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The Chancellor’s Latest Letter: In Which He Resorts to All-Caps

[This is a letter from the Chancellor sent today, in the wake of thousands of people marching on his campus, many of whom are calling for his resignation. It has not, as of yet, gone out to all students (I haven’t received it, and neither have friends in the English department) but it has gone to the “other members of the campus community” to whom this panicked e-mail is addressed. Thank you to the kind person who passed this onto me.]

From: Robert J. Birgeneau, Chancellor
To: Academic Senate Faculty, Staff, All Academic Titles, Other Members of the Campus Community,
Subject: Important Message from the Chancellor
Sent: Nov 15, 2011 5:09 PM

To the Campus Community:

We all share the distress and anger at the State of California’s disinvestment in public higher education.

IN THE SPIRIT OF TODAY’S DAY OF ACTION, I AM URGENTLY CALLING ON THE POLITICAL LEADERSHIP FROM SACRAMENTO TO COME TO CAMPUS TO ENGAGE WITH ME AND STUDENT REPRESENTATIVES IN A PUBLIC FORUM TO DEBATE THE FUTURE OF PUBLIC HIGHER EDUCATION.

The issues require bold action and time is short. I will inform you of the time and place as soon as possible.

Robert J. Birgeneau,
Chancellor

[Please note that a version of this letter is now up at the UC Berkeley News Center and has been edited so as to lose the all-caps.]

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How University Administrators Play Good Cop to UCPD’s “Bad Cop”

Here, via SF Gate, is a telling example of how the administration tries to play good cop to the UCPD’s bad cop:

“We’re extremely disturbed by the images on the video and will work very hard to not repeat the violence on Tuesday,” said Claire Holmes, associate vice chancellor of public affairs.”

That’s immediately preceded by this:

“Campus police say they are investigating their response and considering whether pepper spray and tear gas might be used in future protests.”

To sum up: the VC of “public affairs” does her job and expresses a concern about the “images” (and one hopes, implicitly, the people) while her boss (who works closely with the UCPD) plans to escalate the violence. To put it another way, the UCPD is investigating their excessive use of force, unprovoked, and have concluded that the beatings by baton weren’t enough–tear gas will be helpful in “avoiding similar aggression”.

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Reading the Chancellor’s Two Letters: The Facebook Update I Wrote For Weary Friends

Dear friends and family, I’m really sorry to keep talking about UC Berkeley, but my friends and students and professors have been beaten or arrested or both, so it’s hard to think about much else. Since I have a little insider info, I feel like I should do what I can to let others know what’s happening. Feel free to “Hide” me if these are getting annoying. I totally understand.

Anyway, here’s the latest: Our Chancellor just sent us, the campus community, a second letter. Chancellor Birgeneau, who condemned students linking arms as “not nonviolent” and approved of police beating faculty and students, has just issued a second statement in which he admits that he was traveling last week, and was only just now “able” to watch the videos of his students and faculty being beaten. (There is evidently no internet in Asia, or in airports.)

Faced with footage of his directer of the Townsend Center for the Humanities being yanked forward by her hair onto the ground and cuffed (or of a 70-year old Pulitzer-Prize winning poet being “nudged” by police batons), he has the grace to admit that these incidents are indeed “disturbing.”

In that first letter (which is becoming legendary for its wrongheadedness), he not only condemned the students and faculty whose beatings he authorized, but also had the audacity to lecture them on “nonviolence” without so much as bothering to watch the footage that was shocking Americans at home. I can’t understand this as anything other than criminally negligent.

This second letter, coming hard on the heels of the first, and quite different in tone, is pretty clear evidence of two things:

1) His office has been flooded with phone calls and letters from shocked onlookers, many of whom are calling for his resignation.

2) He’s lying. He claims UCPD Chief of Police Celaya is “investigating” his officers for misconduct; in fact, Celaya has openly admitted (in SFGate!) his tentative plans to escalate violence against protesters, adding tear gas and pepper spray to batons. (I’ve posted a link to that article on my profile, if you’re interested.)

I want to emphasize that the UCPD reports to the Chancellor. The Chancellor is absolutely aware of these plans (unless he neglects to read the newspaper too), which will go into effect tomorrow, and approves of them. This second letter, with its admission of ignorance, is a repugnant display of duplicity and bad faith.

There’s nothing for it. Tomorrow, for the first time in my sheltered life, I have to face the possibility that I might be tear-gassed or arrested on my Chancellor’s orders, along with lots and lots of of my faculty, my students and my friends. I hope he rethinks this. I don’t want any of those things to happen. I’m scared. But if the day takes that turn, I’d like for anyone who bothered to read this far in this ridiculously long status update to understand why. It won’t be because the police acted on their own, it won’t be a case of crazy cops gone wild, and I promise it won’t be because I was violent or even disrespectful. It won’t be a “mistake” that everyone can calmly investigate later. It will be because my Chancellor decided it was the right thing to do and told the police to do it.

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Chancellor Birgeneau’s Second Try: In Which He Pleads Ignorance And Keeps Saying the Word “Community” Hoping That Repeating It Will Make it True

Dear Cal Campus Community:

I returned to Berkeley yesterday after a week-long trip to Seoul, Tokyo and Shanghai where we successfully advanced some important new partnerships that will benefit our campus.

While away, I remained in intermittent contact with Provost George Breslauer and other members of our leadership team and was kept informed, as much as possible, about the Occupy Cal activities on campus. However, it was only yesterday that I was able to look at a number of the videos that were made of the protests on November 9. These videos are very disturbing. [Note: For comparison, please see what he said in response to those events in his first letter.] The events of last Wednesday are unworthy of us as a university community. Sadly, they point to the dilemma that we face in trying to prevent encampments and thereby mitigate long-term risks to the health and safety of our entire community.

Most certainly, we cannot condone any excessive use of force against any members of our community. I have asked Professor Jesse Choper, our former Dean of Law, and current Chair of the Police Review Board (PRB) to launch immediately a review of the police actions of last Wednesday and Thursday morning. As is normal process, University Police Chief Mitch Celaya is concurrently undertaking an operational review of last week’s events. He has requested that it be conducted by a senior member of the command staff at one of our sister UC campuses. This report will be provided to the PRB. I am confident that Professor Choper will provide a fair and balanced judgment as speedily as possible.

We believe that we can best move forward by granting amnesty from action under the Student Code of Conduct to all Berkeley students who were arrested and cited solely for attempting to block the police in removing the Occupy Cal encampment on Wednesday, November 9. We will do so immediately.

I believe that as a campus community, we can and must join together and focus on our common goals – inducing the state to reinvest in public education, working to repeal Prop. 13, finding a way to reverse Prop. 209, and instituting reforms that will help California regain its status as the door to the American Dream through public higher education. Thanks to the efforts of our students who worked effectively with Assemblyman Cedillo, myself and other members of our campus community, we were able to ensure that the legislature in Sacramento passed AB 130 and AB 131 which Gov. Brown ultimately signed. This example of successful and peaceful activism with students and campus leaders working together can guide us in how we can collaborate to effect real change that will benefit us all. We share the aspirations of the Occupy movement for a better America. I am confident that as a campus community we will find a peaceful and productive way forward.

Robert J. Birgeneau
Chancellor, UC Berkeley

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Documenting the Brutality Against UC Berkeley Students and Faculty on Nov. 9, 2011

See zunguzungu for an even more exhaustive list of links:

Students and Faculty Beaten, Including 70-Year Old Pulitzer Prize-Winning Poet Robert Hass: An exhaustive account of what happened on Nov. 9, 2011, complete with video clips, as told by graduate student Irene Yoon.

Councilmember Kriss Worthington Denounces Police Violence Against Peaceful Students

Berkeley Leaders Refuse Mutual Aid Agreement with UCPD in the Wake of Violence Against Students: “Citing excessive force and free speech violations by police during protests in Oakland and at UC Berkeley, the Berkeley City Council this week refused a mutual aid agreement with university police and nixed agreements with other police agencies on regional domestic surveillance.”

Police Absurdity: UC Police Department officials cite a student for carrying a sign, then start a policy of demand student IDs from any sign-carriers. The pretext: so as to determine whether the person is subject to the student Code of Conduct. The real object: to stop them from carrying any signs bigger than 30 in x 30 in which, according to UCPD Lt. Alex Yao, are “not allowed on campus.” Their behavior is so disruptive that the Law School advises students to avoid the West entrance of their building for their own safety.

Dear Chancellor: Please Stop. A moderate graduate student voices her concerns to the Chancellor. “I am not unsympathetic to many of the difficult decisions that you as administrators are facing in response to the Occupy Cal protest.  I understand the reasons behind the campus prohibition of camping, and I share your concern that outdoor spaces on our campus do not have the infrastructure to support protestors living in them for an extended period of time.  However, I remain firmly convinced that, in order to maintain American, Californian, and Berkeleyan traditions of free speech, you must clearly instruct the UCPD on our campus to exert absolutely minimal force, to favor inaction over rapid response, and to give protestors the benefit of the doubt.”

The Director of the Townsend Center for the Humanities (who was yanked to the ground by her hair and arrested), recounts her experience: “The organizers of Occupy Cal asked those who were willing to stay and link arms to protect those who were attempting to set up the encampment; I chose to do so. I knew, both before and after the police gave orders to disperse, that I was engaged in an act of civil disobedience. I want to stress both of those words: I knew I would be disobeying the police order, and therefore subject to arrest; I also understood that simply standing, occupying ground, and linking arms with others who were similarly standing, was a form of non-violent, hence civil, resistance. I therefore anticipated that the police might arrest us, but in a similarly non-violent manner. When the student in front of me was forcibly removed, I held out my wrist and said “Arrest me! Arrest me!” But rather than take my wrist or arm, the police grabbed me by my hair and yanked me forward to the ground, where I was told to lie on my stomach and was handcuffed. The injuries I sustained were relatively minor–a fat lip, a few scrapes to the back of my palms, a sore scalp–but also unnecessary and unjustified.”

Colbert Comments on the Police Attack on Students: “When they said Berkeley was crunchy, I didn’t realize they meant the students rib cages!”

 

zunguzungu: “The Grass is Closed:” What I Have Learned About Power From the Police, Chancellor Birgeneau, and Occupy Cal.

 

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UCB Chancellor Birgeneau’s First Letter to the “Campus Community” After His Students And Faculty Were Beaten

To the Extended UC Berkeley Community:

As you know, yesterday an effort was made to establish an encampment on Sproul Plaza, by the “Occupy Cal” movement.  This followed and marred the aftermath of an impressive, peaceful noontime rally on Sproul on behalf of public education, which was attended by some 3,000 participants and observers, including many campus leaders. We compliment the organizers and speakers for setting an example of peaceful protest and mobilization.  As we informed the campus community earlier this week, we understand and share the concern of the Occupy movement about the extreme concentration of wealth in US society and the steady disinvestment in public higher education byCalifornia and other States.

We want to clarify our position on “no encampments” so you better understand why we do not allow this to occur on our campus.  When the no-encampment policy was enacted, it was born out of past experiences that grew beyond our control and ability to manage safely.  Past experiences at UC Berkeley, along with the present struggles with entrenched encampments in Oakland, San Francisco, and New York City, led us to conclude that we must uphold our policy.

This decision is largely governed by practical, not philosophical, considerations.  We are not equipped to manage the hygiene, safety, space, and conflict issues that emerge when an encampment takes hold and the more intransigent individuals gain control.  Our intention in sending out our message early was to alert everyone that these activities would not be permitted.  We regret that, in spite of forewarnings, we encountered a situation where, to uphold our policy, we were required to forcibly remove tents and arrest people.

We want to thank our student leaders, faculty, and community members who worked hard to maintain a peaceful context last night.  We have been in discussions with the ASUC, Graduate Assembly, and other student leaders who have provided a number of alternative proposals for working with the student protesters.  One such discussion led last night to our offering protesters the opportunity to use Sproul Plaza 24/7 for one week, as a venue for gathering and discussing the issues.  However, we stipulated that no tents, stoves, and sleeping bags would be allowed.  They could gather in Sproul for discussion, but not for sleeping.  This was rejected by a vote of the mass of the protesters.

It is unfortunate that some protesters chose to obstruct the police by linking arms and forming a human chain to prevent the police from gaining access to the tents.  This is not non-violent civil disobedience.  By contrast, some of the protesters chose to be arrested peacefully; they were told to leave their tents, informed that they would be arrested if they did not, and indicated their intention to be arrested.  They did not resist arrest or try physically to obstruct the police officers’ efforts to remove the tent.  These protesters were acting in the tradition of peaceful civil disobedience, and we honor them.

We regret that, given the instruction to take down tents and prevent encampment, the police were forced to use their batons to enforce the policy.  We regret all injuries, to protesters and police, that resulted from this effort.  The campus’s Police Review Board will ultimately determine whether police used excessive force under the circumstances.

We call on the protesters to observe campus policy or, if they choose to defy the policy, to engage in truly non-violent civil disobedience and to accept the consequences of their decisions.

We ask supporters of the Occupy movement to consider the interests of the broader community—the tens of thousands who elected not to participate in yesterday’s events. We urge you to consider the fact that there are so many time-tested ways to have your voices heard without violating the one condition we have asked you to abide by.

Robert J. Birgeneau, Chancellor
George Breslauer, Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost
Harry LeGrande, Vice Chancellor for Studies Affairs