Revolution #185, December 13, 2009


UC Students Statewide Protests - A New Spirit of Resistance

In mid-November, student protests raged at University of California (UC) in response to a drastic increase in student tuition. There were building occupations at UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC Davis and UC Santa Cruz. Students took to the streets around campuses, stopping traffic, and in some cases there were skirmishes with the police. Over 120 UC students were arrested in the protests. The protesters were met with police brutality on many campuses. UC students went face-to-face with police in riot gear and there were reports of students being hit with batons, tasered, pepper-sprayed and shot with rubber bullets. There was a spirit of defiance among students in the UC system that was like a breath of fresh air. And big questions got thrown up for debate: What kind of society and what kind of system distorts education in this way? Why did the police attack in this way? What direction should the struggle take?

Tuition for the more than 220,000 UC students will be increased to more than $10,000 per year, a 32 percent fee hike. This does not include books, food and housing which can total up to an additional $30,000. This new tuition is three times what it was 10 years ago and many students will be forced to leave school. It will disproportionately affect Blacks, Latinos and all students with families of lower income. Many of these students are already struggling to stay in school. One student said, "I work two jobs already and I help support my family and I am barely making it now. I will have to leave school by next year...." Another student said, "I can only afford to swipe my card for one meal a day as it is. I will not be able to afford a meal plan next quarter." At UCLA it is an open secret that there are already homeless students living in their cars.

As we go to press, actions continue. On November 24, 200 students occupied Mrak Hall, the administration building at UC Davis to demand no criminal charges against 52 students arrested in a prior occupation of Mrak. These charges were later dropped against all but one student, who had been seriously brutalized by the police. At UC Santa Barbara students, staff and faculty organized Fasting and Fighting Against Tuition Increases from December 2-3 with a vigil, music and poetry, and 27 hours of fasting. An Associated Students/UC Police forum in Berkeley on December 1 was shut down by students who read a statement saying: "Behind every fee increase, a line of riot cops... The privatization of the UC System and the impoverishment of student life... these can be maintained only by the police batons, tasers, barricades and pepper spray. These are two faces of the same thing..." On December 3, protesters interrupted a celebration of the 45th Anniversary of the Free Speech Movement UC Berkeley—one student said, "There are serious issues with the university administration repressing free speech. They didn't support it years ago and they're not supporting it now—that hypocrisy, we don't accept."

The continuing student resistance is important, and deserves broad support. The following is edited from correspondence that Revolution received following the initial wave of protest. It describes much of what happened and the mood and thinking of the students involved.

UCLA

On November 18, 500 angry students confronted Regents as they met to decide on the fee hikes and budget cuts. The UC Board of Regents (headed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger) is the group that makes policy decisions for the entire UC system. Inside the meeting the Regents cut off public comments and brought in police who arrested at gunpoint students attending the meeting. They then declared their own meeting an unlawful assembly and brought in police to arrest students attending the meeting at gunpoint. Outside the building the university police (UCPD) declared the protest an illegal assembly and charged at protesters with clubs swinging. Fourteen were arrested. At least three students were tasered; some were pepper-sprayed; others were beaten with clubs. Legal observers and others said the police attack was unprovoked.

For many students on all the campuses, this was their first demonstration. And people were angry at the police beatings and their intimidating show of force. There was shock at seeing the police deliberately hurt students who were protesting peacefully. Some said it looked like a police state. At UCLA, there was a lot of anger at the police and at the administration when they initially denied that students were tasered. The students responded by posting cell phone video footage on YouTube. They made enlarged placards showing the UCPD tasering and beating students which said: IS THIS NECESSARY?

The protesters had the support of many campus workers including custodians and service workers. Some Spanish-speaking workers eagerly bought copies of Revolution/Revolución newspaper and wanted to know what was going on at other campuses. They condemned the police attack.

Buses arrived with students fresh from protests on their own campuses (UC Santa Barbara, UC Berkeley, and UC San Diego) on November 18. There was an all-night event called Crisis Fest 2009 held that night and a tent city set up for students from other campuses which also served as a base for the protests.

The students who organized this event saw the fee hikes linked to broader issues. Crisis Fest produced a video (www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI_X-DRvMYc) which included Mario Savio's famous speech at the beginning of the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley in the '60s urging students "to throw their bodies on the gears of the machine." It also showed video of UC President Mark Yudof stating: "In the 1980s, 17 percent of the state budget went to higher education, the UC system, Cal state system and community colleges. Three percent went to prisons. Today 7 percent goes to higher education and 9% goes to prisons."

Organizers of Crisis Fest issued a list of demands in the spirit of the French student protests in 1968, saying: "Our demands are not impossible for us to realize, but they are impossible for this university to realize without collapsing."

Some of the demands were:

The Occupation and Renaming of Campbell Hall – Now Carter-Huggins Hall

 

"And, despite the good intentions of many teachers, the educational system is a bitter insult for many youth and a means of regimentation and indoctrination overall. While, particularly in some 'elite' schools, there is some encouragement for students to think in 'non-conformist' ways—so long as, in the end, this still conforms to the fundamental needs and interests of the system—on the whole, instead of really enabling people to learn about the world and to pursue the truth wherever it leads, with a spirit of critical thinking and scientific curiosity, education is crafted and twisted to serve the commandments of capital, to justify and perpetuate the oppressive relations in society and the world as a whole, and to reinforce the dominating position of the already powerful. And despite the creative impulses and efforts of many, the dominant culture too is corrupted and molded to lower, not raise, people's sights, to extol and promote the ways of thinking, and of acting, that keep this system going and keep people believing that nothing better is possible."

From “The Revolution We Need… The Leadership We Have: A Message, And A Call,
From The Revolutionary Communist Party, USA.” Revolution #170, revcom.us

At 12:30 a.m. Thursday morning, a group of students from UCLA and other campuses occupied Campbell Hall, the first building takeover at UCLA in decades. They chained and barricaded doors and renamed the building Carter-Huggins Hall after two Black Panthers, Bunchy Carter and John Huggins, who were murdered there in 1969 by members of the US organization.2

A handwritten statement from the occupiers of Carter-Huggins Hall said:

"We know the crisis is systematic—it reaches beyond the Regents, the criminal budget cuts in Sacramento, beyond the economic crisis, to the very foundations of our society. But we also know that the enormity of the problem is just as often an excuse for doing nothing. We choose to fight back, to resist where we find ourselves, the place where we live and work, our university."

The occupation was controversial, as students discussed and debated the purpose of the occupation and why actions like these are needed.

Campbell Hall is the home of the Academic Advancement Program which assists students from lower economic backgrounds, including many students of color, with tutoring, mentoring and other support services. The Asian Studies and Native American Studies programs are also located there. While some students supported the occupation others opposed the occupation because it interfered with tutoring and scheduled activities that were helping students. Others said they supported the occupation, but thought the target was wrong because the students are all on the same side, and it would have been more effective if it had targeted the administration building.

One of the questions posed by renaming the building after the Black Panthers was how you look at revolution and serving the people versus trying to make it to the top inside the system. One student told Revolution: "A lot of people go to college to make money and to enter into the lifestyle that has been set up for them. These are pathways in life that we have been expected or pressured to follow.... For us this (occupation) represents a break from an underlying philosophy of education and a way to live your life and see the world. A lot of us see huge problems with capitalism.... I think capitalism in general takes the wonder out of life by placing everything in a utilitarian frame where everything has a practical use. It has to have a practical use like a commodity. Everything is put into terms of a commodity that is worth a certain amount on a scale of value. For a lot of us it takes away what is wondrous and joyful in this world and what provides mystery in this world. In an artistic sense it [the occupation] was a beautiful thing.... This was everybody's first time doing an occupation and there were logistical considerations to choosing this building.... There was some political significance which some people really missed. Two Black Panthers were killed here. We had a huge banner naming the building after the Black Panthers. It was extremely artistic."

On Thursday November 19, the Regents announced their decision to approve the fee increase to an angry crowd of over 2,000 students from the all over the state. There was a spirit of resistance, and students who definitely did not want business as usual at UCLA. A defiant march took off into the city around the campus and students sat in at the intersection of Wilshire and Westwood (one of the busiest intersections in the country) completely halting traffic as UCPD threatened them with arrest.

In a tense stand-off with police that lasted several hours, the building where the Regents were meeting, was surrounded by students chanting, "No Hikes, No Fees, Education should be Free!" On the other side of the building there was a "block-in" as protesters sat in the street and blocked vans transporting regents. When they finally brought UC president Yudof out of the building they tasered students to clear the way.

In this mix of all this there was debate and struggle over the message and call from the Revolutionary Communist Party: "The Revolution We Need… The Leadership We Have." The sentiment expressed in the banner "The Capitalist System is a Disaster, A Better World is Possible, Revolution is the Solution" resonated with some students. Broadly, there were many students who were trying to think outside of the framework of the current system, questioning the viability of capitalism, and relating the fee hikes and education to broader issues like prisons and the war. And there was a certain openness to radical change and revolution.

Together with this, there was debate among the students over the role and need for leadership. Some of the students, including those who were involved in the most determined actions, believe in leaderless movements. Another student said he saw the need for leadership to make the revolution, but raised that leaders go bad and it was the communist party structure that seemed to be the downfall of communist countries because it gave too much power to a small group.

Others felt like one young Latina who said: "If we all just project our anger and you overthrow someone and you do not have an effective system of government after the revolution we would end up in chaos. We would end up where we came from, if not worse. We have to have leaders who are not going to be in it for the purpose of themselves but for the benefit of the people as a whole, the benefit of humanity as a whole not just a Black person, a white person , a Latino person but for humanity as a whole because we are all human. These races are things that have been socially constructed. So if we could organize and have a plan that would overthrow the true oppressor, I do think it would change things and I think it would be a solution . I am always telling my friends 'Que viva la Revolución' Let the revolution live!"

UC Berkeley (UCB)

Wednesday, the first day of the strike, there was a rally of over 2,000 students, followed by a march through the city of Berkeley. Then, early Friday morning, 40 students took over Wheeler Hall, one of the largest and well-known class room buildings. They demanded the university rescind its decision to raise fees 32 percent and reinstate 38 custodians who had been laid off due to budget problems.

When word got out that students had taken over a building, supporters gathered outside. By evening over 2,000 supporters were outside the building. As negotiations were going on with those students inside the building, the UCPD joined by Berkeley police and the Alameda County Sheriff TAC squad began to mass. Barricades were put up to keep supporters away from the building. Then the police attacked with batons, pepper spray, and in one instance a rubber bullet. All of this was filmed by local TV stations that have continued to play this footage of the attack over and over.

One woman said the police struck her with a baton and broke her hand as she was holding onto a barricade. Another woman was hit in the face by a baton. The TV news interviewed a student with a large red welt on his stomach; he had been shot by a rubber bullet after being punched by a baton. One student described seeing a woman get hit on the head causing a big gash and another got trampled by police pushing the metal barricades into students.

The university police stormed Wheeler Hall and cleared out the occupiers; they released the 40 students after citing them for misdemeanor trespass. By Saturday, there began to be some public outcry against the level of attack on the students. Monday, the UCB administration called for an "investigation" into whether or not excessive force had been used against the students.

There is a history of the UCB administration responding in this way to any kind of disruption. The students step out even a little, and there is a disproportionate response. The administration seems to want to be sure that a student movement that has any teeth is crushed before it can get off the ground. But the first response on the part of the students has not been to back off, but to continue the fight.

Many students sense the struggle around education is connected to much deeper issues. Some spoke to the similarities between the violence of the baton-wielding cops at Cal and the photos in Revolution #170 of police beating up a Black man and the victims of American warplanes in Iraq. "Yeah, for a long time I really didn't think democracy was real in this country but I never really considered it a dictatorship based on rule by force. But when you really think about it, it is a dictatorship."

Another said, "It's so weird how you see thousands of students, workers, and faculty demonstrating against the cuts and fee increases while a tiny handful of guys protected by hundreds of cops have the power to make the decisions that count." Someone else agreed the fee increases were connected to much bigger issues: people losing their homes and jobs from the economic meltdown and even the war. "Obama is talking about sending in thousands of troops to kill more people in Afghanistan. He's not talking about cuts. It's fucked."

An announcement of the anniversary of the occupation of Alcatraz by Native Americans also highlighted some of these connections. One student said that it was so refreshing to hear someone call the U.S. "monstrous." While there was an openness in the charged atmosphere and a sense among many that it would take some kind of revolution to really change things, a number of people commented that it was hard to imagine that revolution was possible. Several thought communism has been tried and failed, though a number of students pointed out that they definitely thought it would be a good idea if people could live cooperatively in a society that took care of people's needs. One student said as he took the paper and flyers: "I'm so glad you're raising this. I never thought people were talking seriously about this in this country. We do need a revolution."

Throughout this past week, the revolutionaries have been out among the students with "The Revolution We Need… The Leadership We Have." Questions came up about whether revolution is possible since this system has existed for many years and it seems too difficult to change it. Others had questions about the socialist experience and whether some group would come to power and then rule in the same way as the system that was overthrown.

One student said, "Yes, I do agree that the media lies about almost everything, but then why did communism fail where it was tried?" He said that he had never before heard that socialist revolution was truly liberating and was intrigued that Bob Avakian, a former student at Cal himself, had gone deeply into the achievements, but also the shortcomings of socialism and how much this had to do with both making and continuing the revolution to communism.

Over the weekend, the faculty began circulating a letter condemning the violence on the part of the police and demanding an investigation.

On Monday about 60 people marched from Oakland downtown to the courthouse where three people arrested during Friday's occupation were to be arraigned on felony burglary charges. More people gathered in the next hour. Someone came out and announced that charges had been dropped, but perhaps new charges could be filed. Then they marched through downtown Oakland to the police station where the 40 occupiers were being arraigned. As they marched, the Black masses wanted to know what this was about and were shocked to learn that the police had attacked these people. And they showed their support for the students and hatred for the police (www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbeboETl2UY).

While at the courthouse, a group of students got to talking. One freshman who had been in the occupation said his parents disapprove of him getting arrested and that he was looking forward to an interesting Thanksgiving dinner. Another student said he has been involved in the protests and wants to step up his activity but is really conflicted because his parents oppose his being involved and they are immigrants who have sacrificed for him to attend college. At the same time he says he wants to participate for the future of all students because it is the right thing to do. A Chicano student said he felt that whatever happened to them was worth it; they were involved in something really important. The students have a sense that something big has begun. And now that the normalcy of the everyday has been broken, they are really interested in talking about big societal questions. And they are outraged at the police brutality. One woman said she would take a thousand baton strikes for the cause. This is the spirit of the students, a lot of anger and defiance.

1. The mainstream media has given prominent play to Yudof's claims that promised small increases in financial aid will cover tuition for students with family incomes of up to $70,000 a year, and that financial aid will cover as much as half of the tuition for students from families earning between $70,000 and $120,000 a year, with some minimal financial aid for students from families earning up to $180,000 a year. Yudof claims that the increases are "really more of an upper-middle class issue." These claims are both false and ideologically reactionary. They have been refuted by students who have spoken out widely about how the tuition increases will drive them out of school. An article at the website of the American Federation of Teachers at UC Berkeley itemized the actual costs of a UC education and concluded that the tuition increases will "price attendance at a UC out of the reach of not only low-income students and their families, but beyond the reach of the vast majority of working families, including even many upper-middle income families." ("Why We Must Stop the Fee Increases," by Mike Rotkin). On an ideological level, Yudof's (false) claim that the tuition increases are "an upper-middle class issue" has been taken up and amplified with a vengeance by reactionary populist forces who are filling their blogosphere with rants of outrage at the idea that education is a right, and attack the protesting students as "spoiled brats [who] want the beleaguered taxpayers of California to continue to over subsidize their education." In the context of all this, the demand and spirit of "free education for all" is important and most welcome. [back]

2. Los Angeles Black Panther Party (BPP) leader Bunchy Carter, and John Huggins – another Black Panther Party member – were assassinated at a Black Student Union meeting at Campbell Hall on January 17, 1969 in the midst of a confrontation with a group called the US organization. These murders were orchestrated by the FBI. In 1976, in the context of seeking to assuage public outrage at FBI repression during the '60s, and in the midst of conflict within the ruling class over the role of the FBI, a U.S. Senate investigation (the "Church Commission Report") officially acknowledged a "covert FBI program to destroy the Black Panther Party." The Church Report documented that "high officials of the FBI desired to promote violent confrontations between BPP members and members of other groups." And that the FBI forged and sent "anonymous letters and caricatures to BPP members ridiculing the local and national BPP leadership" for the purpose of setting up violent attacks on the Panthers. The Church Report officially revealed that this operation "resulted in the killing of four BPP members [including Carter and Huggins] by members of US and in numerous beatings and shootings." (Source: "Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports On Intelligence Activities and the Rights Of Americans, Book III, Final Report Of the Select Committee To Study Governmental Operations With Respect To Intelligence Activities," April 23, 1976, Section: "The FBI's Covert Action Program To Destroy The Black Panther Party"). [back]

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