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.

The student occupation of Berkeley’s Wheeler Hall has been going on peacefully since Monday. There have been no locked doors, no barricades, no threats or counter-threats, just an open public space. Earlier in the week it was announced that the university had agreed to let the occupation continue through today.

All of which makes this a huge surprise.

Reports from two generally reliable sources on Twitter  say that police raided Wheeler Hall less than an hour ago, sometime around 5 o’clock Friday morning, California time, arresting those inside.

6:00 am update | In an article published just yesterday on a local TV station’s website, UC Berkeley spokesperson Dan Mogulof said that the university had decided “to give [the students] a room or two” in Wheeler rather than rousting them. In the same article, a member of the occupation pledged that the students would leave the building before the start of finals Saturday.

6:30 am | Confirmation from a news reporter and a student on the scene that students have been removed from Wheeler Hall by police. The student is streaming video, though the feed is choppy for me.

6:55 am | A local reporter says that eighty students are being arrested at Wheeler. If true, this would bring the total number of students arrested in California campus protests this semester to well over two hundred.

7:00 am | I have seen no reports of violence at Berkeley this morning. Also no indication why the university is arresting now — four days after the start of the occupation, and one day before some or all occupiers had planned to end their protest voluntarily.

7:15 am | Again: throughout the course of this occupation, reports from multiple sources have indicated that the students intended to leave Wheeler Hall tonight or early tomorrow, in advance of the start of finals. The occupation’s website, which has posted detailed schedules for each day’s events, lists nothing after tomorrow morning. Given all that, the question of why the university chose to conduct mass arrests today — particularly so early this morning — is a big one.

7:40 am | This local news report states that students who participated in November’s Wheeler Hall occupation were singled out for arrest this morning, and that others inside Wheeler were given the opportunity to leave without arrest. If this is confirmed, it shines quite a bit of light on the strategy behind this pre-dawn raid.

7:55 am | Those of you who haven’t been following the story of this week’s Wheeler Hall occupation may want to take a look at the list of events that had been scheduled for today. It included a review session for an Arabic language class, teach-ins on student and labor organizing issues, a documentary screening, and a workshop on prison reform.

8:10 am | UC Berkeley spokesperson Dan Mogulof tells the San Francisco Chronicle that police began making arrests at 4:40 this morning, waking sleeping protesters to do so. He says that the decision to arrest was prompted by plans for a hip-hop concert and dance party scheduled for this evening. Mogulof puts the number arrested at 65, 41 of them students.

8:20 am | An unconfirmed report on Twitter says that 42 of the 65 arrested were UC Berkeley students, and that the others included students from UC Davis, UC San Diego, and San Francisco State.

8:40 am | A question for university administrators and reporters: If the reason that the occupation had to be ended now was the possibility that some students might not leave the building at the end of tonight’s concert, why weren’t those inside given the option of walking out without arrest this morning?

9:50 am | Here are some photos from earlier this morning, posted to Twitter by @_peej. (The photo at the top of this post comes from that set.)

10:20 am | Activists are telling supporters to meet at Wheeler Hall at 11:30 for a march to California Hall and noon rally.

10:50 am | The administration has released a lengthy statement regarding this morning’s arrests. That statement puts the number arrested at 66 — 65 within Wheeler Hall, and one more outside. It reiterates the argument that tonight’s scheduled concert was the goad for this morning’s intervention, and implies that attempts to negotiate the cancellation of the concert failed. It does not state, however, whether the university asked for or received assurances that the occupation would end before the start of finals at nine o’clock tomorrow morning.

The statement calls the occupation “largely non-disruptive,” and notes that the occupiers took steps to “ensure that their activities would not conflict with classroom review sessions” scheduled for Wheeler Hall this week. It also notes in passing that today’s review sessions have been moved to another location — although the student occupiers of Wheeler permitted open access to the building all week, the police occupiers are not.

Also significant: The statement makes no claims of vandalism or of messes left behind in Wheeler Hall, despite the fact that the student occupiers were woken from their sleep to be arrested. It appears that the occupiers made good on their assurances that they would keep the place clean and in good repair while they were inside.

11:10 am | A Daily Cal story on the arrests adds new details. It passes on a university spokesperson’s statement that only eight of the 66 arrestees”had been previously cited for similar actions,” and quotes him as saying that “it is expected that those without prior arrests with simply be cited and released.” The eight who had previously been arrested, he says, “might have to post bail.”

11:30 am | A Berkeley instructor has posted on Twitter that she was scheduled to give a final in Wheeler Hall this afternoon, but because the police have locked down the building, the test has been moved. Again, the student occupiers ensured that the building would remain open to all, but the university has not.

11:45 am | Berkeley professor Catherine Cole has sent UC administrators a wonderful letter in support of the students arrested this morning. It’s really a must-read.

11:50 am | The student occupiers have released a statement on this morning’s arrests. It begins by referring to today as “the fifth and final day” of the Open University occupation of Wheeler Hall. More quotes:

“People were not given a final warning – police burst in while people were sleeping and immediately started locking doors and arresting people. Many students have papers due today, and finals to take starting tomorrow,” said Elias Martinez, an undergraduate from Political Science. “There had been cops in here all week, they were acting like it was okay. We had no idea.”

Douglas Virgos, an undergraduate student, spent the night in the UC Berkeley building but then left on a food run in the early morning. “I got back and saw that the police had put handcuffs on the doors. I was there all night and never heard police tell us we had to leave.”

The week of events was scheduled to end with a free concert in Wheeler Hall, where the Oakland-based political hip hop artist, Boots Riley, would perform tonight. “We are going to proceed with the event today, and this show will be larger than ever. We’ll continue to organize with students from other schools and build a worldwide movement of students fighting to retain and expand public education,” said a student who didn’t want to give their name for fear or university reprisals. “The police attack only makes us angrier.”

1:30 pm | Berkeley protest Twitterer @ucbprotest says that bail has been set at $25,000 for fifteen of those arrested.

2:10 pm | The AP has a big article on the arrests up, and it’s pretty sympathetic to the students’ perspective.

5:10 pm | Twitterer @ucbprotest is reporting that 64 out of the 66 students arrested this morning have been released without bail, and that the university acted to secure their release in response to student and faculty pressure. He also reports that tonight’s scheduled concert, which was to be held at Wheeler Hall, will take place at another location. Those interested in attending should meet at 7:30 this evening at the steps of Wheeler, and the group will march to the concert from there.

5:20 pm | An article in the Berkeley Daily Planet contains a very interesting exchange between university spokesperson Dan Mogulof and occupation participant Jeremy Bernes. In a public exchange this afternoon, Mogulof said that the administration had tried and failed to get Zak Solomon, a representative of the protesters, to agree to cancel the concert. But Bernes put that refusal in context. “We did want to hold the party,” he said, “but I’m sure that Zak conveyed the sentiment that all of us had expressed — we would guarantee that Wheeler would be clean and functional by 6 am, well before final exams on Saturday morning.”

Saturday morning | It has been confirmed that only 61 of the 66 arrestees were released without bail. One of the remaining five was on felony probation, and the rest were not California residents, and thus apparently regarded as flight risks. None of the five were Berkeley students, and none of the five had been released as of yesterday evening.

In other news, eight people were arrested for rioting and attacking the home of the UC Berkeley chancellor at midnight last night. Only two of the eight were Berkeley students.

Coverage of the Berkeley situation will continue in a new Student Activism article to be posted this morning.

It’s an all-too-familiar story — a campus newspaper publishes an opinion piece by a male student that jokes about date rape. Feminists react with outrage. The story’s author claims “satire.”

But this story has a twist.

Read the rest of this entry »

With the occupation of Berkeley’s Wheeler Hall entering its third day, students across the bay have launched their own action this morning.

According to a local news report, students at San Francisco State University entered the university’s Business Building at about five o’clock this morning, barricading themselves in. The student activist website Occupy California says that there are more than thirty students inside the building, with another fifty supporters gathered outside.

There are no reports of arrests or violence.

This is at least the thirteenth building occupation to take place in California this semester, and (to my knowledge) the first to be staged at SFSU.

More news as I get it, and thanks to the National Student News Service for the heads-up.

Update: 10:45 am California time | The occupation is still going on. All of today’s scheduled classes on the Business Building have been cancelled. Local news station KRON reports that students occupying the building have scuffled with other students attempting to enter, and that university administrators “say they have no plans to confront the protesters.”

11:20 am | A new @occupysfsu Twitter account has appeared. Here’s their first tweet, apparently from within the occupation:

“reclaiming sf state, starting with the business building, We Are Still Here. keep holdin’ down the outside, we’ll hold down the inside”

11:25 am | They’ve got a blog, too.

7:00 pm | The SFSU occupiers released a list of demands earlier this afternoon, and the first one on the list lets you know they’re aiming high: “We demand … that the imperialist wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Gaza are ended, and that money is used to feed and clothe the poor.”

All right then.

And yeah, there are thirty more demands on the list. Doesn’t look like they’ll be leaving voluntarily anytime soon.

4:30 am Thursday | There was a report on Twitter half an hour ago that police were breaking through the barricades, but there’s been no follow-up since.

5:40 am | The SFSU student news outfit Golden Gate [X]Press is reporting on Twitter that police have cleared both the occupation and a street protest that took place nearby as the building was being entered. Cops say they made thirty arrests, and that other than a window they broke to gain access to the building, there’s “no known damage.”

8:15 am | This local news report says 23 arrests were made inside the building, and ten more among protesters gathered outside. This report from the Golden Gate [X]Press says that eleven were arrested outside the building, including five who were attempting to stop police vans from removing the protesters who had been arrested inside. A 7 am statement from the university said that the building had already been reopened, and that all scheduled classes would be held as usual.

5:30 pm | The Golden Gate [X]Press has a roundup of media coverage of the protest.