by Jack Zwald –
After trying to hold an organized meeting on the steps we realized it was too loud to conduct business so we took an hour recess. After speaking with some of the organizers we were ushered to the front of the protest and the President of the Associated Students gave a brief speech.
I do not remember exactly when, but I remember it being a little before 8 P.M., the police pushed us back to form a safe corridor for them to begin removing the protesters. A while after the police came in to Mrak Hall and started arresting students, staff, and faculty one by one. This elicited cries of “Bullshit” from all those in attendance and all of us yelled the names of those being arrested as they were taken away. After more people had been removed they started to take two and then three at a time.
We decided to not reconvene until after all the protesters had been removed to show our support. There were so many people arrested they had to get another paddy wagon to take them all away. So we decided as a Senate to send a Unitrans bus to go pick them up from Woodland, we called the Director of Unitrans from the protest to organize that. The police were from six different departments: UC Davis Police, Davis City Police, Woodland Police, Yolo County Sheriff, West Sacramento Police, and, later on, police from Sacramento came to hold us back.
Generally speaking both sides, police and protesters, from what I saw treated each other with respect. Nobody tried to hurt the police officers there, and even when a few people tried to chant “Fuck the police” there was a larger cry of “No”. The police on the other hand did not taze anyone like had happened earlier that day at UCLA, were polite as someone who is holding you back with a nightstick can be, and acted with professionalism.
I heard some things to the contrary, but this is what I saw. After all the people inside had been taken away we moved over to the side and swore in our newly elected ASUCD senators and I was no longer a public official, but this is not the end of my involvement with our fight to preserve public education.
Jack Zwald is a Junior International Relations major, Chinese minor at UC Davis. He is the current political director of the Davis College Democrats and until 9:30 or so last night was a voting member of the ASUCD Senate. If you have any questions feel free to reach him at: jozwald@ucdavis.edu.
I can’t believe this. So many officers to shut down democracy and freedom. Do you know how much they get in overtime to quell these protests? I’m outraged at the administration and police for getting involved so violently and taking their time to process the arrests and accusing a student of assault. It’s interesting that they can assault you but you can’t defend yourself.
University of California President Yudof Approves $3,000,000 to Outsource UCB Chancellor’s Job
The UC President has a UCB Chancellor that should do the high paid job he is paid for instead of hiring an East Coast consulting firm to fulfill his responsibilities. ‘World class’ smart executives like Chancellor Birgeneau need to do the analysis, hard work and make the difficult decisions of their executive job!
Where do consulting firms like Bain ($3,000,000 consultants) get their recommendations?
From interviewing the senior management that hired them and will be approving their monthly consultant fees and expense reports. Remember the nationally known auditing firm who said the right things and submitted recommendations that senior management wanted to hear and fooled government oversight agencies and the public?
Mr. Birgeneau’s executive officer performance management responsibilities include “inspiring innovation and leading change.” This involves “defining outcomes, energizing others at all levels and ensuring continuing commitment.” Instead of demonstrating his capacity to fulfill his executive accountabilities, Mr. Birgeneau outsourced them. Doesn’t he engage University of California and University of California Berkeley (UCB) people at all levels to help examine the budget and recommend the necessary trims? Hasn’t he talked to Cornell and the University of North Carolina – which also hired Bain — about best practices and recommendations that might apply to UCB cuts?
No wonder the faculty and staff are angry and suspicious. Three million dollars is a high price for Californians to pay when a knowledgeable ‘world-class’ Chancellor is not doing his job.
Please help save $3,000,000 for teaching our students and request that the UC President require the UCB Chancellor to fulfill his executive job accountabilities!