**Uncivil Procedure Exclusive** Chancellor's Statement on 12/11/2009

PDF version.

Impact Statement from Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau and Mrs. Birgeneau

[caption id="attachment_214" align="alignleft" width="172" caption="The Chancellor prepares for battle."][/caption]

On the evening of December 11, 2009, just after 11:00 p.m. a mob of some 40 to 100 rioters, masked and carrying torches, carried out a violent assault on University House, which is the official residence of the Chancellor and his wife. The mob of masked rioters had rampaged through the streets of Berkeley, where they picked up prefabricated, accelerant-laced torches, lit them and proceeded to attack our home. Mary Catherine and I were on the second floor of the building when we heard a cacophony that was reminiscent of the noise in a full scale battle as portrayed in many war movies. Trapped on the second floor, we felt in severe physical danger as the mob, having smashed exterior light fixtures, attempted to break into our home by smashing through windows and attempting to set fire to the house.

The mob pulled down a Christmas wreath from the front door and attempted to light it on fire and lodged torches into the trees and shrubbery surrounding our home. They attempted to break into the house by ramming the front door with a garbage can and smashing through the front windows with their feet and other objects, possibly including large terra cotta planter pots which they broke. There was an extremely flammable Christmas tree just inside the front door. The windows were assaulted with such force that part of one interior wooden window frame was dislodged and glass from one of the windows sprayed five feet into the house. Mary Catherine and I felt terrorized.

We feared that this violent attack would continue to escalate as the rioters attacked the police vehicle that arrived on the scene after our call for help. Rioters attacked the officers, throwing lighted torches at their vehicle, and volatile embers entered through the open windows.

The attack received national and international media coverage and created immense anxiety for our safety and for our immediate families, including our four children and Mary Catherines two brothers and her 100 year old mother in Canada.

Following the attack, at least two persons, one seemingly deranged, came to University House in, the next days, urged on in their minds by the rioters’ actions.

The University has suffered damage, not only in the cost of many thousands of dollars of destruction to University property, and the additional security now required for University House, but sadly, to Berkeley’s reputation. The negative publicity associated with this violent assault has far outweighed any good which has derived from the peaceful student protests on campus.

Mary Catherine and I are still shaken by the fact that these acts were committed intentionally, with malice and reckless disregard for possible consequences to our safety and well-being.

Those who were at the scene, even if they were not explicitly involved in the assault, provided moral support to these violent actions and by wearing masks and carrying torches encouraged and ratified the mob’s violent and destructive conduct.

Yours sincerely,

Robert J. Birgeneau

On the night I chose not to die . . .

On the night I chose not to die…

I was a woman of color. On the night I chose not to die, I fought with anger and determination, and finally fell asleep with a satisfied smile born not from my own sheltered existence, but from the momentary dissolving of the reality of privilege. That night I watched the hordes of college students exiting the bars and dispersing, walking past those of us confronting police in the streets as if it was simply none of their business. That is the privilege you describe, which has no place in this movement.

Who was left? Who made it their business? If you were there, if you dared approach the dancefloor and “battlefield” of the streets, you’d know what we “looked” like.

And yet according to your fairytale of homogeneity and privilege, on the morning after “I chose not to die,” according to you, I woke up a white man. Let me tell you… NO I DIDN’T!

It’s as though all the work I’ve done, the lifetime of daily struggle, of people acting as if I was naturally inferior and practically invisible, is a waste of my time. Because the people I also struggle for, among others, could flippantly assert that now, because I fight alongside my white brothers and sisters, I have no identity, no history, and no color of my own.

~~~

To the author of the “Open Letter to a White Student Movement,” we respond:

Read the entire statement at Occupy California.

"as more people joined the march and joined the destruction of capital"

Berkeley, CA – In Sproul Plaza of UC Berkeley, hundreds gathered for a dance party that began around 10pm on Thursday, February 25. At the peak of the party (around 12am) the 250 people dancing surrounded the loudspeakers as together they moved farther into campus. As we approached Durant Hall, a building currently being renovated, people began handing out communiques. We began to see a yellow light glow from inside the second story windows of the building, and then silhouettes of dozens of occupiers emerged. They rigged a few banners across the front of the building and descended to join the party.

Read more.

A Letter to the UC Berkeley Community Concerning Ongoing Prosecutions of Student Activists

Reprinted from a Facebook post.

We're writing to let you know about some disturbing actions the Office of Student Conduct at UC Berkeley has recently taken in prosecuting approximately one hundred student activists, including ourselves. Those facing prosecutions are alleged to have participated in at least one of three non-violent actions that occurred on campus last fall, including the reclamation of Wheeler Hall on November 20th. For our participation in this event, we are being charged with violating a number of regulations from the University Code of Conduct, the most serious being 321c, Physical Abuse. This regulation reads in full:

"No person on University property or at official University functions may engage in physical abuse including but not limited to sexual assault, sex offenses, and other physical assault; threats of violence; or other conduct that threatens the health or safety of any person."

The emptiness of Liberal morality:

Or why non-violence discourse is destructive.

There is a growing commentary critiquing the blind discursive commitment to non-violence that permeates many aspects of on-campus resistance in California. FN1 In the wake of the assaults on Chancellor Birgeneau's on-campus mansion, the hegemony of non-violent discourse was threatened and some insight into where constituent interests lie was provided.

On the one hand, we have an administration committed to violence -- monolithic in its hierarchy and monopolization of force. On the other, is a loose consortium of students, faculty, and workers with some intersecting interests and goals. The former, the administration, has a clear goal: to support the privatization agenda being forced down the student/worker/faculty throat by any means necessary. The latter group has no unified 'plan,' 'goal,' or consensus about what is possible.


Eight Arrested After Attack on Chancellor's House

By Javier Panzar
Daily Californian
Contributing Writer
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Category: News > University > Student Life

Several dozen individuals, some wielding torches, marched on UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau's home on the north side of campus early Saturday morning at about midnight, in what police said was an attack where damage was done to the home and several torches were thrown at police officers responding to the scene.

As three extinguished torches lay on the scene, eight people were arrested--including two UC Berkeley students. One of the six non-students had been arrested Friday morning at the occupation of Wheeler Hall, according to UCPD Lt. Adan Tejada. Those arrested have been charged with rioting, while further charges have yet to be determined for those who attacked police.

Read More.

SF Chronicle Article

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.

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

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

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