In Remembrance: April 5, 2005

No one expected so many people to show up. It had been a while since UCSC had a large protest involving hundreds of students.

The bike bloc and march monitors helped ensure the event was safe. The driver of this bus was getting frusterated with the bikers and wanted to drive down the hill. Moments later, though, she saw the hundreds of marchers coming up the middle of the street and gasped. Without the bikers, she would have run straight into them. If you look on the far right, you can see a march monitor ensuring that the traffic moves on.

After marching inside the job fair, students surrounded the tables of the military recruiters and chanted. This scene may look a little hectic, but students were mostly just chanting excitedly - most likely, "Racist, Sexist, Anti-Gay. Hey Recruiters, Go Away!"

You might be asking yourself why I havn't talked about the moment when students marched into the building, as so much emphasis has been placed on it by the corporate press, right-wing, and UCSC administration. Some say that students "pushed" their way in. Others claim there was "violence." And some lunatics called it a "riot." But the truth is that there was a period of about 5 minutes where Career Center officials, cops, and members of UCSC's Fire Dept. tried to prevent students from going into their own job fair. A good number of students managed to wedge their way through the doors (some were holding the door open so others could get in), and some students that were already inside the fair opened up a side door, allowing another fifty or so protesters to get in. Once inside the building, an undercover cop physically tackled a few students (specifically, students of color), even though the students had done nothing. This photo made the cover of the Sentinel the next day, yet was not explained at all.

The majority of protesters were not able to get into the building, and after the five minutes were over, there was about 100 protesters on the inside and 200 on the outside. The outside protesters were upset about being shut out from their own job fair, but eventually held a teach-in of their own. So at one point, there were actually two SAW teach-ins happening simultaneously - one outside and one inside.

It's important to not dwell on the door scene and to contextualize it. It was university officials that, by attempting to block students physically, created the potential for violence - something that, luckily, was largely avoided. This 5 minutes may have been hectic, but it was short-lived and surprisingly safe considering the situation. Regardless, it all could have been avoided had the student-funded university officials allowed the students to enter their student-funded building for the student-funded event.

While students were waiting for military recruiters to leave, they had a teach-in. This was completely ignored by the corporate press, even though the majority of the time inside the job fair was spent like this. Here, a former Marine discusses his experiences and why he wants the recruiters out of his school.

Due to irresponsible reporting on behalf of the corporate press and UCSC administration, students and the nation were led to believe that it was SAW that 'shut down' the job fair. In fact, it was the administrators and the cops who were preventing job-seekers from coming in. Once recruiters were gone, SAW immediately left the event, leaving the majority of the career fair military-free and open for students to seek jobs.

The corporate press is always looking for conflict. That's what makes a story for them. So the fact that the vast majority of the events of April 5th were completely calm was largely ignored, especially by the Sentinel (who the rest of the corporate news based their stories on, as most everyone else failed to show up). Here, a student is talking with an Army recruiter - an image that got spread all over the nation.

As part of the deal arrainged with administrators, all military recruiters left, and to ensure they didn't come back, SAW got to occupy their tables for the rest of the job fair. Here, a student reacts with joy to the success of the action.

Meanwhile, outside the Event Center, the victorius students hold yet another teach-in to educate themselves and talk about what their action meant and what needs to be done.