Solidarity from (G)SOC: UCSC Kerr Hall Occupation

While outrage over the Regents’ fee hike sparked this action, the students in Kerr Hall quickly provided a list of seven local demands, giving the UCSC Administration an opportunity to protect members of the UCSC community from the skewed budget priorities of the UC Office of the President. (Visit http://people.ucsc.edu/~bmalone/Kerr_Hall_Demands.html to see these demands.) Sadly, the UCSC Administration refused to take this opportunity. After eight hours of negotiations, the Administration responded that no specific promise or outcome would be the result of this peaceful action.

It was the Administration’s bad faith bargaining and threat of force that led frightened students inside the building to barricade the doors. The Administration summoned riot police not out of concern for a peaceful resolution, but rather out of an administrative vendetta against the students. As the Santa Cruz Sentinel reports, Professor Bettina Aptheker was negotiating at the time with EVC Kliger on behalf of the students: “I told Kliger, ‘If you give me another five minutes I think I could get the door open.’ And he said, ‘I don’t have five minutes.’”

Kliger has claimed that the protest will prevent the reopening of Kerr Hall for several days. UCSC spokesperson Jim Burns estimated the cost of the damage in the “thousands.” These statements are preposterous. A cursory examination of the Administration’s own posted photos shows that the “damages” amount to little more than some leftover food and a bunch of paper in need of recycling. As for the more substantial complaints: overturned refrigerators can be turned upright, communications equipment (which was not “ripped out” per Kliger’s email, but rather unplugged) can be reconnected, and a broken table can no doubt be replaced–all at a cost significantly less than “thousands of dollars.”

Of course, without the Administration’s use of police force and demand for immediate evacuation, the mess would have been cleaned up by the protesters themselves before they left the building. It is the Administration’s choice to force UCSC janitorial staff to clean up Kerr Hall. In fact, a large group of sympathetic students (some involved in the occupation, some not) has volunteered to perform the cleanup, so as not to inconvenience janitors who are already stretched too thin by the UCSC Administration’s brutal imposition of layoffs and furloughs. We cannot help but question, once again, Kliger’s honesty.

The Administration has threatened criminal and administrative charges against the students involved. Given the Administration’s record of mendacity and bad faith, combined with the chilling effects such charges would have on student free speech, we demand that no charges of any kind be pursued. Peaceful civil disobedience is an essential part of all movements for social justice. While it should not be the only tactic, it is particularly necessary when we are faced with an administration that refuses to engage in any meaningful dialogue with students, faculty, and workers.

In solidarity,

(Graduate) Student Organizing Committee

(G)SOC is a group of graduate and undergraduate students committed to public education, the rollback of fees, and transparency and fairness in UC’s budget process. We can be reached at TeachTheBudgetUCSC {at} gmail [dot] com