UC Davis Students, along with staff and the ACLU, held a press conference on Tuesday to address growing concerns that they have about student privacy amid discovery of information that they say is being used to track student activism.
According to them, a request for information filed with the University of California, Davis, under the California Public Records Act, has resulted in the release of hundreds of documents regarding the UC administration’s response to student activism.
Organizers said that the content of the recently-released documents has raised questions and alarm concerning students’ privacy, a perceived anti-student alliance between the UC Davis administration and the campus police department, and the use of taxpayer money to fund the school’s monitoring of students.
The core of the argument is that over the past ten years tuition at UC Davis has increased from $3,000 to $13,000. The students argued that this increase constitutes the privatizing of the UC System, when its initial purpose was to provide great, affordable public education.
With the fee hikes, the students have, over time, peacefully protested as students of UC Davis over these outrageous and unfair spikes in tuition. Apparently, these fundamental rights have triggered the school to launch a task force to “thwart” this- when none of the protests have ever been violent in nature.
This task force is composed of administrators from many areas of campus: these include those in financial aid and student housing. The involvement even goes so far as to include the Davis Police Department, as well.
This greatly concerned a number of students, who now feel that they have been infiltrated by law enforcement and campus officials and are therefore no longer safe to exercise their freedom of speech in their own privacy.
According to Sarah Augusto, a graduate student, student housing and financial administrators were also involved in this task force. She was concerned that these individuals have access to highly personal information about students.
She accused the school of having “misplaced priorities” and was “very concerned” about the role of resource and counselor centers, many of whom work closely with minority students, and that they may have an agenda, as well.
“It suggests that the administration is targeting minorities and using staff that students are close with,” Ms. Augusto said.
“Why use staff members with direct power over students, with access to so much information?” she continued.
“If they wanted to be transparent as they say they do, they’d put student activists on the team, they’d open a dialogue with students and they would have said their intentions in the very beginning,” Ms. Augusto added.
The ACLU was represented at this event by Sacramento Chair, Debra Regier, who argued that this action represents a “violation of the rights of students.”
Dan Berman, representing Yolo County’s ACLU argued, “UC Davis Administration has, in effect, a chilling effect on rights of students by sending in spies.”
He urged UC to “Get off the backs of our students!” He added, “Prior restraint causes a chilling effect on freedom of speech.” And he said that “Essentially it is privatizing education,” where students are trying to “learn to be a citizen” at these schools.
Under the California Public Records Act, these students have obtained 280 pages of various documents and emails regarding the UC administration’s response to student activism. The Vanguard has a copy of these and will be analyzing them in the coming days.
The information has shocked students, staff and faculty at UC Davis as they begin to examine it. As stated, the documents reveal that high-ranking administrators, staff members who work closely with students and leaders of the campus police department formed a network called the “Activism Response Team” to keep close tabs on student activists and their plans.
This includes monitoring the Facebook activity of student organizers, keeping track of protest materials such as pamphlets and using various strategies to obtain information about “anticipated student actions.”
A document entitled “Student Activism Response Protocol” dated August 18, 2010, directed administrators to inform police about these potential actions, “request police support if appropriate,” and “notify and maintain communication with news service.”
The Vanguard will be hopefully speaking to several representatives from UC Davis and intends to do a follow-up. However, in response to last week’s article, Jeff Austin who works for UC Davis and volunteered to be part of the Student Activism Team, posted a follow-up.
“I can assure you we are only there to support the students. We do not interfere nor try to disrupt any of their activities. We are a support team made up of volunteers that care deeply about our students and the right to free speech that we all embrace and cherish,” he wrote.
“Our team’s role is just to support and we don’t get involved unless a legal or safety issue comes up, e.g. the students block traffic or plan to march onto the freeway,” he added.
He gave an example of their work, “At the most recent protest, some of the students talked about taking over the student dorms. One of our volunteers mentioned the legal issue of them taking over a locked restricted-access building and suggested they choose open-access buildings instead. They agreed, and by doing so, the police did not have to get involved and no-one was arrested.”
Moreover, he has argued that they have not hidden their presence. He wrote, “We have been very open with students who asked why we were there and the few that I have spoken with seemed perfectly fine with that. They also liked the idea that we were listening to what they were saying, e.g. tuition increases making public education no longer affordable to them or their siblings. And in most cases we were in total agreement with them.”
Mr. Austin was also adamant that there has been no list taking.
“Some of the volunteers may know a few of the students, but overall I think it is an honest statement to say that the students are remaining anonymous and no one is keeping tabs on who is there and what his/her views are,” he said in response to a question. “Again, there is absolutely no list taking. We support free speech and are not doing anything to hinder that.”
However, the students feel differently, and the involvement of the police is concerning to many of them who feel that their rights are being violated.
Moreover, many question whether this is the sort of undertaking the administration should be taking. It certainly does not seem a good way to build trust between the students and the university to have staff members infiltrating and attempting to direct students’ activities.
While I certainly think that some of the people involved have the best of intentions, it is a bit unsettling to think that a volunteer staff member was redirecting how the students should protest an issue.
We will have more on this.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Vanguard Intern Vivian Nguyen was at the event and helped cover this event.
