Ereignisse und Solidarisierung in Berkeley California
Datum: Mon, 23 Nov 2009 23:02:21 +0100 Betreff: Soliaktionen im Rahmen des Bildungsstreiks
Dear friends,
I am a PhD student in Theater at the University of California, Berkeley. I am writing to you about the very serious situation we students, faculty, and employees at the entire University of California system (which includes ten campus across California in total and 160,000 students) are currently facing. I hope that this email might mark the beginning of international solidarity between your movement and ours in the United States, specifically at the University of California system. Despite our different national contexts, our struggles against the privatization/marketization of public education is the same. In California, the situation has become extremely urgent-- not only because of a number of drastic actions California politicians and UC administrators have recently taken over the past few months to privatize our nation’s top public university system, but as you might have heard, administrators recently began a campaign of repression against dissenting students at the University of California. This has resulted in numerous injuries and many arrests at Berkeley, Davis, Los Angeles, and Santa Cruz. The full details of last week’s repression are only now beginning to surface. Please see the links below for articles, videos, and other links on these repressive activities.
The University of California is facing very devastating budget cuts that
could lead to the end of affordable and accessible public higher education
in the state of California. The University of California has been the
premiere public university in the United States, offering extraordinary
teaching and research opportunities for international students and faculty
as well as affordable education for students of any means. Just last week
the UC Board of Regents (the governing body of the UC whose 26 members are
not democratically elected, but rather appointed by the governor, often as
political payback for campaign support) approved a 32% tuition hike that now
puts the university out of reach for many students. Faculty are undergoing
8% salary cuts and loss of staff which means that the research and teaching
activities of the University are curtailed. Nearly 1,000 employees at the
University of California have lost their jobs. Campus services for students
have been cut across the board. Class sizes are sky-rocketing but course
offerings are shrinking. This is all happening while top-level
administrators receive raises in their salaries and refuse to compromise
with the demands of students, faculty, and campus employees.
Last week, the situation became so dire that students, faculty, and staff
around California began a three day strike (which hardly ever happens at
American universities). As part of these strikes, students began occupying
buildings and carrying out direct actions. These actions were met not with
compromises, but with undue police repression. At UC Berkeley for example,
41 students occupied Wheeler Hall on Friday, November 20 while nearly a
thousand students, staff, and faculty supported them outside the building.
Police responded with truncheons, pepper spray, and most shockingly, rubber
bullets. Many were injured and all inside were eventually arrested without
any of their demands even being considered. Three other students earlier in
the day at UC Berkeley were arrested and are now facing outrageous felony
burglary charges. At other UC campuses, the atrocious police climate was
similar as non-violent protesting students at demonstrations and building
occupations in UC Los Angeles, UC Santa Cruz, and UC Davis were met with by
police who freely used tasers and other repressive tactics.
With this said, I write to you today with an interest in developing
solidarity actions between German and California students. As your strike
calls note, our struggles our not just national, but international. Public
education is a right, not a privilege. Demands for high quality education
that serves a common good and not market interests or economic elites should
not be met with repression. Public universities should not be the guinea
pigs for political elites looking to privatize public institutions.
From conversations with German friends and what I have read in the news, I
am aware that this week and next week there will be a number of actions
across Germany that build on last week’s large demonstrations. Similarly,
the next two weeks in California will also see actions responding to the
police repression against students. While I am very involved with the
movement at the University of California, I am currently in Berlin to do
research for my doctoral dissertation (I am affiliated with the Freie
Universität Berlin). I would very much like to speak with an organizer from
Bildungsstreik 2009 or other organizations about the possibility of
coordinating solidarity actions between German students and University of
California students. Even including specifics about each other’s struggles
in our press releases and speeches would be a great start. If this interests
you, please write me back or feel free to call me at (0)160 9836 1435.
In solidarity,
Shane Boyle
Selected Organization Links
http://www.ucsolidarity.org (a UC-wide solidarity group between students, faculty, and employees that includes excellent background on our struggle)
http://ucstrike.com/ (includes many links on the history of the struggles
and crisis at UC Berkeley)
Selected News Sources
“Save California’s Universities” by Judith Butler
www.spiegel.de/unispiegel/studium/0,1518,662569,00.html (reporting in der
Spiegel on the UC Berkeley occupation)
"UC on the Brink" editorial (Los Angeles Times, 11/21)
www.latimes.com/la-ed-uc21-2009nov21,0,1045653.story
"41 Arrested at UC Berkeley" (Los Angeles Times, 11/21)
www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-uc21-2009nov21,0,1334635.story
"UC Berkeley Students End Occupation" (San Francisco Chronicle, 11/21)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/11/21/MN611ANSA...
"Students Protest Tuition Increases" (New York Times, 11/20)
www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/us/21tuition.html
"A Crown Jewel of Education Struggles With Cuts" (New York Times,
11/19)
www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/education/20berkeley.html
"Regents Raise Tuition 32 Percent in California" (New York Times,
11/19)
www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/education/20tuition.html
Democracy Now, "Why Are We Destroying Public Education?"
www.democracynow.org/2009/11/17/why_are_we_destroying_public_education
Reclamations
www.reclamationsjournal.org/current.html
