Every public demonstration – however peaceful and orderly it might be – is ordered by their authorities to be treated as the equivalent of a prison riot. (Source)
Lt. John Pike
Now, the people are rising up around the world and the vicious thug, hirelings of the dark side, are performing on video for the startled eyes of an awakening world. . . . Rise to the call or be jerked from your beds. The decision is in your hands. (Source)
.
Students Pepper Sprayed for Protesting the “Death of Public Education”
The signs carried by the demonstrators at Berkeley didn’t say anything about a right to sleep in tents. The signs said, “Re-Fund Education” and “Education shouldn’t be a debt sentence” and “81% fee hikes = death of public education” and, of course, “we are the 99%.” I found only one sign about the tents: “We are not camping. We are assembling peaceably to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” . . . Fighting over the tents is a distraction from the real issues. But who made the tents an issue? It wasn’t the kids—it was the chancellor. UC Berkeley Police Capt. Margo Bennett told the LA Times that the cops attacked and clubbed protesters because “the administration said no tents.” (Source)
18 November 2011
Open Letter to Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi
Linda P.B. Katehi,
I am a junior faculty member at UC Davis. I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of English, and I teach in the Program in Critical Theory and in Science & Technology Studies. I have a strong record of research, teaching, and service. I am currently a Board Member of the Davis Faculty Association. I have also taken an active role in supporting the student movement to defend public education on our campus and throughout the UC system. In a word: I am the sort of young faculty member, like many of my colleagues, this campus needs. I am an asset to the University of California at Davis.
You are not.
I write to you and to my colleagues for three reasons:
1) to express my outrage at the police brutality which occurred against students engaged in peaceful protest on the UC Davis campus today
2) to hold you accountable for this police brutality
3) to demand your immediate resignation
UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi orders police pepper spray of peaceful student protests -- some students hospitalized
Today you ordered police onto our campus to clear student protesters from the quad. These were protesters who participated in a rally speaking out against tuition increases and police brutality on UC campuses on Tuesday—a rally that I organized, and which was endorsed by the Davis Faculty Association. These students attended that rally in response to a call for solidarity from students and faculty who were bludgeoned with batons, hospitalized, and arrested at UC Berkeley last week. In the highest tradition of non-violent civil disobedience, those protesters had linked arms and held their ground in defense of tents they set up beside Sproul Hall. In a gesture of solidarity with those students and faculty, and in solidarity with the national Occupy movement, students at UC Davis set up tents on the main quad. When you ordered police outfitted with riot helmets, brandishing batons and teargas guns to remove their tents today, those students sat down on the ground in a circle and linked arms to protect them.
What happened next?
Without any provocation whatsoever, other than the bodies of these students sitting where they were on the ground, with their arms linked, police pepper-sprayed students. Students remained on the ground, now writhing in pain, with their arms linked.
What happened next?
Police used batons to try to push the students apart. Those they could separate, they arrested, kneeling on their bodies and pushing their heads into the ground. Those they could not separate, they pepper-sprayed directly in the face, holding these students as they did so. When students covered their eyes with their clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their throats. Several of these students were hospitalized. Others are seriously injured. One of them, forty-five minutes after being pepper-sprayed down his throat, was still coughing up blood.
This is what happened. You are responsible for it.
You are responsible for it because this is what happens when UC Chancellors order police onto our campuses to disperse peaceful protesters through the use of force: students get hurt. Faculty get hurt. One of the most inspiring things (inspiring for those of us who care about students who assert their rights to free speech and peaceful assembly) about the demonstration in Berkeley on November 9 is that UC Berkeley faculty stood together with students, their arms linked together. Associate Professor of English Celeste Langan was grabbed by her hair, thrown on the ground, and arrested. Associate Professor Geoffrey O’Brien was injured by baton blows. Professor Robert Hass, former Poet Laureate of the United States, National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winner, was also struck with a baton. These faculty stood together with students in solidarity, and they too were beaten and arrested by the police. In writing this letter, I stand together with those faculty and with the students they supported.
One week after this happened at UC Berkeley, you ordered police to clear tents from the quad at UC Davis. When students responded in the same way—linking arms and holding their ground—police also responded in the same way: with violent force. The fact is: the administration of UC campuses systematically uses police brutality to terrorize students and faculty, to crush political dissent on our campuses, and to suppress free speech and peaceful assembly. Many people know this. Many more people are learning it very quickly.
You are responsible for the police violence directed against students on the UC Davis quad on November 18, 2011. As I said, I am writing to hold you responsible and to demand your immediate resignation on these grounds.
On Wednesday November 16, you issued a letter by email to the campus community. In this letter, you discussed a hate crime which occurred at UC Davis on Sunday November 13. In this letter, you express concern about the safety of our students. You write, “it is particularly disturbing that such an act of intolerance should occur at a time when the campus community is working to create a safe and inviting space for all our students.” You write, “while these are turbulent economic times, as a campus community, we must all be committed to a safe, welcoming environment that advances our efforts to diversity and excellence at UC Davis.”
I will leave it to my colleagues and every reader of this letter to decide what poses a greater threat to “a safe and inviting space for all our students” or “a safe, welcoming environment” at UC Davis: 1) Setting up tents on the quad in solidarity with faculty and students brutalized by police at UC Berkeley? or 2) Sending in riot police to disperse students with batons, pepper-spray, and tear-gas guns, while those students sit peacefully on the ground with their arms linked? Is this what you have in mind when you refer to creating “a safe and inviting space?” Is this what you have in mind when you express commitment to “a safe, welcoming environment?”
I am writing to tell you in no uncertain terms that there must be space for protest on our campus. There must be space for political dissent on our campus. There must be space for civil disobedience on our campus. There must be space for students to assert their right to decide on the form of their protest, their dissent, and their civil disobedience—including the simple act of setting up tents in solidarity with other students who have done so. There must be space for protest and dissent, especially, when the object of protest and dissent is police brutality itself. You may not order police to forcefully disperse student protesters peacefully protesting police brutality. You may not do so. It is not an option available to you as the Chancellor of a UC campus. That is why I am calling for your immediate resignation.
Your words express concern for the safety of our students. Your actions express no concern whatsoever for the safety of our students. I deduce from this discrepancy that you are not, in fact, concerned about the safety of our students. Your actions directly threaten the safety of our students. And I want you to know that this is clear. It is clear to anyone who reads your campus emails concerning our “Principles of Community” and who also takes the time to inform themselves about your actions. You should bear in mind that when you send emails to the UC Davis community, you address a body of faculty and students who are well trained to see through rhetoric that evinces care for students while implicitly threatening them. I see through your rhetoric very clearly. You also write to a campus community that knows how to speak truth to power. That is what I am doing.
I call for your resignation because you are unfit to do your job. You are unfit to ensure the safety of students at UC Davis. In fact: you are the primary threat to the safety of students at UC Davis. As such, I call upon you to resign immediately.
Sincerely,
Nathan Brown
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Program in Critical Theory
University of California at Davis
.
Here’s The UC Davis Pepper-Spray Video That Has Outraged The World:
.
The "truth" according to UC Davis Chief of Police.
.
Annette Spicuzza, UC Davis chief of police.
.
The video is shocking. (See it here.) A line of students sits on the ground, heads bowed. A police officer dressed in riot gear walks up to them, holding a pepper spray gun. He theatrically raises his arm, as if about to carry out an execution, and presses the trigger. A foul-looking orange spray shoots out.
Methodically, deliberately, he walks to the end of the line, saturating each student. He might as well be casually spraying bug spray. When he reaches the end he begins walking back in the other direction, spraying each of them again. The students huddle in obvious pain. People in the crowd nearby gasp in shock and began chanting, “Shame on you! Shame on you! Shame on you!”
This event is powerfully symbolic. It is about contempt from those in power and the wanton use of force against the powerless. . .
Moral examples move people to action. I am very proud of the students at UC Davis, both the ones who remained seated, heads down, and the ones in the crowd surrounding them. They vastly outnumbered the police officers. They could have torn them apart. I have no doubt that many of them wanted to. I wanted to.
But, as Gandhi and Martin Luther King so well understood, nonviolent resistance is extraordinarily powerful. It shows who holds the moral high ground. It reveals the thugs and bullies in high places for who they are. It creates sympathy and evokes principled action. It clears the way for thoughtful men and women of conscience and character to speak out for rational courses of action.
I think we have just reached a turning point.
(Source)
.
Katehi now says she is "sorry" for pepper spray of students--but also says she will NOT resign. Why? Because the "university needs her now".
.
Why me, why me? it's just not fair. They're ruining my career.
.
Results:
Students Get Top Administrators’ Full Attention
Regents chair Lansing with a message to UC community
UC Board of Regents chair Sherry Lansing says in a video statement that she is “shocked and appalled” by the images of police actions during recent student protests at UC Berkeley and UC Davis.
Lansing supports UC President Mark Yudof’s effort to review systemwide procedures so that students can engage in peaceful protests.
“We regents share your passion and your conviction for the University of California,” Lansing says. “We want all of you to know that we fully and unequivocally support your right to protest peacefully.”
Lansing also invites the people to express their views at the Board of Regents meeting on Nov. 28. The rescheduled meeting will be open to the public and connected by a teleconference with regents participating from UC San Francisco-Mission Bay, UCLA, UC Davis and UC Merced. As usual, the meeting will also be streamed online. The public comment period has been expanded from 20 minutes to at least one hour.
.
.
SUNDAY NOVEMBER 20, 2011
To view online: http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/26702
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sunday, Nov. 20, 2011
UC Office of the President
President Yudof acts in response to campus protest issues
University of California President Mark G. Yudof today (Sunday, Nov. 20) announced the actions he is taking in response to recent campus protest issues:
I am appalled by images of University of California students being doused with pepper spray and jabbed with police batons on our campuses.
I intend to do everything in my power as President of this university to protect the rights of our students, faculty and staff to engage in non-violent protest.
Chancellors at the UC Davis and UC Berkeley campuses already have initiated reviews of incidents that occurred on their campuses. I applaud this rapid response and eagerly await the results.
The University of California, however, is a single university with 10 campuses, and the incidents in recent days cry out for a system-wide response.
Therefore I will be taking immediate steps to set that response in motion.
I intend to convene all 10 chancellors, either in person or by telephone, to engage in a full and unfettered discussion about how to ensure proportional law enforcement response to non-violent protest.
To that end, I will be asking the Chancellors to forward to me at once all relevant protocols and policies already in place on their individual campuses, as well as those that apply to the engagement of non-campus police agencies through mutual aid agreements.
Further, I already have taken steps to assemble experts and stake-holders to conduct a thorough, far-reaching and urgent assessment of campus police procedures involving use of force, including post-incident review processes.
My intention is not to micromanage our campus police forces. The sworn officers who serve on our campuses are professionals dedicated to the protection of the UC community.
Nor do I wish to micromanage the chancellors. They are the leaders of our campuses and they have my full trust and confidence.
Nonetheless, the recent incidents make clear the time has come to take strong action to recommit to the ideal of peaceful protest.
As I have said before, free speech is part of the DNA of this university, and non-violent protest has long been central to our history. It is a value we must protect with vigilance. I implore students who wish to demonstrate to do so in a peaceful and lawful fashion. I expect campus authorities to honor that right.
.
Related articles
- UC Davis: Open Letter to Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Shame on American police (marcusampe.wordpress.com)
- A Sleepy Campus In Crisis: Pepper Spray at UC Davis Sparks Online Uproar, Calls for a Chancellor’s Resignation (time.com)
- Caught on Camera: 10 Shockingly Violent Police Assaults on Occupy Protesters
- Police on Steroids (possibly 1 in 4)–rampant steroid drug abuse by police linked to ‘roid rage, epidemic police brutality, and excessive use of force
.
Students are the future. A University has to offer a platform were they can freely pose their opinion. To nip their outspokenness in the bud is taking away the possible progress of a community. Youngsters do have to be able to fall and stand up. A faculty should accompany them on their way. those students were on University grounds, they were not aggressive and looked no danger for others nor for the nature (grassfields, trees). To let them be sprayed with a pepper-spray was bringing their health in jeopardy. We can not imagine that a professor does not know the danger of such material on the human body. Therefore allowing such an action to happen is not what civilised and studied people would expect of a dean. More than ones people can do something wrong, but after they saw what they had done they could excuse themselves. Here it seems we do not find the right person having sorry.
So we are sorry that we do have to oppose to the acts of that person who does not show any regret.
A University should always be a nurture ground for new ideas. Somebody not wiling to keep an open space for opposite ideas or new waves is not on her place in such an institution safeguard or secure free speech.
Thanks prof77 for the share. I like your style of writing. I certainly come back later. Have a good day!