Inside Higher Ed Is Silent on UC’s Wave of Student Activism

November 22, 2009 in Access, Campus Protests, Finances, Media, Student Power, Tuition and Fees | by | 5 comments

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.

Student Protests and Building Occupations at UC Santa Cruz

November 22, 2009 in Access, Administration, Campus Protests, Police, Student Power, Students | by | Leave a comment

It’s seven thirty on Sunday morning in California, and news is beginning to roll in from the two building occupations at UC Santa Cruz.

There were  reports last night that the UCSC campus had been locked down, and claims that the police were planning to retake Kerr Hall and Kresge Town hall at midnight, but that deadline, real or imaginary, came and went without incident. Twitter reports this morning suggest that preparations for police action may be underway, though.

Another tidbit recently posted on Twitter is the news that UCSC professor Bettina Aptheker is planning to enter occupied Kerr Hall. No confirmation on that one either, yet, but Aptheker has made public statements in support of the activists. “I don’t understand why we’re afraid of students,” she said on Friday, reminding the university the protesters are committed to nonviolence.

Kresge Town Hall has been occupied since Wednesday night, and Kerr Hall since Thursday. The occupiers initially released a flamboyant 35-point list of demands, but on Friday they trimmed that back to a more moderate — and shorter — list.

Administrators turned off internet access to Kerr Hall on Friday evening, but communication with the outside world, previously minimal, picked up on Saturday anyway. One student on the scene kept up an ongoing liveblog Saturday evening, and as many as half a dozen Twitterers on the campus have been providing updates — you can find those feeds in the Student Activism UCWalkout2 Twitter list.

7:45 am | Multiple sources, including the UCSC student newspaper, confirm new police activity at Kerr Hall. One unconfirmed Twitter report says riot police have stormed the occupation.

8:05 am | Twitterer @geoffwildanger says the Kerr occupiers have rejected a request from police on the scene to remove the barricades they have set up.

8:25 am | Fifteen minutes after tweeting that the Kerr occupiers had chosen to hunker down behind their barricades, rejecting an offer from the police to end the occupation peacefully,@geoffwildanger tweets that the Kerr occupation has ended without arrests. I’m going to hold off on making any more updates until I get reliable, detailed new info.

9:05 am | New updates at Occupy California and Indybay shed light on the situation. According to OccupyCA, police breached the barricades at Kerr, but occupiers were then allowed to leave without charges. The group — of about fifty — marched en masse to Kresge, which is still under occupation. Indybay tells a similar story, adding the detail that an anthropology professor, Marc Anderson, “fell off a 12 foot staircase as police were forcing students and faculty off of the Kerr patio” and was removed from the scene by emergency personnel.

9:25 am | A new Santa Cruz Sentinel article quotes history professor Emily Honig, who was at Kerr since five o’clock this morning, as saying that “the way in which police force was called out in full gear and weaponry” was “regrettable,” and that she didn’t “think the situation demanded it.”

2:45 pm | The Santa Cruz Sentinel is reporting that Professor Anderson has been released from the hospital and has no major injuries. The Associated Press reports that students involved with the demonstration may still face criminal or disciplinary charges.

4:10 pm | The Kerr hall occupiers have released a statement giving their account of the end of the occupation. They say that the professor’s fall from the balcony was caused by “the administration’s use of force,” and that it took place at a moment when “students and neutral faculty observers were cornered by riot police on an outdoor balcony.” Responding to administration claims that Kerr Hall was left damaged or dirtied, they say that “over 75 students have already volunteered to help clean the space.”

Two Days After the Regents’ Vote, UC Fee Protests Go On

November 21, 2009 in Students | by | 1 comment

The big story out of California on Friday was obviously the student takeover of Wheeler Hall at UC Berkeley, which lasted the entire day and ended in 41 arrests. With the 52 protesters arrested at Davis on Thursday and the 14 students arrested at the regents meeting in UCLA on Wednesday, that brings the week’s total to more than a hundred.

Berkeley wasn’t the only campus where Friday saw ongoing protests. At UC Santa Cruz, a student occupation of two buildings on campus — Kerr Hall and Kresge Town Hall — continued. Administrators cut off internet access to Kerr on Friday evening, but the occupation remained in effect overnight. In an effort to spur negotiations, activists trimmed their original 35-point list of demands to just seven.

At UC Davis, the site of more than fifty arrests on Thursday, students occupied administrative building Dutton Hall early Friday afternoon, but dispersed at the end of the day.

At CSU Fresno, part of the Cal State system, students took over the campus library on Friday evening, protesting cutbacks and calling for greater student involvement in university governance. The Fresno takeover, which as of early Saturday morning was still going on, is the latest in a string of library “study-ins” that have taken place this semester.

National media coverage of the protests continues to grow, with the New York Times and Time magazine running major new stories this morning.

I’ll have more details on yesterday’s events, and updates on today’s, in the coming hours.

12:00 pm | Students in Vienna, Austria report (Google translation) that they are demonstrating in front of the US embassy in that city at this hour, condemning the police violence associated with this week’s California student protests. Also, two students were arrested in New York City the night before last during the course of a roving march in support of the California protesters.

12:30 pm | The Cal State Fresno library sit-in ended peacefully this morning, in an agreement reached with the head of the library late last night. A report from Twitter posted moments ago states that the UCSC occupations are still ongoing, though it provides no details.

6:15 pm | A story posted to CNN’s website just one hour ago says that the UCSC administration intends “to wait out the takeover” rather than bringing in police and ending it with arrests.

Student Occupation of Berkeley’s Wheeler Hall is Fifth in Two Days at UC

November 20, 2009 in Access, Administration, Campus Protests, Police, Student Power, Tuition and Fees | by | 1 comment

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.

The UC Student Fee Protests: What Happened Thursday

November 20, 2009 in Access, Campus Protests, Civil Liberties, Student Power, Students, The Corporate University, Tuition and Fees | by | 2 comments

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.

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StudentActivism.net is the work of Angus Johnston, a historian and advocate of American student organizing.

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