When the November 18 pepper-spray incident occurred, three days later there was a rally held on the Quad, the entire Quad was full with at least 5000 rallying to support those who had been pepper sprayed just three days earlier. The message was very clear, far from nipping the situation in the bud, the overreaction by UC Davis police officers had injected energy that could never have existed without the act by police.
In February, the Vanguard interviewed Janet Li, an immigrant to this county and a high school student from Southern California who had been inspired by the Occupy Movement to get involved.
Instead, what she reported was, “I have seen that the movement is dying.”
“I have seen that there seems to be so little concern regarding something so big and something that pertains so deeply to the student body. The funeral procession for public education should have been huge but it wasn’t,” she continued. “Just seeing that the Quad wasn’t full was very heartbreaking because this is something that regards all of us and it shouldn’t be forgotten.”
She would add, “I would like to believe that everyone is waiting to see what will happen but that – we can’t just wait around and see what will happen because nothing will ever happen.”
But in fact, that is exactly what appears to be happening, because the movement that appeared to be dying or dead has been given new life by the very people who would like nothing better than to snuff it out.
The charging of these 12 students has energized the movement like few events we have seen this side of the November 18 incident.
It wasn’t a dead movement we saw on Thursday afternoon, as 400 students would rally in the Memorial Union to speak out against the charges filed against 12 bank blockers.
The Vanguard has been quite critical of the handling of the situation – characterizing the university’s efforts as underwhelming in the face of an admittedly over-the-top response back in November. The U.S. Bank leaving, we have argued, was premature if not absurd.
The topper is the charges filed against the students, which seem reactive and geared toward showing US Bank or whichever bank ultimately moves back into that spot, that the university is serious about providing security and cracking down on disruptions to business.
Reactions elsewhere have been mixed.
Jonathan Nelson in an April 3 column in the California Aggie argues that “US Bank got punked.” For the alder cockers in the readership, that is a colloquial phrase indicating that the bank got tricked by the university, ostensibly because, as he argues, the university did little to help the bank and now blames the bank for leaving.
Writes Mr. Nelson, “Specifically, in a letter that has not been publicly disclosed, the university wrote to U.S. Bank headquarters, placing blame on the bank for the mess. The administration accuses the bank of violating contractual agreements and not reaching out to school officials. Also, in an effort to remove any obligation of responsibility, the administration charged that the bank is responsible for its own security, thereby shifting the task of handling the protesters from the university to the bank.”
He calls this notion ridiculous, writing, “The school holds some level of responsibility given these facts. And the notion that the bank was in charge of its own security becomes laughable when, after the bank hired private security, the school intervened and said that was not acceptable, as reported in The Aggie.”
However, the university sees it somewhat differently, of course. Barry Shiller, university spokesperson, suggested to the Vanguard, “Our patient approach helped end the January occupation of the former Cross Cultural Center after a few days, without incident. It certainly was worth attempting the same approach at the bank.”
It was only when that didn’t work that the university had to up the stakes and ask the District Attorney’s office to review “evidence that members of the public were repeatedly and willfully being prevented from entering the bank, in violation of a section of the California penal code that protects the public’s right to freely enter and leave public spaces. There evidently was sufficient evidence to file charges.”
Nevertheless, the protesters believe this was a retroactive response by authorities.
In an article published in this week’s news and review, Yolo County district attorney Michael Cabral put the question as to why UC Davis never arrested a single protester during a nearly two-month blockade outside of the campus’ U.S. Bank branch, but the protesters are now facing a maximum 11 years in prison – a question for the university to answer.
“That’s obviously, ultimately, a question you would have to ask the university,” Mr. Cabral told the paper.
The News and Review asks the same question we do, “The gravity of the charges against the Davis Dozen – and the fact that UCD waited nearly three months to file them – now begs the question: Do the prosecutions have more to do with the university’s U.S. Bank liability than with the protesters’ alleged crimes?”
Mr. Shiller says no, “If they had not broken the law, we would still not be talking about this.”
The protesters, the News and Review reports, argue, “The charges show the administration’s new strategy of ‘retroactive repression,’ or delayed prosecution so as to avoid media attention.”
However, as Mr. Shiller told the paper, “If they hadn’t been warned every day, if people had not been there every day, I would find that argument to be a bit more credible,”
At yesterday’s rally it was English professor Nathan Brown who argued that the closure of the bank was a major victory made possible by the over-the-top response of the police last fall and the underresponse of police this winter.
He argued, “They have to now take revenge, retroactively, upon protesters who have proved their capacity to win concrete victories.”
On the other hand, Mr. Shiller told the Enterprise, “This notion of retroactivity – it’s novel, but it’s not supported by the facts.”
He added, “The idea that this was retroactive implies surprise or that this is some sort of ‘gotcha.’ That’s just not so.”
So in the meantime, the students get what they desperately needed – a cause célèbre. The Davis Dozen become the symbol and the rallying cry against the tyranny of the system attempting to salvage their financial stakes.
As one tweeter noted yesterday, “Arrest us, we multiply.”
Last night about 100 people occupied Mrak Hall for a couple of hours before leaving without incident by 7 pm.
It was one of the largest actions and rallies since the days right after the pepper-spray incident.
So the question for officials is whether the crackdown will nip things in the bud or whether it will launch the movement into the next stage.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
the solution is simple: start expelling students who get into the disruptive protests. that will stop em’ dead in their tracks.
Haven’t you gotten it yet, it’s not going to stop them dead in their tracks, it would just inflame the situation. The more heavy-handed the approach, the more it generates sympathy from other students and the community.
haven’t you gotten it yet? the light-handed approach hasn’t exactly worked. wholesale expulsion hasn’t been tried yet. Maybe if they are expelled, they’ll use that excess time they have on their hands to finding employment than causing trouble.
You are correct, the light-handed approach did not work, but neither did the over-the-top response. That suggests that the middle approach is the best.
I think the approach they are currently using worked very in this last situation. The troublemakers can protest but if they break the law and do damage or cause businesses monetary harm they’ll have to pay the price.
the middle approach, as you put it, is up to the protestors. the more over the top their behavior, the more over the top the response. it is as simple as that. If they are reasonable, no need for arrests.
Your response suggests you don’t understand what I am calling for as a middle approach.
Poor Ms. Li, she doesn’t realize the UC tuition protest got co-opted by the Occupy movement that has been co-opted by slumbering generalized anarchists and sleazy professors (who are anxious for attention and who want more power and money for themselves). She needs to spend a little time with her sociology and history books.
And, David is back pleading that UCD leadership should have taken a “heavy-handed approach” by dragging their asses out of the bank blockade, booking them and then releasing them with no legal action–apparently oblivious that such an approach would have “injected new energy” to at least the same degree as charging them has and found them back blockading the next day.
David keeps arguing a no-punishment approach as though these are just kids trying out their free speech rights, demonstrating for a worthy cause for which they really believe (trying to slow the rapidly increasing fees at California colleges and universities). However, the students crossed the line when they purposefully and openly broke laws in the successful, but unrelated, effort to close down the bank.
Try to point the finger at UCD for choosing not to physically clear the area of determined souls, but to take the non-violent route of mailing in the charges. Try to say a business blockaded for three months by demonstrators was somehow “premature” in giving up when their employees were harassed and kept from their workplace.
You aren’t the only one, David, who concluded that demonstrators can be “determined”–you just are a little slower on the uptake than the bankers.
Granted the students were egged on by university professors who saw opportunity to use the kids to advance their own pet causes (weaken and eliminate university management and leadership) and the anarchists who had taken over the otherwise fairly spontaneous and localized Occupy energy.
But the students involved made individual choices, albeit under pressure, to make the move from demonstrating and challenging authority to open and extended lawbreaking. This forces authorities to step up their response; now, those who decide break the laws to make some point can count on getting punished just like anyone else who breaks the same laws.
Coming up with a term, “retroactive enforcement”–as though it means something devious–won’t work. Professor Clover and the other bank blockade leaders might as well admit what really happened: they got outmaneuvered in their scheme to break the law with impunity; they got punked.
Now, they justifyably will get punished. Quit whining and take your medicine.
The Vanguard, the ACLU (led in Northern Calif. by an outspoken Occupy leader), the UCD professors and others who are using the students to advance their own causes do the kids a real disservice by claiming now that authorities somehow aren’t righteous in the current legal actions. They are keeping them from learning–in this case, the life lesson, “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.”
——–
P.S.–What are “alder cockers”? Should we be suitable offended, or just proud that we know what “punked” means?
91 Octane
“If they are reasonable, no need for arrests.”
I agree with you that being “reasonable” would be the best course of action for the protesters. I also think being “reasonable” would be the best course of action for the police, the bank, the university, and our society as a whole.
The problem is, of course, that there is not universal agreement on what is “reasonable”. I, for example, having lived with the issue of blockage of health clinics for years in my profession ( albeit not personally) do not feel that three months is a “reasonable” time period in which to give up and say you can no longer conduct business in a given location.
I also do not think it “reasonable” or productive for our society to impose draconian sentences when the asserted harm is actually quite small. I find it difficult to believe that with US Bank having another branch within such a short distance, there was a great deal of harm done by this branch closure. A little less convenient, sure, but hardly catastrophic for either the bank or its customers. As for the employees at this branch, if the bank is truly concerned about their well being, I am quite sure they could find positions for them elsewhere. We are not talking about the closure of a mom and pop operation with no where for them to go.
Do you really believe that it is “reasonable” for us, as taxpayers to lock someone up in prison for years, paying the costs of their incarceration and lessening their ability to contribute to the society for this kind of activity?
A possible 11 year sentence for an offense that did not warrant an arrest is going to be a really hard sell to any [i]”reasonable”[/i] jury
To blame the victims (University, USB, University students who disagree w the protestors) here is misplaced IMO. The blame belongs squarely on the bullies (protestors), which is as it should be. “Do the crime, pay the time.” If the protestors were allowed to close down a bank on campus without repercussions, what target will they turn to next to shut down? It is not appropriate to allow anarchy to rule in a democracy. The fact of the matter is when protestors begin trampling on everyone else’s rights to make their point, they have lost the high moral ground…
And I would add the further point that the real issue is being lost here because of the protestors illegal and ill conceived actions – the privatization of our public universities, so that a college education is only going to be available to foreign and out-of-state students. Fast approaching is the time when in-state students, trying to enter college to get a higher education, are going to be out of luck…
medwoman, apparently you didn’t accept the suggestions from someone the last time around that the differences in mission of, need for, success measurements, etc. make the medical clinic and bank comparison weak?
Who cares if a bank office finally gives up after three months of illegal blockade tactics that demonstrators promised would continue until the band capitulated? As you suggest, bank services at that specific spot were just a convenience for customers and a financial benefit for the business and the university.
The bank office and its customers take the path of least resistance, moving their transactions downtown. The losers are the employees that probably won’t be needed now that the branch is gone, the university that couldn’t provide a safe place for the bank to operate and will pay for that inability, and the students who won’t get the benefits and support that the arrangement financed.
Maybe you’re right that tha “asserted harm is small,” but it’s certainly measurable. It definitely doesn’t rise to the tragic loss to the community that closing down a clinic would.
One would guess you agree with the protest objective as well as their tactics and the harm they caused, I’m not sure from your ommentary. In any case, you’ll have to agree that they broke laws intentionally and openly in achieving their objective (to get the bank branch to close). Of course, they won’t be given any “draconian sentences” or be “locked up in prision for years” if convicted.
Assuming you accept that they’re lawbreakers, what sentences would you impose?
Elaine
“And I would add the further point that the real issue is being lost here because of the protestors illegal and ill conceived actions – the privatization of our public universities, so that a college education is only going to be available to foreign and out-of-state students. Fast approaching is the time when in-state students, trying to enter college to get a higher education, are going to be out of luck…”
While I agree with your conclusion that the underlying issue is the privatization of our public universities, I do not agree with your stated cause and effect. I believe that the students actions do not have any causal relationship with the “real issue being lost”. I believe that most people who care about these issues at all have the ability to discern that there is more than one issue here, and that all of these issues whether it is privatization, lack of funding of public education, appropriate forms of protest, appropriate means of university and police response, all need to be addressed.
Elaine
“Do the crime, pay the time.”
I am quite surprised to see this comment from you in view of your previous post seemingly agreeing with my suggestions that community service would be a more appropriate response for these students than would prison time which costs not only the society without any appreciable benefit, but also the students ability to contribute in the future. If you have changed your mind, what has persuaded you that 11 years in prison would be more appropriate than community service.
Roger, the jury gets to consider the sentence in a death penalty case, and that’s probably a little severe even for this D.A. The jury only will determine only whether they broke laws. Unfortunately for the accused, they’ve provided massive amounts of proof for the prosecution’s easy use in selling its case.
Since their cause (forcing a business to close, causing UCD financial damage to some vague end) is an unworthy, unexplainable one, their hope for a jury nullification decision will be in vain. Guilty as charged, a week in county jail and community service equal to the hours each spent blockading the bank is my prediction for the jury’s and jury’s actions. Lesser penalties for those who save our taxes by plea bargaining.
Then, there’s the UCD discipline to consider. The university cannot encourage faculty and students to break the law and to generate expensive business losses by allowing such behavior to continue. UCD leaders and/or school judicial processes should send any who broke laws while demonstrating home for a year to consider their acts and to deter others.
Law-breaker faculty members without tenure and/or with morals clauses In their contracts should be fired for the damage they’ve done to UCD’s education mission and to the students supposedly under their tutelage.
Those who demonstrated without repeatedly and purposefully breaking the law should have their views respected and their actions commended.
“I believe that most people who care about these issues at all have the ability to discern that there is more than one issue here, and that all of these issues whether it is privatization, lack of funding of public education, appropriate forms of protest, appropriate means of university and police response, all need to be addressed.”
I agree. Just don’t where shutting down the bank because of its bad behavior during the financial meltdown by inappropriate (because illegal) fits in to your list of issues. Because this connection isn’t apparent to most people who care about education, its high cost and the obviously related issues, I agree with Elaine that this particular action actually backfires.
Most people (those we depend on to support our education system) have the ability to discern between lawful protest tactics and illegal ones and to see the differences between demonstrations that contribute to the worthy, bigger cause and ones that are counter-productive, useless exercises designed to assert power over institutions and their leadership.
JustSaying
“One would guess you agree with the protest objective as well as their tactics and the harm they caused, I’m not sure from your ommentary. In any case, you’ll have to agree that they broke laws intentionally and openly in achieving their objective (to get the bank branch to close). Of course, they won’t be given any “draconian sentences” or be “locked up in prision for years” if convicted.
Assuming you accept that they’re lawbreakers, what sentences would you impose.”
Then you would guess wrong. I am not in favor of the tactics used by the protesters. I am equally not in favor of penalties that are injurious to the society as a whole as well as to the future of these particular protesters.
An 11 year sentence to jail/prison, is an inordinate amount of taxpayer money to spend to no good effect on a nonviolent, nonsexual offender. This time of incarceration is also hardly conducive to the successful reintegration of the protester into the community or to promote their future possible contribution to the society.
As I expressed on a previous thread, I would recommend some form of community service. This could be in an area related to the law, police enforcement, government to provide a first hand knowledge of the challenges faced by these groups. It could be in the area of education, either in tutoring disadvantaged students, or fund raising with the proceeds to go to education. It could be in their area of interest, such as a pre med student putting in time providing inner city or rural health care which would help to broaden their perspective about societal realities and needs as well as helping them develop in their chosen career.
I fail to see how incarcerating anyone in these circumstances helps anyone at all. And for those that would quote deterrence, show me the data that locking protesters up prevents others from protesting. I will read it with an open mind.
[quote]A possible 11 year sentence for an offense that did not warrant an arrest is going to be a really hard sell to any “reasonable” jury[/quote]
I agree that there is little likelihood of such a stiff sentence, or anything remotely approaching that…
[quote]I am quite surprised to see this comment from you in view of your previous post seemingly agreeing with my suggestions that community service would be a more appropriate response for these students than would prison time which costs not only the society without any appreciable benefit, but also the students ability to contribute in the future. If you have changed your mind, what has persuaded you that 11 years in prison would be more appropriate than community service.[/quote]
Just a figure of speech, not to be taken as literally as you did (my bad). What I meant was that if you break the law, you have to expect punishment. Here, I agree w you that community service is the most appropriate punishment, for more reasons than one. First, community service at the appropriate venue will help teach the protestors how good they have had it, and how infantile their behavior was. Second, the professor who took part in the protests set a very bad example as an adult for the protestors who are still essentially kids. Third, I don’t care to make career criminals out of misguided students who are not fully cooked yet – they are young and still have a lot of growing up to do.
Your response suggests you don’t understand what I am calling for as a middle approach.
I’m not sure exactly what the middle approach is, but if I know the vanguard, it will entail arresting the students on the spot and re-releasing them the next day without repercussions. if that is the vanguard’s idea of “the middle approach” it will not work. If the vanguard had something else in mind, then I am at a loss….
while I like the fact that medwoman is as close to a centrist on the vanguard as one could get (which is to say, considerably left of center)
medwoman: “I also do not think it “reasonable” or productive for our society to impose draconian sentences when the asserted harm is actually quite small. I find it difficult to believe that with US Bank having another branch within such a short distance, there was a great deal of harm done by this branch closure. A little less convenient, sure, but hardly catastrophic for either the bank or its customers. As for the employees at this branch, if the bank is truly concerned about their well being, I am quite sure they could find positions for them elsewhere. We are not talking about the closure of a mom and pop operation with no where for them to go.”
this paragraph is little more than self-rationalization on behalf of the protests. Rationalizing the damage done to others as “not all that bad” so they won’t have to come to terms with the problems they create.
medwoman: “I agree with you that being “reasonable” would be the best course of action for the protesters. I also think being “reasonable” would be the best course of action for the police, the bank, the university, and our society as a whole.”
in other words, the protestors should have their demands met, otherwise their behavior is justified.
“Do you really believe that it is “reasonable” for us, as taxpayers to lock someone up in prison for years, paying the costs of their incarceration and lessening their ability to contribute to the society for this kind of activity?”
yes, I do, Although I would phrase your characterization differently.
David M. Greenwald said . . .
[i]”You are correct, the light-handed approach did not work, but neither did the over-the-top response. That suggests that the middle approach is the best.
Your response suggests you don’t understand what I am calling for as a middle approach.”[/i]
David, what is the middle approach? I’ve personally said little about what has gone on, in part because in April 1969 when militant black students demanding a black studies program at Cornell used force to take over Willard Straight Hall, thousands of students (myself included) occupied Barton Hall, which ironically serves double duty as a National Guard Armory. I look back on those days of occupation with mixed feelings.
With that said, I find it very hard to understand what the UCD students who blocked entrance to the bank felt the bank was doing wrong, and what good closing down the bank would accomplish. 20/20 hindsight tells me that my actions and the actions of my Barton Hall peers in April 1969 were more about theatre than about substance. As a result I can’t help but wonder if the actions here in Davis aren’t also for the most part about theatre. If indeed they are, as long as there is a stage and an audience, then there really isn’t any approach — heavy, light or middle — that will produce the end result that you appear to desire.
91 Octane
At no point did I say there should be no repercussions for the protesters. I made it clear what I felt the repercussions should be. You just chose to ignore that portion of my post in order to make assertions that have nothing to do with what I am saying, and then attribute them to me
While I appreciate that you consider my positions to be relatively moderate, I do not appreciate your attempting to make my words fit your interpretation. My words meant literally what I said. Your “translations” into some warped version of how conservatives think liberals view the world does you no credit, and certainly adds nothing to a reasoned discussion of the topic.
Matt, what’s going on at the bank bears little resemblance to what you did in the older days or what others did in the cause of civil rights or peace during those years of civil disobedience. That you have mixed feelings is understandable, but thank you for your service.
The bank blockade doesn’t compare and it never reached the standard of civil disobedience to advance a worthy, albeit unpopular, cause. Too self-indulgent, too unrelated to the alleged cause of concern, etc. And, they didn’t whine when they got charged…in the glory days.
Sorry about not being clear, medwoman, “doing the time” just refers to whatever the just punishment would be. The business about “maximum sentences” is the ceiling allowed by the law, taking into account the worst possible actions with the heaviest damages by the nastiest offenders. Talking about these folks “facing years in prison” is handy for drawing attention, but has no business in reality. No one even is calling for anything resembling prison time.
I’m with you on the suggestion for community service if they’re convicted. It’s too bad they have to live with a record, even of misdemeanors, but it was the choice they made.
JustSaying
“No one even is calling for anything resembling prison time. “
Actually, that is exactly what 91 Octane just said was appropriate. Now, I am not particularly concerned about what an individual posts on a blog.
What I would be concerned about is an over zealous DA who happens to share this philosophy. And, given the article about the individual tried for “not registering as a sex offender” , it would not surprise me if that kind of attitude might not hold sway in this case.
And, on another note, thanks for the clarification. I apologize for jumping on you and Elaine for the use of common expressions which she rightly pointed out I took too literally.
David used to get me riled up, too, before I realized he engages in hyperbole-and-three-quarters about the Yolo justice system. If you take whatever he writes about the DA, divide by 87.5, you’ll be someplace near reality.
If you take what 91 Octane says, you’ll get upset.
If you take what I say, you’ll be “spot on,” as they say.
It you think for yourself…oh, yeah, that’s what you do!
JustSaying
Smile !
JustSaying: Thanks for the great Saturday content. My money is on you for this topic!
[quote]And, on another note, thanks for the clarification. I apologize for jumping on you and Elaine for the use of common expressions which she rightly pointed out I took too literally.[/quote]
No worries! 😉