Partial recording of UC Berkeley academic senate deliberation on proposed BP deal.

by the laughing cow

Tue, Apr 24, 2007 1:53PM

This is a partial recording of the historic UC Berkeley Academic Senate meeting of April 19, 2007, in which pro-corporate faculty packed the room and voted down a proposal for faculty oversight of huge corporate sponsorship deals like the $500 million BP-funded research institute that is currently being negotiated.

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This audio file is 23 minutes long and includes:
Reading of the Faculty Shared Governance motion
Prof. Anne Wagner's statement in support of that motion
Reading of an opposing motion (which ultimately passed with trivial modification)
Prof. Randy Schekman's statement in support of that motion
discussion and further faculty statements

Note in particular the audience's outburst of derision when Prof. Wagner asserts that professors opposing the BP deal have experienced threats of retaliation, followed by no reaction moments later when Prof. Schekman says that Prof. Ignacio Chapela should be fired for remarks critical of the BP deal. (As if they hadn't already tried that with Prof. Chapela, who won his tenure back in court after being illegitimately fired a few years ago.)

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§Professor (off scale)

by Andrew Paul Gutierrez

Wed, Apr 25, 2007 1:18AM

I was not at the meeting of the Academic Senate because I am on sabbatical leave in Europe. If Prof. Schekman did call for firing Chapela, he should be ashame of this comment. Much of his argument pro the BP sellout has been cloaked in Academic freedom -- I guess he feels academic freedom should work for him but not for Chapela and other that have opposing scientific view.

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