This letter has been co-signed by 1,200 university faculty and counting.
We have witnessed, over the past two months, police departments using significant amounts of force against individuals peacefully participating in the Occupy movement. But during the week of November 13-19, there was an astonishing escalation of the violence used by municipal police departments against non-violent protesters.
We hoped that even as politicians and municipal police violently responded to the Occupy movement, college and university campuses would remain safe locations for non-violent political dissent. But that has not been the case. In fact, universities and colleges appear to be using the same tactics in their interactions with unarmed, non-violent members of the university community as we have seen municipal police use against the broader Occupy movement.
In particular, we are concerned with the actions by police associated with two University of California campuses. At UC Berkeley, police beat faculty and students who were peacefully attempting to establish an Occupy camp on Sproul Plaza. At UC Davis, police casually pepper sprayed protesting students who were peacefully sitting with their arms linked. The message sent by university officials is clear: if you engage in non-violent political protest on the university campus, you run the risk of being assaulted by university police.
For more than three generations, American university and college campuses have been crucial locations in which inspiring and important political activity has occurred. From the founding of SNCC at Shaw University and the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley in the 1960's, to the divestment movements across American college campuses in the 1980s, to the establishment of student labor alliances in the 1990's, American college campuses have pulsed with hopeful and positive forms of dissent and visions of alternatives. This admirable tradition is being threatened by the use of violence by university officials against their own students and faculty who are acting within this tradition.
We believe that this action is necessary for the protection of one of the principal virtues of our higher education system, namely that it is an environment that cultivates an active and engaged political imagination. We call on the leaders of America's universities and colleges to stand with us.
John Stoehr: The Media Bias No One Talks About
Breakthrough knowledge: Research, education and universities http://wp.me/p1xS1Q-hx
Public school teachers can boycott the UC system by refusing to write letters of rec for students applying to colleges that are clearly unsafe for kids. I won't help to send my students to a school that pepper sprays or clubs college kids.
Non violence does not mean that they are right!!
Non Violence only means that they are aiming to force their viewpoint without using violence. By Force I mean the same methods like "occupy", "prevent others from access", "physically block" etc
Freedom is not the exclusive property of OWS, if you block others then you deserve to be removed by force, if reasoning is not fruitful.
Let us take an example..
You are agitated and shout your protest slogans in a place without obstructing anyone. The shouting is limited and does not disturb others.... non violent and not likely to attract force.
You are agitated and physically block others from using common resources saying "Whoose xxx, My xxx or our xxx" you are bound to be removed by force if you dont listen to reason.
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Paying more is not a better education. UC Berkeley(# 70 Forbes) tuition increases exceed the national average rate of increases.
UC President Yudof, Cal. Chancellor Birgeneau($450,000 salary) dismissed many much needed cost-cutting options. They did not consider freezing vacant faculty positions, increasing class size, requiring faculty to teach more classes, doubling the time between sabbaticals, cutting & freezing pay & benefits for chancellors & reforming pensions & the health benefits.
They said such faculty reforms “would not be healthy for UCâ€. Exodus of faculty, administrators? Who can afford them and where would they go?
We agree it is far from the ideal situation, but it is in the best interests of the university system & the state to stop cost increases. UC cannot expect to do business as usual: raising tuition; granting pay raises & huge bonuses during a weak economy that has sapped state revenues & individual Californians’ income.
Regent Chairwoman Lansing can bridge the public trust gap with reassurances that salaries & costs reflect California’s ability to pay. The sky above UC will not fall when Chancellor Birgeneau is ousted.
Opinions? Email the UC Board of Regents marsha.kelman@ucop.edu.
This principle is being replaced by the business interests (who now fairly well control research dollars and thus BOD's) who want system buy in, not individual thought and imagination.
Perhaps symbolic of how little he (Robert Birgeneau) cares about UC students, he defended brutal beatings of peaceful student and faculty protesters recently by saying "linking arms is not non-violent", arguing that anything less than total submission to police demands is violent and can and should be met with violence. Ironically, these student and faculty beatings at the hands of police took place on the Mario Savio Steps, which were dedicated in memory of Mario Savio - the Berkeley student who the University celebrates as having begun the Free Speech Movement in 1964 with a speech on those very same steps.
It is a sad time for the University of California and a sad time for UC Berkeley.
I'm glad the police handled it in a calm manner and cool manner. Would the author of this article have preferred the police to act without calm? It would have been awful for the police to lose control of their emotions. We should be glad to have such, calm disciplined men protecting us.
I'm very proud.
Military style contingent plan in plase. So if my kids go to college and want to protest
They are met with chemical weapon co2 guns that fire rubber bullets and clubs
Isn't it nice to know that my hard erned money I pay for my kid to get a higer education
Is used to buy gear to hurt the people I love in a non violent protest
Just to shut the protester down because the people in power don't want to hear anything the protester have to sayâ€
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The OWS and their supporters are the only patriots left in America.
JMHO - but the silence from Democratic Pols in California, Jerry Brown in particular is deafening... very disappointing.