UC Berkeley: Do the Right Thing. 1. Take Down the Barbed Wire Fences 2. Save the Oak Grove
$80,000 was spent to put up the 2nd barbed wire fence to enclose the tree-sitters who are protesting the erection of the Student Athlete High Performance Center in the Oak Grove at UC Berkeley. UC Berkeley Police are arresting supporters who hand up food and supplies.
UC Berkeley needs to do the right thing as in bring down the fences, honor the Oak Grove as a permanent historic and memorial site and build the Student Athlete High Performance Center in an alternative area and start honoring the fact that the Citizens of Berkeley have a right to protect what they deem precious. And while they are at it spend the money not on police and fences and fighting the City of Berkeley and locals in court—get those 300+ staff and faculty immediately out of the seismically unsafe Memorial Stadium offices and into safe portable structures until the separate Memorial Stadium issues are resolved.
Letters and calls are needed to oppose this waste of tax-payers money, to save the Oak Grove and respect the wishes of the students and residents of Berkeley.
Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau
University of California- Berkeley
200 California Hall #1500
Berkeley CA 94720
Phone: 510-642-7464
President Robert C. Dynes
Office of the President
University of California- Berkeley
1111 Franklin Street , 12th Floor
Oakland CA 94607
Phone: 510-987-9074
Executive Assistant to the President: eileen.OCallahan@ucop.edu
510-987-9076
Governor of California and President of the U.C. Regents
Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building
Sacramento , CA 95814
Phone: 916-445-2841
Fax: 916-445-4633
Send letters to the San Francisco Chronicle editors
Last Thursday, November 15th, about 45 tree-sit supporters gathered for a peaceful vigil of drumming and reflection. Soon 20 or so UC police arrived in riot gear. As tensions escalated a tree-sitter was pulled from a branch and thrown to the ground with a choke-hold. The crowd yelled to the police to stop being so violent in the arrest. At that point police moved on the scene using batons to control supporters.
On November 7th several hundred protesters came together on the UC Santa Cruz campus to protest expansion of the campus and the clearing of over 100 acres of forest for new facilities. Police tried to used pepper-spray and batons to suppress the crowd and prevent them from supporting the tree-sit protesters, but in the end police abandoned the protest site.
These two events are part of a UC wide system that operates according to a vertical, top-down approach by a board of UC Regents. As a student at UC Berkeley, I am bombarded with the reminder that Berkeley is the home of the Free Speech Movement. But let us remind ourselves that during the fall semester of 1964, over 700 students were arrested for Free Speech protests. Indeed, Berkeley is a historic place for changemakers and hippie folk. However, this image is misleading and does not translate to the great ivory tower of the University administration its self.
Countless times I have seen students protest outside the Chancellor's office demanding sweatshop free Cal gear, a multicultural center on campus, funding for the Ethnic Studies program, compliance with Title IX and now the movement has moved from the hallways into the trees!
Since our voices have been continually silenced, tree-sit protesters, like myself, have turned to more creative means such as shedding our clothes for a photograph or placing flowers in the holes of the chain-link fence.
Ultimately, I think that the UC is waiting for students to go to on winter break to take action. With less students around, it will be easier for police and administration to extract the tree-sitters. Thus, your help is imperative. Please call or write today!
We are here to save this urban forest, we are here to build bridges... NOT FENCES!
Posted by: Lani Lee | November 21, 2007 at 12:37 AM
What a disaster! My heart goes out to those harassed by the UCPD. It sounds like UCPD needs to emphasize human rights in their training. Between the infamous tasering at UCLA last year and the antagonism on the Berkeley campus this year, I would highly recommend the UN "Expanded Pocket book for human rights for the police" to UCPD.
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu6/2/pts5add3_E.pdf
Posted by: bezerkeley | November 25, 2007 at 06:10 PM