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Early this morning several dozen students launched a takeover of Wheeler Hall, a building on the University of California’s Berkeley campus. Their occupation is the fifth in the last two days in the UC system, and comes in response to yesterday’s vote by the UC regents to raise student fees by 32%.
Wheeler Hall, which houses a 760-seat auditorium and dozens of classrooms, including many large lecture halls, is one of the most prominent buildings on the Berkeley campus. It has been the site of many student demonstrations in the past, including occupations calling for university divestment from South Africa in 1977 and Israel in 2002.
Police reportedly confronted students as they were attempting to occupy the building, making three arrests and using pepper spray and batons on protesters. A group of students was able to make their way to the second floor, however, and to barricade themselves inside.
The Wheeler occupiers have hung a banner from two upper-story windows that reads “32% FEE HIKE 1900 LAYOFFS NO CLASS.” They have also been using a bullhorn to address students outside the building. Police have cordoned off the entire building at this hour.
9:20 am | Twitter reports from the protesters suggest that there are about three dozen activists inside the building, and that police are attempting to disassemble doors to the rooms that are being occupied.
9:30 am | Another Twitter report, citing sources among the activists currently occupying Wheeler, says that the students arrested this morning have been charged with burglary. Also, the Daily Cal student newspaper is now liveblogging the occupation.
9:45 am | A statement from the UC Berkeley administration says that Wheeler Hall is closed “until further notice.” It confirms that three people have been arrested, including one non-student. The title of the statement is “Protest Action Closes Wheeler Hall.”
9:50 am | Twitterer @ucbprotest writes: “The protesters inside Wheeler Hall demand the janitors jobs be reinstated and the protesters inside and those arrested this morning go free.” Another tweet: “The protestors demands, again, are that the 38 AFSCME workers that were laid off are re-hired, and that the protestors receive amnesty.”
10:00 am | The Daily Cal has a new story up on the occupation. It quotes an organizer as saying that the group entered the building at about nine o’clock last night, not this morning as has been reported elsewhere.
10:55 am | Multiple reports on Twitter that fire alarms have been pulled in one or more buildings around campus.
11:00 am | A newly posted article says that “several hundred” students are gathered in front of Wheeler Hall to support the occupation. Also, a new statement from the occupiers is now online.
11:55 am | The Daily Cal is now reporting that fire alarms went off in five campus buildings this morning, causing all five buildings to be evacuated.
3:15 pm | I’ve been away from the computer for the last three hours, following the situation via Twitter on my iPhone. It appears that the occupation may be moving toward a negotiated settlement, but the situation is still fluid. You can follow my UCWalkout2 Twitter list to see the feeds of fifty activists, journalists, and others involved in the situation, and watch the story there as it develops.
3:20 pm | The occupiers are squelching the idea that any negotiated settlement is imminent.
4:20 pm | The students in Wheeler have been jousting with the administration over the terms and conditions of any negotiations. Meanwhile, the occupation continues, and the outside support action seems to be going strong.
4:50 pm | Word has come via Twitter that UC Davis’ Dutton Hall is now occupied. This is the sixth UC building occupation in two days, and the fourth to be still going simultaneously at this hour.
5:00 pm | A Twitterer inside the occupation suggests that the cops are breaking down the barricades.
5:05 pm | Multiple reports on Twitter of police use of force against demonstrators outside Wheeler.
5:15 pm | Police seem to be arresting the occupiers. I’ll hold off on posting more until I have detailed, confirmed news to report.
5:25 pm | Police are inside the building arresting students.
6:20 pm | Berkeley is saying that forty-one students were arrested at Wheeler tonight. Fifty-two were arrested at UC Davis yesterday, and fourteen at the Regents meeting at UCLA on Wednesday. That’s more than a hundred UC students arrested in budget protests in just three days.
7:30 pm | The occupiers have been given citations, and are being released into the crowd that still surrounds Wheeler. No bail, no trip to the police station, no headaches trying to figure out how to get the arrestees past the outside demonstrators. The occupiers are being released a few at a time, and the first group was released just moments ago.
I’ve just put up a short think piece about the events of the last few days at the University of California, but those events are worth describing in detail — particularly since they’re a long way from over. Here’s what happened yesterday:
The UC Regents, as expected, voted to impose huge fee increase on undergraduate and graduate students in the university. These new fees represent a tripling of undergraduate costs in the last decade, and a 50% jump since 2007.
After the vote students at UCLA surrounded Covel Hall, where the meeting had taken place, trapping the regents inside. When a group of regents tried to leave campus students surrounded their van, forcing them to retreat to a nearby building. It would be nearly three hours before they, and UC president Mark Yudof, were able to make their escape.
Even before the vote students had occupied two buildings in the UC system, and the afternoon saw two more takeovers.
Fifty-two students were arrested Thursday night at Mrak Hall, the UC Davis administration building, after they defied police orders to clear the building. One local media source said this morning that “dozens” of those arrested were held overnight.
Students at UC Santa Cruz had occupied Kresge Town Hall, an auditorium, on Wednesday evening, and on Thursday they expanded their action to include Kerr Hall, an administration building. Students in Kerr released a 35-point list of demands on Thursday night, and both occupations were apparently still ongoing as of early this morning.
At UCLA itself an occupation generated some controversy, as activists took over Campbell Hall, a building that houses tutoring facilities and services for students of color on campus, in the early morning hours before the regents’ vote. An article in the Daily Bruin suggested that the takeover was initiated primarily by non-UCLA students, and that local and non-local activists disagreed about the wisdom of occupying that building. The Campbell occupation ended peacefully last night with no arrests.
Afternoon update: The Campbell Hall occupiers have issued a response to their critics, and it’s well worth reading. You can find it here.
Yesterday’s events broke through into the national media in a way that student protests rarely do, gaining major coverage at CNN, the New York Times, and USA Today.
8:00 am | Several dozen students have apparently barricaded themselves inside Wheeler Hall in Berkeley, making that the fifth building occupation in the UC system in the last two days.
There is always more activism happening on the American campus than outside observers can see. Even during quiet times, students organize day in and day out on all sorts of issues in all sorts of campaigns, changing their universities and the society in all sorts of ways.
And these are not quiet times.
The University of California Regents’ decision to raise student fees was made long ago, and no student organizing effort was ever going to alter it. But the amount of student protest on display yesterday — the depth and breadth of students’ commitment to their cause — must have come as a shock. The reverberations of that explosion of passion and power are being felt this morning in Sacramento, in Washington DC, and on campuses and in government offices from coast to coast.
Even if California had been quiet for the last few days, this week would still have been a dramatic one for American student activists. On Tuesday United Students Against Sweatshops won a stunning victory in their yearlong campaign for worker justice at campus apparel manufacturer Russell Athletic, even as research assistants and teaching assistants at the University of Illinois Chicago concluded a two-day strike that guaranteed the preservation of tuition waivers for graduate student workers there — a major win on tuition policy in a year that has until now been marked by defeats.
Each of these victories is significant on its own merits, and each reflects the growing strength and savvy of American student organizing in our time of national crisis. Either would have been the lead story at this site in an ordinary week.
This was no ordinary week.
studentactivism.net 
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