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Seven of the nine students who “occupied” a high ledge on the face of Berkeley’s Wheeler Hall last month have been charged with trespassing.
The Wheeler ledge action was the first Berkeley protest in recent memory to end in a negotiated settlement with the university, as administrators agreed to drop conduct charges against students who had participated in previous protests … and to forego such charges against the ledge protesters themselves.
But although Berkeley’s chief of police apparently promised one student that he would recommend against criminal charges, that promise was not part of the formal agreement. The students were cited and released when they came down off the ledge, and misdemeanor charges of “trespass with intent to interfere” were brought yesterday.
The seven students who now face charges have previously been arrested in Berkeley protests. The other two, who have not been arrested in the past, were not charged.
See my previous post on the ledge occupation for more on that action.
The students occupying a building at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities have made it through their first night, and they’ve released a list of demands:
Because we are residents of Minnesota, and because this is a public, land-grant university,
We demand the right to peacefully occupy space at our university,
We demand that the general public has reasonable access to university resources;
We demand that the university respect the rights of all workers to organize and to earn at least a living wage;
We demand tuition and fee reductions;
We demand that regents be democratically elected by the university community;
We demand that the university treat student groups fairly and equitably with respect to funding and space. We demand student groups on the 2nd floor of Coffman Union be able to keep their spaces.
In doing so, we stand in solidarity with the people of Wisconsin, and students and workers worldwide.
More soon…
NPR is reporting that Northern Arizona University has installed ID card scanners at some lecture halls so that student attendance in large classes can be taken automatically. Apparently NAU is the first college in the country to do this.
I’m no opponent, in principle, of taking attendance in college, though I know many student activists are. In my view, class participation can be a legitimate component of a student’s grade, and you can’t participate if you’re not present. (Beyond that, I do think that it’s a professor’s prerogative to discourage absenteeism by taking attendance, even if it’s only to save some students from themselves.)
But I’ve got a few concerns about this scheme.
First, it seems to me that college attendance is nowhere less important than in huge lecture classes. A lecture is by definition non-interactive — in many cases, a student will get as much from listening to a friend’s recording of a class session as she would by sitting through the class itself. So why shouldn’t that be a legitimate option? Why should a student be penalized for that?
Second, this kind of automated attendance system invites abuse. As a professor, my belief is that the way to keep cheating out of my classroom is to raise the stakes. I organize my classes so that cheating is difficult, catching cheaters is easy, the ethical ramifications of cheating are obvious, and the consequences of cheating are severe. But because these scanners fail to meet any of those standards, they may invite students to see gaming the system as no big deal.
There are a bunch of reasons why students skip class, and a bunch of ways to discourage them from doing so. But the more I think about this particular one, the less I like it.
What’s your take? When should profs take attendance? Is this a legitimate way to do it?
In a letter to the campus community released yesterday, University of Arizona president Robert N. Shelton declares that the passage of SB 1070, Arizona’s new immigration enforcement law, raises “troubling questions about how SB 1070 will affect the University’s international community.”
“The health and safety of our international students, faculty and professional staff are priorities of the highest order for us,” Shelton says, “and … we intend to put in place whatever procedures are necessary to ensure their safety and free movement on campus and in our community.” He further pledges to “do everything possible to ensure that these students continue to feel welcomed and respected, despite the unmistakably negative message that this bill sends to many of them.”
Shelton says he has already received word that several out-of-state students — every one of them an honors student — will be transferring to other universities as a result of the bill’s passage. “This should,” he says, “sadden anyone who cares about attracting the best and brightest students to Arizona.”
The University of Arizona police department will, he says, “be receiving extensive training” on SB 1070, and will be instructed “that individuals may not be stopped solely on the basis of race, color or national origin.” But while he is, he says, “completely confident that no one need fear the way that UAPD will approach the application of this law, I nevertheless appreciate the anxiety that friends and colleagues are feeling. It is a concern and fear that no one should have to harbor.”
He closes the letter by saying that the state Board of Regents “will be discussing the implications of SB1070” at its meeting this week.
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.
studentactivism.net 
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