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Eight people, including at least two Berkeley students, were arrested last night near the residence of university chancellor Robert Birgeneau.

A university statement claimed that a group of more than forty people stormed the residence, smashing windows, lights, and planters. Officials also said that “incendiary objects” were thrown at the house and at police.

Photographs posted at the Daily Cal, Berkeley’s student newspaper, showed several broken planters and a shattered window. An Associated Press report said that four lights had been smashed and that a second window was boarded up this morning.

In the statement released this morning, Birgeneau said that those arrested last night would be “prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and urged “the majority of the group who have been expressing their point of view in nonviolent ways to condemn the actions of these few individuals.”

I posted some thoughts on the use of vandalism as a protest tactic earlier today.

2:00 pm | Someone at Occupy California has posted a lengthy account of (and defense of) last night’s riot. I’ve written a separate post in response to it.

6:00 pm | Several leaders of the UC Berkeley student protest movement are quoted in the Daily Cal repudiating the riot.

6:20 pm | The LA Times reports that four of the eight arrestees were UC students — two from Berkeley and two from Davis. All eight are reportedly still in custody on bail of $132,000 each.

6:45 pm | A press release on the events of last night has been posted at liveweek.net, the website of the Wheeler Hall open university. The whole thing is worth reading, but here are some highlights:

A Live Week organizer is quoted as saying that “regardless of what one thinks about the events of last night,” they must be understood in “the context of the physical violence inflicted by police on student activists and the broader assault on public education.” The press release quotes witnesses as saying that police arrested individuals who were “trying to leave because things were getting out of hand,” and that some arrestees were simply “in the wrong place at the wrong time.” It also says that one arrestee is an independent journalist who was filming the demonstration and police response when he was taken into custody.

Last week I got a heads-up about a budget teach-in at the University of Massachusetts Boston that was put together by the folks at Massachusetts Students Uniting (Facebook and Twitter).

I asked for links so I could add it to the map, but there wasn’t any media coverage so one of the participants wrote up an account just for us. Here are some excerpts, lightly edited:

Longtime readers of this site have probably noticed that I don’t often offer negative judgments of the organizing efforts I cover here. If I’m impressed by a project, I’ll sometimes say so. If I’ve got specific constructive criticisms, I’ll occasionally offer them. If I disapprove, I’ll usually keep my opinions to myself.

There are a few reasons for this. I’m usually observing events at a distance, and I’m well aware of the perils of relying on second-hand data. I also recognize that situations are complex. I’m not quick to judge, even privately, and I figure you’re all capable of making up your own minds.

Having said all that, though, I do want to talk briefly about some of the judgments I do make.

The last three and a half weeks have been an extraordinary moment in the history of American student activism. Buildings have been occupied, and often barricaded. More than two hundred campus activists have been arrested. Police have used violence against students with a frequency and intensity that are deeply troubling.

The fall semester is almost over, but the spring is coming soon, and there’s little indication that it will be a quiet one. We’re most likely going to be seeing some turmoil on the campuses in the months to come, and I’m most likely going to be reporting on it, so I want to make a few things about my position, and this site’s position, clear:

First, I’m morally opposed to the use of physical violence as an activist tactic. I don’t believe in throwing things at cops. I don’t believe in manhandling security guards. Hell, I don’t even believe in pie-ing people.

Second, I think that destruction of property is usually a really bad idea. It’s clear that vandalism is deeply unpopular among students and non-students alike. If an action causes significant property damage, that fact will be used as an effective weapon against other activists. Is destruction of property immoral? Buy me a beer and give me a specific example, and we’ll debate it as long as you like. Is it stupid? In almost every case, yes, I believe it’s deeply stupid.

And if you damage property in such a way as to risk causing physical harm to someone, that’s both stupid and immoral, in my book. If you throw a rock at a window in the course of a protest, you’re telling me that you’re willing to put shards of glass into someone’s face, because there’s no way to throw a rock at a window in the heat of a protest without risking someone getting hurt.

And if you’re willing to take that risk, you and I aren’t on the same side.

Edited for clarity after posting.

A short time ago I received a copy of a letter that UC Berkeley professor Catherine Cole sent to university administrators in the wake of this morning’s arrests at Wheeler Hall. I am reprinting it with her permission:

Dear Chancellor Birgeneau and EVCP Breslauer,

I am writing with this urgent request regarding today’s arrest of students at Wheeler Hall. I don’t know why these arrests have happened when it had appeared earlier this week that the organizers of this “soft” occupation/open university had worked so carefully with the administration and police  to have this event sanctioned through Friday. I understand from the news report in the SF Chronicle today that the administration was worried about a public event scheduled for tonight. I hope that all efforts for a rational and civil negotiation with students about those concerns were not only attempted but exhausted before armed police invaded the building this morning and conducted mass arrests of our students who were at the time either sleeping, studying, or writing papers, and then carted off to jail.

Urgently, I am asking that those arrested be cited and released. The administration and UCB will gain no ground by overreacting and holding them in jail, but will rather add fuel to the fire of those who feel the administration does not care about and respect our students, and does not perceive the way in which our students–the best and brightest of their generation, the future leaders of our state and nation–can be enlisted as critical and necessary collaborators in the fight to save public higher education. The UC will not benefit by garnering more stories in the national media like this article from December 4 Newsweek: “Whether you’re an oppressive foreign dictatorship or an American state in the process of committing fiscal suicide, you know you’re losing the public relations battle when encounters between armor-clad riot police with truncheons and college students are broadcast on TV. That’s the sad situation California found itself in last week.”

The UCB administration keeps repeating the line that we should be “shooting outward, not inward.” If I’m not mistaken, the only entity in the crises of the last few months that has done any actual shooting has been the police who aimed significant weaponry at unarmed student protesters in November, which presumably they did with the sanction of our administration.  Those involved in this week’s Wheeler event, the Open University, had very different aims than shooting. They were seeking to build a sense of community and ownership about our university among students, staff and faculty. They transformed unoccupied spaces (those not being used for scheduled classes, study sessions and events) into alternate learning spaces for lectures, planning sessions, film screenings, etc.  Their manifesto: “This university is yours!  We shift competition to cooperation.  We replace stress and anxiety with compassion and joy.  We transform the traditional balance of power of this institution to create an education that includes the interests, concerns, and passions of all of us, and embodies the true ideal of democracy. It’s time to reinvent public education together, So come one, come all to your university!” Organizers of the Open University created a labor rotation among them for custodial duties, for they planned to leave the building cleaner than when they found it, a plan no doubt thwarted by this morning’s sudden arrests. For a perspective from a scholar of student activism on how the Wheeler Open University was being perceived nationally and internationally see this blog.

I attended and participated in two events at the Open University this week, including yesterday’s talk by Prof. Charlie Schwartz which had an unusual attendance of both students and faculty who were there as active, engaged co-learners.  I also presented yesterday on the ways in which protest in the early years of the anti-apartheid struggle was always perceived as a negotiation, one that addressed all participants (from radical leftists to the most extreme supporters of apartheid) as capable of change and rational discourse. “We believed that all men, even prison warders, were capable of change, and we did our utmost to sway them,” says Mandela in his autobiography.

If the administration takes this higher ground, you will be more likely to harness the formidable energies of the over 3.5 million students (most of whom are California voters) enrolled in public higher education in our state (UC=220K, CSU=440K, CC’s=2.8+ million). If I’m not mistaken, that’s roughly 10% of our state’s electorate. This constituency is a formidable–and necessary–ally in the fight to save our university. Treat them that way. Please.

Sincerely,

Catherine Cole

Professor, UC Berkeley

Pittsburgh’s mayor has given the city’s universities an ultimatum: Cough up five million dollars by Monday, or we’ll start taxing your students on Wednesday.

Pittburgh, which is facing a $15 million budget deficit for the coming year, is attempting to close that gap by doing something no American city has ever done before — tax college tuition. Mayor Luke Ravenstahl proposal for a one percent annual tax has drawn strong opposition from Pittsburgh’s student community, but it appears to have the support of five of the nine members of the city council.

Pittsburgh’s universities have said that they will not consider increasing their voluntary donations to the city until the tuition tax is taken off the table. The first of two council votes required to implement the tax is scheduled for this Wednesday.