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First the students rose up. Then everybody rose up.
Half a million people are marching in London today against Conservative-LibDem plans for massive cuts in government services. The government’s budget drew little protest when it was originally announced, but public opposition has grown in the wake of a series of huge, high-profile student demonstrations.
I’ll be liveblogging today’s demos, so be sure to check back. For starters, you can watch live coverage from BBC News here and get reports directly from the scene via the #March26 Twitter hashtag.
2:30 pm London time | Liveblogs from the Guardian and Telegraph newspapers.
3:30 pm | Okay, so it turns out I’m livetweeting today much more than liveblogging it. Follow me at @studentactivism if you’re interested in my take.
Twenty-seven faculty members from the City University of New York were arrested in a budget protest at the New York state capitol yesterday, along with six CUNY students.
The thirty-three were participating in a joint CUNY/SUNY protest organized by the Professional Staff Congress, a faculty union. The governor’s proposed budget slashes funding to New York’s two public higher education systems by $170 million.
Last night students at UC Davis went back to Mrak Hall, where 52 people were arrested last Thursday, and launched the week’s eighth UC building occupation.
This takeover was shorter than several of its predecessors, but dramatic — it was the first in this wave of occupations to end with a written commitment by the administration to honor a set of protest demands.
The students began the occupation with a lengthy list of demands, but negotiated a suspension of the occupation on the basis of five: the university committed to conducting a review of one previous campus arrest, to urging the district attorney to “strongly consider … not filing charges” against the 52 Thursday arrestees, to dropping any disciplinary action against those students, to pursuing “further discussion” about co-op housing on campus based on “a mutual desire to promote sustainable, affordable cooperative living facilities,” and to holding “further discussions on all other demands with a representative group, as early as Monday, November 30.”
There’s nothing earth-shattering here, of course, but it’s still significant in at least three ways.
First, it gives students throughout the UC system a precedent for negotiated settlement of an occupation. There has been some resistance to that approach from both sides in the last week — from students who conducted “demandless” occupations, and from administrators who refused to enter into dialogue. Last night’s agreement affirms that negotiation is a live option in this series of actions.
Second, it provides a template for such negotiations. The Davis administration’s biggest concession was its agreement to forego disciplinary action against the Thursday demonstrators (and, implicitly, against last night’s demonstrators as well). That concession sets up amnesty as an achievable demand in future occupations.
Third, it opens up ongoing negotiations on local campus issues. A single university’s administrators have no direct power to roll back fees or reform the UC board of regents — such demands are aimed at off campus targets, and winning full victories on them is not a project for a single day. But local concessions can be won in a single action, and ongoing negotiations are a mechanism for refining and sharpening such demands to the point that more substantive victories become more likely.
In the NYU and New School occupations of 2008-09, those universities’ administrations shifted away from negotiation and toward punitive legal action as the students’ campaigns developed. The resolution of yesterday’s Mrak Hall occupation is the strongest evidence yet that the University of California is now moving in the opposite direction.
Update | Here is the UC Davis administration’s official statement on the occupation. Note that it describes the takeover as beginning with a study-in at eight o’clock yesterday morning, that it says that 150 demonstrators were present in Mrak at the end of the night, and that it strikes a conciliatory, respectful tone throughout. Note also that it binds the university to a new commitment beyond the five agreed to last night — the presence of Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi at a meeting with students next Monday.
Second Update | Commenter Cynthia D. notes that the Monday student meeting with the chancellor is actually a long-planned, regularly scheduled event. She also has a perspective on the administration’s behavior during the occupation that’s worth reading, so click through and read it.
Third Update | The Yolo County District Attorney announced on Friday that charges against 51 of the 52 Mrak Hall demonstrators have been dropped, with the only exception being the student charged with assault and resisting arrest. This is obviously a further victory for the second occupation.
Fourth Update | The third update above, based on a report from a local news station’s website, is inaccurate. Charges against the Mrak 51 have not been dropped, they’ve just been set aside, and they can be re-instated at any time in the next year.
The web journal Inside Higher Ed is a go-to source for anyone interested in the American university. Founded in 2004 as a competitor to the well-regarded but stodgy Chronicle of Higher Education, IHE is an indespensible daily guide to the nation’s campuses.
So why isn’t it covering the biggest student story of the year?
We’re now five days into the wave of student protest that has engulfed California since the UC regents approved huge fee increases for their system’s students. Since then thousands have demonstrated on campuses across the state, often clashing with police. Six university buildings at five universities have been occupied. More than a hundred students have been arrested. And IHE has given the story a total of four words.
“As students protested outside, the University of California’s Board of Regents on Thursday reluctantly approved a 32 percent increase in ‘fees’ …” That’s how the IHE opened a one-paragraph piece on the fee increases in its “Quick Takes” section on Friday. That one clause, “as students protested outside,” was the only mention of student organizing in the piece, and the IHE has yet to return to the topic.
At the time the IHE put up that story, students had taken over four UC buildings in response to the fee hikes. Three of those occupations were still ongoing as of Friday morning, and the fourth had ended with mass arrests. Fourteen students had been arrested within the regents meeting itself, and several — despite UCLA’s initial denials — had been Tasered by campus police during the demonstrations that accompanied it. After the meeting, students blockaded the building in which it had been held, blocking the regents’ exit and at one point compelling them to abandon the van in which they were attempting to leave campus.
Since Friday morning, IHE has covered a lawsuit filed by a woman who was fired by the University of Nebraska when they learned she was a witch. It has published a lengthy piece on academic plagiarism. It has written about a physical fitness requirement for obese students at Lincoln University and an athletics director who quit after applying for reimbursement for expenses relating to an extramarital affair. It has run two stories on tax issues.
But on the largest student uprising in recent American history? Nothing so far.
Now, granted, it’s Sunday, and IHE generally doesn’t publish on the weekends. Only one of the stories I list above went up yesterday, and that one was a blog post. But as I say, this was a huge story by Friday morning, and it only got bigger as that day went on.
I’ll be eager to see what they have on it tomorrow.
Monday morning update | Well, it’s tomorrow, and IHE has a 108-word “Quick Takes” story up reporting on Friday’s events at three universities.
The piece makes no mention of the 52 arrests at UC Davis on Thursday, and declares that UCSC’s Kerr Hall “remains occupied,” even though that occupation ended on Sunday morning. Meanwhile, the journal finds room for 645 words on the end of football at Northeastern.
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.
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