Vanguard at UC Davis

On Wednesday, the UC Board of Regents met in San Francisco and received a report from UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi along with two other UC chancellors who described recent events on campus including a noose, KKK symbols and the Compton Cookout, a party that mocked black history month at UC San Diego.

While administrators and the Chancellor have been quick to criticize the incidents and send out communications, there has been a general sense of a lack of swift disciplinary actions.

The first hour was spent in the MU, the second hour at the Silo, and the event ended up at Mrak Hall.  Students every half an hour broke their silence to list their demands and every hour changed places, marching through campus also in silence.

While the generations older than me will roll their eyes at the notion, I do have nearly 20 years on most of the kids in college.  I will preface my comments on the strike a bit, saying it was probably not the safest or brightest idea to attempt to block I-80, at the same time, somehow the kids of 1971 managed to do the same thing, and at least from the cursory view of history, succeed at it.

The Vanguard spoke with two of the protesters who were up on the front lines of the confrontation.  The confrontation took place right before the freeway on-ramp just past the Mondavi center.

They were halted by hundreds of law enforcement officers in riot geer.  At one point, pellet guns were fired and batons used in an effort to stop the students.

Statewide there have been a slew of incidents coinciding with heavy cuts and fee hikes to the UC.  On Wednesday, a small but determined group, whose numbers were depleted by the threat of rain, met at the Memorial Union and marched to Mrak Hall.

On September 24th we began the year by walking out of our classes and work- places in solidarity: students, faculty, workers, and staff who faced furloughs, lay- offs, pay cuts and tuition hikes, all left their buildings, classes and jobs to rally and march together against the privatization of education.

Workers and students showed overwhelming support for faculty grievances that day. We called attention to the lack of budget transparency and to faculty issues around self-governance. When administration claimed the Sept 24th walkout was led chiefly by faculty concerns, we refused to let that claim stand. We insisted we shared one struggle, and wouldn’t be divided by departments, titles, age or salary. We called ourselves equals—and took the future of our education, workplace, and university into our own hands. But since the walkout, the faculty voice has been almost entirely absent from the opposition to student fee increases and worker layoffs.

Among the requests of the state auditor will be to: identify the sources of UC’s public funding; review and evaluate the policies and practices UC uses to track and allocate public funds; determine how the UC has spent its state appropriation, student fees, and funds from the federal government; evaluate UC’s practices for non-salary expenditures including travel, consultants, and entertainment; assess expenditures for instruction and identify the average amount per student UC spends on instruction; determine what funds are restricted and how; and examine auxiliary organizations, including expenditures.

Let me backtrack, recently Mr. Taormino presented before council his own development plan in Willowback.  It’s a small development but drew a lot of complaints from the neighbors and at some point it will come back up.  Giving the housing market right now and the expressed sentiments of the voters, I have to question the appropriateness of the timing of that proposal.

UC Davis announced right before Thanksgiving last week that an agreement was reached whereby the protesters would end their occupation of Mrak which was done peacefully and without incident.

The caption reads, “this is what democracy looks like,” and across the state, the story is the same, students protesting, barricading, and getting arrested.  For those who worried about the future leadership of this nation, worry not, this generation is just as capable as your own of battling authority.

Kristin Koster spoke to the Vanguard from the county jail, although she was not arrested.