----- Original Message -----
From: "Brad DeLong" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>As tuition doubled and services and
>funding was cut, the tenured faculty at the University of California sat
>back and did almost nothing, since their perks were not on the line. Their
>apathy and indifference to the narrowing of opportunity...
-I believe *very* strongly that in a good society education--as much
-education as people want--should be free. But free higher education
-is not an equality-promoting measure. I cannot look at the doubling
-of in-state undergraduate tuition and fees for U.C. Berkeley to its
-current $4200 a year as a very bad thing. The average college-high
-school wage premium these days is $7.50 an hour, after all. Public
-subsidies for higher education are regressive.
And that might be true if that was the sum total of the campus protests, but
they specifically linked their protests to demands for higher funding for
both universities and K-12 education and to higher taxes on the wealthy.
Their was a broad movement called the Coalition for Public Education that
linked activists on universities to the teachers unions and others- and the
results were a surcharge tax on the income of the wealthiest 2% of taxpayers
in California, not just the sales taxes Pete Wilson was proposing.
I know a lot of faculty dismissed participating in the campus protests based
on the arguments you are making, but it's part of the complacency I'm
complaining about that most did not even pay close attention enough to know
what students were demanding. But as someone who was leading the fight at
UC-Berkeley, I can assure you that we structured not only our demands but
also our protests to highlight connections between on-campus and off-campus
solidarity.
I've attached an LA TIMES article from the period from our first big mass
arrest, which specifically was tied to the University cutting off access to
the libraries to non-students. This was part of years long fights tying the
university fight to K-12 and progressive taxation battles.
I will say a few faculty joined in the fight, even a few coming with us when
we took busloads of folks to Sacramento to lobby for higher taxes on the
wealthy to block the fee hikes and budget cuts, but damn few, damn few.
-- Nathan Newman
=========
Los Angeles Times
Copyright, The Times Mirror Company; Los Angeles Times 1992 All Rights
Reserved
Sunday, February 2, 1992
PART-A; Metro Desk
68 Arrested at UC Berkeley Sit-In to Protest Higher Fees, State Budget Cuts
Special to The Times
Sixty-eight protesters who took over a UC Berkeley library to
decry student fee increases and state budget cuts were arrested
late Friday and early Saturday in the largest mass arrest on campus
since anti-apartheid protests in 1986.
The arrests capped a 12-hour vigil that began about 12:30 p.m.
Friday when 200 students marched on Moffitt Undergraduate Library.
They were barred from entering by campus police, but about 120
students and residents gained access at 4:30 p.m. and staged a
sit-in on the library's main floor. There, they discussed recently
approved $550 fee hikes, future protest strategies and demands for
a rollback in state cuts.
Police began removing protesters at 10:30 p.m. Sixty-four
students and four non-students were cited for trespassing and
released.
The group chose the library as a symbol because non-students
have been prohibited from using the building since last spring
because of campus budget cuts, said second-year graduate student
Nathan Newman, one of those arrested.
"This is the beginning of our solidarity with communities across
the state," Newman said, stressing the group's unity with students
who took over a library at the Santa Cruz campus last week.
Campus officials praised the group's nonviolent tactics. "I
think the students handled themselves very well. It's a nonviolent
protest, but I'd prefer that we didn't have to spend our resources
on protests," said campus spokesman Jesus Mena.
The group said protests will continue.
