformed into a battle ground under police authority. UC Faculty must move to hold Chancellor Birgeneau accountable for endangering the safety of students by exposing them to violent police forces and completely mishandling and misunderstanding the nature of student protest actions on this campus.
Faculty must lead an effort to collect student testimonies and anecdotes about the police violence of the Friday Nov 20 protests. Those mentioned above are only those witnessed first-hand by myself or by people I know personally. Surely there are countless others instances to be documented and for which the Chancellor must be held accountable.
As the Chancellor characterizes the unreasonable presence and activity of police officers on campus as a faithful attempt to restore some sort of "normalcy" to this threatened and beleaguered campus, several clarifications are in order. The students on campus Friday were not rioters. The police presence neither in fact nor in aspiration offered safety or protection to the student body. Police were likely not justified in any use of violence against students yesterday. Chancellor Birgeneau did not resolve or contain the situation. His actions have only highlighted how out of touch he is with the student protesters. On whose behalf he ordered or facilitated the deployment of hundreds of armed police officers on campus is unclear -- but it was certainly not on behalf of the thousands of students assembled to achieve a degree of control over their own education and fate yesterday.
I hope you will forward this letter to other faculty and that action can be taken soon to hold Chancellor Birgeneau accountable, to conduct credible inquiries into student interactions with police, and to adopt a faculty statement against the deployment of non-UCPD personnel against students on this campus in the future. In addition to students' limbs, something has been broken, and Chancellor Birgeneau's cover-up will not fix it. Corrective action must be taken, and faculty are in the best position to do this.
Thank you, sincerely,
Yaman Salahi
Friday, November 20, 2009
Wheeler Hall is occupied
Reports are that Wheeler Hall is occupied by about 40 students. Police are apparently using maximum force to break the occupation.
Quick story here.
From the barricades, the cops cordoned off the building and hundreds are still out in the pouring rain supporting the occupation. There are occasional scuffles with the police, but students are not backing down.
Update:
The building was occupied all day and thousands of students showed up to support the occupiers. Without this support, the students inside would have experienced physical brutality at the hands of the police--just as the supporters outside experienced--and been taken away in handcuffs. Instead, because students militantly barricaded all access to Wheeler Hall for about 12 hours, the police and UC administrators were forced to negotiate a reasonable release for all the students. Many thanks goes out to those that choose to occupy and reclaim the property of an increasingly corporatized UC Berkeley and the students outside that refused to step down.
Police arrested demonstrator outside, attacked people without provocation, and severed a woman's finger. Despite this violence perpetuated with UCB's good graces, Chancellor Birgeneau sent the following lie:
The Wheeler Hall protest ended peacefully this evening when 40 protestors who had occupied the second floor of the building were cited for trespassing by UC Berkeley Police and released. Thanks to the efforts of ASUC student leaders and faculty who worked with Vice-Chancellor Student Affairs Harry Le Grande, Executive Vice-Chancellor & Provost George Breslauer, and me, our police were able to diffuse the situation and end the protest.
Throughout the day, the large crowds that gathered around Wheeler Hall necessitated significant police presence to maintain safety. It is truly regrettable, however, that a few members of our campus community may have found themselves in conflict with law enforcement officers. Overall, the officers who managed the day's events did very well under difficult circumstances.
I understand that our students are justifiably angry over the fee increases and reductions in staff necessitated by the egregious disinvestment by Sacramento in the University of California. They are not alone in this. Clearly, we cannot allow illegal occupations of our buildings and disruption of our academic programs. Today 3800 students were unable to attend class in Wheeler Hall.
We have a strong tradition of free speech on campus. Let us not forget that we are all fighting for the same cause: to maintain the public character of our university by sustaining Berkeley's excellence and accessibility. Taking over our classroom buildings is not a productive way in which to advance our shared interests in gaining support for public higher education. Let us work together, not in opposition, to move forward our cause.
I wonder if Birgenau is thinking of the time police surrounded Sproul Plaza and tear gassed it during a funeral when he references the '. . . strong tradition of free speech on campus.' Frankly, the only group on campus with a commitment to free speech is the students.
Youtube videos.
Chronicle.
NY Times.
LA Times.
Nov. 20 at UC Berkeley
Video of Police Brutality at UCB http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOI5l2_RghQ
KTVU -- Very good TV coverage -- Strong Images of Police Brutality
http://www.ktvu.com/news/21674608/detail.html
The Daily Cal -- Good Article and Footage of Protest/Chanting in Rain
http://www.dailycal.org/article/107612/wheeler_hall_occupation_ends_peacefully
San Francisco Chronicle - Good article
http://www2.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/11/20/BA611ANSAB.DTL
The Daily Cal- Great Photo Slideshow
http://www.dailycal.org/mediabox.php?id=415&type=slideshow
NYTimes http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/us/21tuition.html?ref=us
Indybay.org coverage
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/11/20/18629379.php<%20http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/11/20/18629379.php>
Nov 18-20 Protests Throughout the State
UCLA Video Coverage (Check out poll: 79% of public are against fee hike!):
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/los_angeles&id=7127527
UCLA Indymedia Coverage:
http://la.indymedia.org/archives/display_by_id.php?feature_id=1906
CSU Fresno Library Study In:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/11/20/18629688.php
UCSC Occupation of Kerr Hall:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/11/20/18629398.php
UC Davis Protests after 52 Arrested:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsX5oPkqjnk
UC Davis - Good Student TV coverage of Occupation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWBa20tygk0
SF State Nov. 18 Action - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=718K2LT5vU4
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
An open letter to the Berkeley Law community
An Open Letter from the Berkeley Law Organizing Committee:
Our school stands at a pivotal moment: the cost of attending Berkeley Law is separating this institution from its past as a model of affordable yet outstanding legal education.
We write both to respond to Dean Edley’s email to the student body on November 16, 2009 and to draw a line in the sand. We write in support of students who intend to serve the public interest. We write, as friends and colleagues, in support of University of California (UC) workers. And we write in support of low income students of all backgrounds who once and might once again find an education at Boalt Hall accessible and available.
Dean Edley’s assertions regarding the fee increases in his email yesterday obscured the facts and gave a misleading impression about the proposal expected to be approved by the Regents of the University of California this week. It also created confusion around the strike and minimized the significance of the ongoing labor dispute. Both the fee increases and the labor dispute are fundamentally and inextricably linked to the destructive policy priorities of the UC administration. We appreciate that there will be a town hall next week, but that discussion will be meaningless if students are uninformed about the issues at stake. While we reject the way in which Dean Edley’s email addressed the impending strike and our fee increases as two separate issues, for clarity’s sake, we address them below in turn.
The “Strike” is Not Ironic
The November 16, 2009 letter referred to several groups calling for a UC-wide “strike” on Wednesday and Thursday (taking pains to place the word “strike” in quotation marks). Since this left the matter extremely vague, we would like to offer some background details. The people planning to strike are professional and technical workers at UC Berkeley, represented by the Union of Professional and Technical Employees (UPTE), Local 9119. Clerical workers also plan to honor the UPTE strike. These workers literally make Boalt Hall and the entire UC run. They work in communications, technology, academic services, administrative services, and many other areas. They staff the library, process our grades, provide health care, maintain research facilities, and keep our information technology system afloat.
UPTE called a strike because the UC implemented layoffs without consulting the union, despite the University’s legal obligation to negotiate with workers. In doing so, UC prevented its workers from exercising their legally protected right to engage with the University on these issues. Clerical, professional, and technical workers have critical expertise in the internal workings of their departments, and could provide valuable input on how UC can weather the budget crisis with as little damage to core functions as possible. UC’s actions were unethical and against the best interests of workers and students alike. UPTE also claims that the UC deliberately targeted members of the union’s bargaining team for layoffs. These unfair labor practices prompted the strike, and the position we now find ourselves in requires a context sorely missing from the Dean’s letter.
The November 16, 2009 letter implied that because not every strike organizer displayed concern about “precisely the same issues,” the strike and its underlying dispute are somehow less legitimate. Using quotation marks to describe the strike, a difficult sacrifice made by respected members of our community, only strengthens the implication of these workers’ illegitimacy.
Perhaps the letter sought to indicate that student fee hikes and unfair labor practices are separate or mutually exclusive concerns. Here, the concerns of students and workers are concurrent. Neither group feels compelled to run separate campaigns in order to remain sufficiently legitimate to the Dean or the community. Students and the community are capable of understanding the interests of each group, seeing their mutuality, and choosing a position. Regardless, the fee increases and labor dispute are intertwined issues, arising from the same misplaced UC policy priorities. For that reason, UC workers and students choose to support each other through solidarity and coordination, as demonstrated by this week’s planned events.
Striking is a painful sacrifice that workers undertake only where, as here, all other options have been exhausted. The concerns voiced by the workers and their allies are not vague, and neither is the proposed remedy: for UC to bargain lawfully and in good faith. While the Dean of the Law School is, like the rest of us, undoubtedly entitled to voice an opinion, denigrating workers’ efforts to protect their jobs and families (without even taking the care to explain the issues behind the dispute) is inappropriate and unbefitting an administrator in Dean Edley’s position.
Students and Faculty Honoring the Picket Line
Berkeley Law’s administration is also asking faculty to “bear in mind that there will certainly be students who want and expect their classes to meet as scheduled.” Faculty do not need this reminder to preserve the status quo. The administration ignores the fact that some students and faculty might not want to cross the picket line. Many of us feel that crossing the line is unethical and disrespectful to those with whom we share this academic community.
Students should not have to choose between the education we’ve paid for and the rights and dignity of the people who make our education possible.
Dean Edley erects a distracting straw man by rushing to disclaim any responsibility on the part of the law school to accommodate students who choose to honor the strike. But no one – not the workers, the faculty, or the student body – is asking Berkeley Law to intervene in this dispute. Instead, the decision whether to cross the picket line remains, properly, in the hands of individual faculty members and students. Some faculty members cancelled classes. Others postponed them, moved them off-campus, or found ways to ensure that students can completely fulfill their academic obligations while honoring the strike. As of Tuesday morning, at least 21 law school classes and numerous community events made some accommodation.
Dean Edley’s letter directly and unnecessarily discourages these practices. It gives the strong impression that accommodating students will result in disfavor, and also suggests a threat to the accreditation of our law school. First, the “reminder” to faculty reads more like a directive to prioritize “teaching responsibilities” over the possibility that students (not to mention the faculty themselves) may morally object to crossing a picket line because to do so undermines the struggle and sacrifice of their friends and colleagues. Second, given the generally unusual circumstances and the strike’s limited duration, it is hard to imagine how even two days of fully cancelled classes would threaten the accreditation of a school as prestigious as Berkeley Law. If we survived an entire year of construction noise, class disruptions, fire alarms, and threats of pest infestation, we are more than able to make it through a two-day strike with our accreditation intact. Moreover, professors who move or reschedule classes will have no significant effect on the quality or quantity of our education, and thus pose no threat whatsoever.
Receiving the Dean’s letter was discouraging for us. It could have simply informed the Berkeley Law community about the strike and reminded students and faculty that we have a continuing responsibility to meet all academic requirements. Instead, it minimized the gravity of the issues at stake, encouraging students and faculty to ignore a dispute with direct and serious implications for our school, and implicated students' and workers' right to participate in political action.
Many of us chose Berkeley Law because of its lauded commitment to protecting and advancing the interests of the most vulnerable people in our society. Dean Edley’s letter was a disappointing reminder that when it comes to the people whose hard work makes our University run, those ideals disappear.
On Proposed Fee Increases
Dean Edley also wrote to assure Boalt students that the only increase on the Regents’ plate this week at UCLA was a “$579 increase in tuition for the spring semester,” and to clarify the “mistaken impression that far larger increases are at issue.” We respectfully disagree.
Here are the numbers, drawn from UC documents, put honestly and clearly. Our annual in-state tuition was $35,907 in Fall 2009,[1] and this week the Regents will be voting to make it $44,220 in Fall 2010 (a 23.1% increase).[2] Then, their plan takes us from $44,220 in Fall 2010 to $49,347 in Fall 2011 (an 11.6% increase).[3] Yet in April 2009, the Admissions Office wrote that the total value of tuition from 2009-2012 was “about $104, 955”[4] – premised on the assumption of tuition remaining constant around the 2009 level – or about $25,000 beneath the tuition levels Dean Edley claims the Regents previously approved. It is true that the Regents did vote on major hikes to the professional degree fee in May 2009, but the increases proposed this week are even steeper than those previously approved.[5]
UC President Mark Yudof, and Dean Edley – acting as a “special advisor”[6] – provided no advance notice or transparency regarding these increases, with the result that they only emerged after they were all but accomplished. We understand that the Chronicle might not be the best source of information about the UC’s proposed tuition increases, but until students can have a clear, open, and honest dialogue with Dean Edley and the UC administration, we are unwilling to foreclose any potential avenues for frank discourse and information.
Fee Increases – Boalt and Peer Public Institutions
We are also concerned that the Regents appear to be misinformed about tuition at our “peer public institutions.” In 2007, the Regents approved a policy that “total in-state fees charged will be at or below the total tuition and/or fees charged by comparable degree programs at other comparable public institutions.”[7] According to the Regents’ proposal, the average tuition and fees at “comparable public institutions” to Berkeley Law is $47,932; therefore, their proposed tuition hikes satisfy the 2007 guidelines.
This description of tuition levels at comparable law schools is grossly misleading. Of the other public law schools ranked in U.S. News and World Report’s annual list of top law schools, none cost over $43,900. Most cost significantly less, and if the proposed fee increase comes to pass, Berkeley Law would become more expensive than any other public law school in the country today. (No. 10-ranked UVA has the highest annual in-state tuition, at $43,900; [8] other highly regarded schools, such as the No. 9-ranked University of Michigan Law School and the No. 15-ranked University of Texas-Austin’s Law School charge $43,010 and $27,840 respectively.)[9] In fact, only one law school in the country (Yale University) has tuition above the “comparable public institution average,” which begs the obvious question of how this figure was calculated. Dean Hirshen’s memorandum this morning helps to clarify the issue, in conspicuously omitting any public institutions from its “Just the Facts” comparisons.[10] We note that the Regents are not bound by what comparable private institutions charge, but rather by what comparable public law schools cost.
Dean Hirshen’s memo does point towards a question regarding how we, as a community, should measure ourselves. It also speaks to a conversation that should be taking place in the sunlight, rather than remaining the unspoken but omnipresent message undergirding the Administration’s response to student interest and action. It appears that Boalt’s administration wishes to remake Berkeley Law in the image of an elite private law school. But this sort of fundamental and philosophical shift should not be undertaken lightly, nor should it be forced upon students through tuition increases. It is not only possible, but also in fact probable, that this student body would rather attend the #1 public law school in America than the #6 private law school. Perhaps our choice to come here was not merely premised on Berkeley Law’s ranking in a national magazine, but rather on our university’s historic and capacious commitment to issues of social justice, engagement with the local and global community, and willingness to encourage students to question and challenge the status quo.
This is a debate worth having, a debate that must occur. But in order to begin such a dialogue, we must at least start from a place where all parties are being honest with one another about the facts. Even BHSA, a representative body that meets with the Boalt Administration on a regular basis, was blindsided by the scope of the proposed fee increases. We urge President Yudof, the Regents, and the Berkeley Law Administration to stop hiding behind disabling rhetoric and start speaking to every UC student and worker in the candid, mutually cooperative, and respectful manner that we deserve.
Berkeley Law Organizing Committee (BLOC)
[1] U.C. Berkeley Law Admissions, FAQs, available at: http://www.law.berkeley.edu/47.htm
[2] UC Office of the President (UCOP), Proposal to the Regents for Approval of 2010-11 Professional School Degree Fees [Proposed Professional Fee Increases],
available at http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/regmeet/nov09/f2.pdf;
[3] Id.
[4] Letter from Admissions Office to entering 1L student.
[5] See UCOP Memo.
[6] N.B. – this is an official title, not a suggestive one.
[7] “Policy on Fees for Selected Professional School Students,” approved January 21, 1994; amended July 2007 and September 2007; available at:
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/policies/6088.html
“Tuition, Scholarships, Financial Aid, and Loans,” Virginia Law website, available at: http://www.law.virginia.edu/html/prospectives/grad/tuition.htm.
[9] “2009-2010 Law School Tuition Rates,” Michigan Law, available at:
http://www.law.umich.edu/currentstudents/financialaid/Pages/tuition.aspx; “Estimated Budget,” Financial Aid, University of Texas at Austin School of Law website, available at: http://www.utexas.edu/law/depts/finaid/costs/.
[10] Communication from Dean Hirshen to Boalt student body, November 17, 2009.
BLOC Open Letter - Print Edition
This letter is in response to the following:
Our school stands at a pivotal moment: the cost of attending Berkeley Law is separating this institution from its past as a model of affordable yet outstanding legal education.
We write both to respond to Dean Edley’s email to the student body on November 16, 2009 and to draw a line in the sand. We write in support of students who intend to serve the public interest. We write, as friends and colleagues, in support of University of California (UC) workers. And we write in support of low income students of all backgrounds who once and might once again find an education at Boalt Hall accessible and available.
Dean Edley’s assertions regarding the fee increases in his email yesterday obscured the facts and gave a misleading impression about the proposal expected to be approved by the Regents of the University of California this week. It also created confusion around the strike and minimized the significance of the ongoing labor dispute. Both the fee increases and the labor dispute are fundamentally and inextricably linked to the destructive policy priorities of the UC administration. We appreciate that there will be a town hall next week, but that discussion will be meaningless if students are uninformed about the issues at stake. While we reject the way in which Dean Edley’s email addressed the impending strike and our fee increases as two separate issues, for clarity’s sake, we address them below in turn.
The “Strike” is Not Ironic
The November 16, 2009 letter referred to several groups calling for a UC-wide “strike” on Wednesday and Thursday (taking pains to place the word “strike” in quotation marks). Since this left the matter extremely vague, we would like to offer some background details. The people planning to strike are professional and technical workers at UC Berkeley, represented by the Union of Professional and Technical Employees (UPTE), Local 9119. Clerical workers also plan to honor the UPTE strike. These workers literally make Boalt Hall and the entire UC run. They work in communications, technology, academic services, administrative services, and many other areas. They staff the library, process our grades, provide health care, maintain research facilities, and keep our information technology system afloat.
UPTE called a strike because the UC implemented layoffs without consulting the union, despite the University’s legal obligation to negotiate with workers. In doing so, UC prevented its workers from exercising their legally protected right to engage with the University on these issues. Clerical, professional, and technical workers have critical expertise in the internal workings of their departments, and could provide valuable input on how UC can weather the budget crisis with as little damage to core functions as possible. UC’s actions were unethical and against the best interests of workers and students alike. UPTE also claims that the UC deliberately targeted members of the union’s bargaining team for layoffs. These unfair labor practices prompted the strike, and the position we now find ourselves in requires a context sorely missing from the Dean’s letter.
The November 16, 2009 letter implied that because not every strike organizer displayed concern about “precisely the same issues,” the strike and its underlying dispute are somehow less legitimate. Using quotation marks to describe the strike, a difficult sacrifice made by respected members of our community, only strengthens the implication of these workers’ illegitimacy.
Perhaps the letter sought to indicate that student fee hikes and unfair labor practices are separate or mutually exclusive concerns. Here, the concerns of students and workers are concurrent. Neither group feels compelled to run separate campaigns in order to remain sufficiently legitimate to the Dean or the community. Students and the community are capable of understanding the interests of each group, seeing their mutuality, and choosing a position. Regardless, the fee increases and labor dispute are intertwined issues, arising from the same misplaced UC policy priorities. For that reason, UC workers and students choose to support each other through solidarity and coordination, as demonstrated by this week’s planned events.
Striking is a painful sacrifice that workers undertake only where, as here, all other options have been exhausted. The concerns voiced by the workers and their allies are not vague, and neither is the proposed remedy: for UC to bargain lawfully and in good faith. While the Dean of the Law School is, like the rest of us, undoubtedly entitled to voice an opinion, denigrating workers’ efforts to protect their jobs and families (without even taking the care to explain the issues behind the dispute) is inappropriate and unbefitting an administrator in Dean Edley’s position.
Students and Faculty Honoring the Picket Line
Berkeley Law’s administration is also asking faculty to “bear in mind that there will certainly be students who want and expect their classes to meet as scheduled.” Faculty do not need this reminder to preserve the status quo. The administration ignores the fact that some students and faculty might not want to cross the picket line. Many of us feel that crossing the line is unethical and disrespectful to those with whom we share this academic community.
Students should not have to choose between the education we’ve paid for and the rights and dignity of the people who make our education possible.
Dean Edley erects a distracting straw man by rushing to disclaim any responsibility on the part of the law school to accommodate students who choose to honor the strike. But no one – not the workers, the faculty, or the student body – is asking Berkeley Law to intervene in this dispute. Instead, the decision whether to cross the picket line remains, properly, in the hands of individual faculty members and students. Some faculty members cancelled classes. Others postponed them, moved them off-campus, or found ways to ensure that students can completely fulfill their academic obligations while honoring the strike. As of Tuesday morning, at least 21 law school classes and numerous community events made some accommodation.
Dean Edley’s letter directly and unnecessarily discourages these practices. It gives the strong impression that accommodating students will result in disfavor, and also suggests a threat to the accreditation of our law school. First, the “reminder” to faculty reads more like a directive to prioritize “teaching responsibilities” over the possibility that students (not to mention the faculty themselves) may morally object to crossing a picket line because to do so undermines the struggle and sacrifice of their friends and colleagues. Second, given the generally unusual circumstances and the strike’s limited duration, it is hard to imagine how even two days of fully cancelled classes would threaten the accreditation of a school as prestigious as Berkeley Law. If we survived an entire year of construction noise, class disruptions, fire alarms, and threats of pest infestation, we are more than able to make it through a two-day strike with our accreditation intact. Moreover, professors who move or reschedule classes will have no significant effect on the quality or quantity of our education, and thus pose no threat whatsoever.
Receiving the Dean’s letter was discouraging for us. It could have simply informed the Berkeley Law community about the strike and reminded students and faculty that we have a continuing responsibility to meet all academic requirements. Instead, it minimized the gravity of the issues at stake, encouraging students and faculty to ignore a dispute with direct and serious implications for our school, and implicated students' and workers' right to participate in political action.
Many of us chose Berkeley Law because of its lauded commitment to protecting and advancing the interests of the most vulnerable people in our society. Dean Edley’s letter was a disappointing reminder that when it comes to the people whose hard work makes our University run, those ideals disappear.
On Proposed Fee Increases
Dean Edley also wrote to assure Boalt students that the only increase on the Regents’ plate this week at UCLA was a “$579 increase in tuition for the spring semester,” and to clarify the “mistaken impression that far larger increases are at issue.” We respectfully disagree.
Here are the numbers, drawn from UC documents, put honestly and clearly. Our annual in-state tuition was $35,907 in Fall 2009,[1] and this week the Regents will be voting to make it $44,220 in Fall 2010 (a 23.1% increase).[2] Then, their plan takes us from $44,220 in Fall 2010 to $49,347 in Fall 2011 (an 11.6% increase).[3] Yet in April 2009, the Admissions Office wrote that the total value of tuition from 2009-2012 was “about $104, 955”[4] – premised on the assumption of tuition remaining constant around the 2009 level – or about $25,000 beneath the tuition levels Dean Edley claims the Regents previously approved. It is true that the Regents did vote on major hikes to the professional degree fee in May 2009, but the increases proposed this week are even steeper than those previously approved.[5]
UC President Mark Yudof, and Dean Edley – acting as a “special advisor”[6] – provided no advance notice or transparency regarding these increases, with the result that they only emerged after they were all but accomplished. We understand that the Chronicle might not be the best source of information about the UC’s proposed tuition increases, but until students can have a clear, open, and honest dialogue with Dean Edley and the UC administration, we are unwilling to foreclose any potential avenues for frank discourse and information.
Fee Increases – Boalt and Peer Public Institutions
We are also concerned that the Regents appear to be misinformed about tuition at our “peer public institutions.” In 2007, the Regents approved a policy that “total in-state fees charged will be at or below the total tuition and/or fees charged by comparable degree programs at other comparable public institutions.”[7] According to the Regents’ proposal, the average tuition and fees at “comparable public institutions” to Berkeley Law is $47,932; therefore, their proposed tuition hikes satisfy the 2007 guidelines.
This description of tuition levels at comparable law schools is grossly misleading. Of the other public law schools ranked in U.S. News and World Report’s annual list of top law schools, none cost over $43,900. Most cost significantly less, and if the proposed fee increase comes to pass, Berkeley Law would become more expensive than any other public law school in the country today. (No. 10-ranked UVA has the highest annual in-state tuition, at $43,900; [8] other highly regarded schools, such as the No. 9-ranked University of Michigan Law School and the No. 15-ranked University of Texas-Austin’s Law School charge $43,010 and $27,840 respectively.)[9] In fact, only one law school in the country (Yale University) has tuition above the “comparable public institution average,” which begs the obvious question of how this figure was calculated. Dean Hirshen’s memorandum this morning helps to clarify the issue, in conspicuously omitting any public institutions from its “Just the Facts” comparisons.[10] We note that the Regents are not bound by what comparable private institutions charge, but rather by what comparable public law schools cost.
Dean Hirshen’s memo does point towards a question regarding how we, as a community, should measure ourselves. It also speaks to a conversation that should be taking place in the sunlight, rather than remaining the unspoken but omnipresent message undergirding the Administration’s response to student interest and action. It appears that Boalt’s administration wishes to remake Berkeley Law in the image of an elite private law school. But this sort of fundamental and philosophical shift should not be undertaken lightly, nor should it be forced upon students through tuition increases. It is not only possible, but also in fact probable, that this student body would rather attend the #1 public law school in America than the #6 private law school. Perhaps our choice to come here was not merely premised on Berkeley Law’s ranking in a national magazine, but rather on our university’s historic and capacious commitment to issues of social justice, engagement with the local and global community, and willingness to encourage students to question and challenge the status quo.
This is a debate worth having, a debate that must occur. But in order to begin such a dialogue, we must at least start from a place where all parties are being honest with one another about the facts. Even BHSA, a representative body that meets with the Boalt Administration on a regular basis, was blindsided by the scope of the proposed fee increases. We urge President Yudof, the Regents, and the Berkeley Law Administration to stop hiding behind disabling rhetoric and start speaking to every UC student and worker in the candid, mutually cooperative, and respectful manner that we deserve.
Berkeley Law Organizing Committee (BLOC)
[1] U.C. Berkeley Law Admissions, FAQs, available at: http://www.law.berkeley.edu/47.htm
[2] UC Office of the President (UCOP), Proposal to the Regents for Approval of 2010-11 Professional School Degree Fees [Proposed Professional Fee Increases],
available at http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/regmeet/nov09/f2.pdf;
[3] Id.
[4] Letter from Admissions Office to entering 1L student.
[5] See UCOP Memo.
[6] N.B. – this is an official title, not a suggestive one.
[7] “Policy on Fees for Selected Professional School Students,” approved January 21, 1994; amended July 2007 and September 2007; available at:
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/policies/6088.html
“Tuition, Scholarships, Financial Aid, and Loans,” Virginia Law website, available at: http://www.law.virginia.edu/html/prospectives/grad/tuition.htm.
[9] “2009-2010 Law School Tuition Rates,” Michigan Law, available at:
http://www.law.umich.edu/currentstudents/financialaid/Pages/tuition.aspx; “Estimated Budget,” Financial Aid, University of Texas at Austin School of Law website, available at: http://www.utexas.edu/law/depts/finaid/costs/.
[10] Communication from Dean Hirshen to Boalt student body, November 17, 2009.
BLOC Open Letter - Print Edition
This letter is in response to the following:
To the Boalt On-Campus Community:
I write to clarify, briefly, the situation regarding tuition, and also to comment on the impending "strike" concerning budget and related matters.
1. Tuition increase of $579. At their meeting this week in Los Angeles the UC Board of Regents will adopt tuition increases for all UC students by raising the so-called "registration and education fees". For Boalt students this will mean a $579 increase in tuition for the spring semester. The San Francisco Chronicle, quite characteristically, wrote a confused story that gave many people the mistaken impression that far larger increases are at issue. Dean Annik Hirschen will distribute more detail.
We have planned a student town hall meeting on tuition and Law School finances, something I do at least once each year. At the recommendation of the Boalt all Student Association, that meeting will take place in January and focus on tuition issues for next academic year and beyond. The meeting will be after exams because the inevitability of this week's action by the Regents has been clear to observers for quite some time. Our focus in January will be monger term. For example, since four years ago Boalt has followed a policy of gradually increasing tuition to more closely approximate that of our peer law schools, both public and private. This revenue has supported the expansion of financial aid and the Loan Repayment Assistance Program, the hiring of additional faculty, the various construction projects you see and hear, and other improvements in the school.
2. Strike. Several groups have called for a UC-wide "strike" on Wednesday and Thursday of this week, coinciding with the Regents' meeting, although not all organizers seem concerned about precisely the same issues, or agreed on any proposed remedies or demands. I hope that Boalt faculty will bear in mind that there will certainly be students who want and expect their classes to meet as scheduled, especially considering the time of the semester. I hope students will bear in mind that the school lacks the facility to record or reschedule classes on a wholesale basis, and in any case it would be inappropriate to have any official program to do so. (This is especially true in light of accreditation requirements for regular classroom hours to ensure attendance.)
Thanks much.
--
Christopher Edley, Jr.
Dean and Orrick Professor of Law
Boalt Hall, U.C. Berkele
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