Many Faculty Send Open Letter to Chancellor Block Concerning “Occupy” Demonstration/Related Developments

The letter below appears on the blog https://uclafacultyunited.wordpress.com/ in an entry dated Nov. 20.

Open Letter to Chancellor Block

November 20, 2011

Dear Chancellor Block:

In the predawn darkness this past Friday, a large contingent of police arrived on campus to remove a group of students who were peacefully protesting tuition increases, student loan debt, and the collapse of public funding for the University of California. In an act of civil disobedience, 14 students chose to ignore an order to disperse and were arrested.

Their crime, formally, was to violate a campus policy against camping. But in reality they were arrested for engaging in political speech at a time and in a manner that did not please the campus administration. For this political action, they may face disciplinary proceedings.

As UCLA faculty we call on you, to drop any charges that may be pending against these students. The freedom to debate controversial topics is at the core of university life. The students occupying Wilson Plaza on Thursday night were not posing a health or safety risk. They were not disrupting the educational mission of the university. They were holding ongoing discussions—what they call a “general assembly”—to share information and experiences, and decide together how to face the future.

So far UCLA has avoided the bitter conflicts between campus police and students that we have seen at Berkeley and Davis. However, you will recall that in 2009 UCLA Police engaged in questionable use of force that injured students and triggered an internal review. While different people may have different perceptions of the Review’s conclusions about the use of force in 2009, no one would disagree with their reaffirmation that “[w]hen members of the university community peaceably assemble to challenge some aspect of University governance, their rights to advocacy must be respected.” (44)

We have a chance to find another path at UCLA. As UCLA’s own “Principles of Community” declare, “We are committed to ensuring freedom of expression and dialogue, in a respectful and civil manner, on the spectrum of views held by our varied and diverse campus communities.” As anyone visiting the protest site can attest, the protesters were upholding their end of this charge—far better than we see in most of the political debate in this country. To stifle their voice would shortchange the future. At both Davis and Berkeley, campus police have deployed deplorable violence and injured students and faculty. On both campuses, police introduced violence while students, staff, and faculty were engaged in peaceable protest. We call on you to ensure that UCLA does not follow in their footsteps and fail to uphold the principles for which the University stands.

We urge you to drop all charges and disciplinary proceedings against the students arrested in Wilson Plaza, and also to respect students’ rights to protest the pressing issues of our political, social, and educational life.

Sincerely,

Tobias Higbie Associate Professor of History; Michael Meranze, Professor of History; Jenny Sharpe, Professor of English and Women’s Studies; Michelle Clayton, Assoc Prof Comp Lit & Spanish & Portuguese; Chris Looby, Professor English; Nouri Gana, Assoc Prof Comparative Literature; Jan de Leeuw; Distinguished Professor and Chair, UCLA Department of Statistics; Joseph Bristow, Professor English; Saree Makdisi, Professor English; Steven Nelson, Associate Professor of African and African American Art History; Carole H. Browner, Professor Anthropology; Jeffrey Prager, Professor of Sociology; Jessica R. Cattelino, Associate Professor of Anthropology; Jack Chen, Associate Professor Asian Languages & Cultures; David Delgado Shorter, Associate Professor World Arts & Cultures; Noah Zatz, Professor of Law; Katherine King, Professor Comparative Literature; Matthew Fischer, Assistant Professor English; Gerry A. Hale, Emeritus professor, Geography Department; Peter McLaren, Professor, Graduate school of Education and Information Studies; Michael Cooperson, Associate Professor NELC; Andrea Goldman, Assistant Professor History; George Baker, Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art; Allen F. Roberts, World Arts & Cultures/Dance; Susan Curtiss, Professor Emeritus, Linguistics; Henry A. Hespenheide, Professor Emeritus of Ecology; Kathleen A. McHugh, Professor, Department of English, Cinema and Media Studies Program; Valerie Matsumoto, Professor, History and Asian American Studies; Sondra Hale, Professor, Anthropology and Women’s Studies; Elizabeth DeLoughrey, Associate Professor, English; Stephen Yenser, Distinguished Professor, Department of English; Robert Brenner, Professor of History; Vinay Lal, Associate Professor of History; Sharon Traweek, Associate Professor of Women’s Studies and History; Susan Slyomovics, Professor of Anthropology and Near Eastern Languages & Cultures; Susan L. Foster, Distinguished Professor, Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance; Teofilo Ruiz, Professor of History, Spanish & Portuguese; Rafael Perez-Torres, Professor of English; Jason Throop, Associate Professor, Anthropology; Kenneth L. Karst, Price Professor of Law Emeritus; Susan Plann, Professor of Applied Linguistics and Spanish & Portuguese; Alex Purves, Associate Professor of Classics; Helen Deutsch, Professor of English; Yogita Goyal, Associate Professor of English; Michael Salman, Associate Professor of History; Jan Reiff, Associate Professor of History; Chris Tilly, Professor of Urban Planning; Grace Hong, Associate Professor Women’s Studies and Asian American Studies; Lowell Gallagher, Associate Professor English; Arthur Little, Associate Professor English; Carollee Howes, Professor Education; A. J. Julius, Assistant Professor of Philosophy; Robin Lauren Derby, Associate Professor of History; Jonathan H. Grossman, Associate Professor of English; Robert N. Watson, Distinguished Professor of English; Andrew Apter, Professor of History & Anthropology; Calvin Normore, Professor of Philosophy; Victor Bascara, Associate Professor of Asian American Studies; Ching Kwan Lee, Professor of Sociology; Francoise Lionnet, Professor of French and Francophone Studies; John McCumber, Professor of Germanic Languages; Juliet Williams, Associate Professor of Women’s Studies; Jorge Marturano, Assistant Professor of Spanish and Portuguese; Peter Lunenfeld, Professor of Design Media Arts; Ruben Hernandez-Leon, Associate Professor of Sociology; Douglas Kellner, George F. Kneller Chair in the Philosophy of Education; Héctor Calderón, Professor, Spanish and Portuguese; Sandra Harding, Professor of Education; Barbara Fuchs, Professor of English and Spanish and Portuguese; Michael Chwe, Associate Professor, Political Science; Michelle Erai, Assistant Prof. Women’s Studies; Felicity Nussbaum, Professor of English; Mishuana Goeman, Assistant Professor of Women’s Studies; Sherry Ortner, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology; Anurima Banerji, Assistant Professor, Department of World Arts and Cultures; Laure Murat, Associate Professor of French & Francophone Studies; Shane Butler, Professor of Classics; Elizabeth Upton, Assistant Professor of Musicology; Sorin Popa, Professor of Mathematics; Elizabeth Marchant, Associate Professor of Women’s Studies; King-Kok Cheung, Professor of English and Asian Am Studies; Zrinka Stahuljak, Associate Professor of French & Francophone Studies; James Gelvin, Professor of History; D
avid N. Myers, Professor of History; John Dagenais, Professor of Spanish and Portuguese; Timothy Taylor, Professor of Ethnomusicology/Musicology; Gary Blasi, Professor of Law; Barbara Herman, Professor of Philosophy; Joanna Schwartz, Acting Professor of Law; Thu-huong Nguyen-vo, Associate Professor, Asian Languages and Cultures and Asian American Studies; Namhee Lee, Associate Professor of Asian Languages & Cultures; John Carriero, Professor of Philosophy; Brian Kim Stefans, Assistant Professor of English; George Dutton, Associate Professor of Asian Languages and Cultures; Samuel Cumming, Assistant Professor of Philosophy & Law; Sheldon Smith, Associate Professor of Philosophy; Gil Hochberg, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature; Mark Sawyer Professor of Political Science; Karen Brodkin, Professor Emerita of Anthropology and Women’s Studies; Andrea Fraser, Professor of Art; Chon Noriega, Professor of Film, Television, and Digital Media; Peter Peterson, Professor of Mathematics; Chris Chism, Associate Professor of English; Victoria Marks, Professor, World Arts and Cultures|Dance; Kathleen L. Komar, Professor of Comparative Literature & German; Richard Elman, Professor of Mathematics; John Papadopoulos, Professor of Classics; Dana Cuff, Professor, Department of Architecture and Urban Design; Natasha Heller, Assistant Professor of Asian Languages and Cultures; Carlos Alberto Torres, Professor of Social Sciences and Comparative Education; César J. Ayala Professor of Sociology; Ghislaine Lydon, Associate Professor in History; Cameron Campbell, Professor of Sociology; William Roy, Professor of Sociology; Jerome Rabow, Prof. Emeritus, Sociology; Nicky Hart, Professor of Sociology; Darnell M. Hunt, Professor of Sociology; Phillip Bonacich, Department of Sociology; Stefan Timmermans, Professor of Sociology; Miguel M. Unzueta, Assistant Professor, Anderson-HROB; Alan Garfinkel, Professor of Medicine; Patricia Gandara, Professor of Education; Joel F. Handler, Professor, UCLA School of Law; Michael Heim, Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures/Comparative Literature; David Lopez, Professor Emeritus of Sociology; Gail Kligman, Professor of Sociology; Maylei Blackwell, Assistant Professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies; David Gieseker, Professor of Mathematics; Lyle F. Bachman, Professor, Department of Applied Linguistics; Pamela Munro, Distinguished Professor of Linguistics; Aisha Finch, Assistant Professor of Women’s Studies and Afro-American Studies; Tova Brown, Assistant Adjunct Professor of Mathematics; James Ralston, Professor of Mathematics; Walter Ponce, Professor of Music; Joshua Foa Dienstag, Professor of Political Science; Olga T. Yokoyama, Professor Department of Applied Linguistics; Abel Valenzuela Jr., Professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies; Catherine Opie, Professor of Art; Richard J Jackson, Professor of Environmental Health Science; Steven P. Wallace, Professor, Department of Community Health Sciences; Inwon C. Kim, Associate Professor of Mathematics; Otto Santa Ana, Associate Professor Department of Chicana/o Studies; Dwight W. Read, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology; Kelly Lytle Hernandez, Associate Professor of History; Christopher Erickson, Professor of Management; Maia Young, Assoc Prof of Human Resources and Organizational Behavior, Anderson School of Management; Jody Kreiman, Professor of Surgery; Michael J. B. Allen, Distinguished Professor of English; Stephen Cederbaum, M.D. Professor Emeritus, Psychiatry, Pediatrics and Human Genetics; Ali Behdad, Professor of English and Comparative Literature

The blog post contains directions for those faculty members wishing to sign the letter above:

Email uclafacultyunited@gmail.com. Subject line: add my name. Put your name, rank and department in the body of the email message.

Bruin article on letter at:

http://www.dailybruin.com/index.php/article/2011/11/more_than_40_faculty_condemn_arrests_of_occupy_ucla_protesters_in_letter_to_chancellor_block

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Other developments:

UC-Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi announced tonight that she is calling for all charges against 10 individuals in last Friday’s pepper spray incident – nine of them students – to be dropped, and that the university will pay the medical expenses of students injured by campus police using pepper spray… UC President Mark Yudoff announced that he had appointed Will Bratton, the former head of police departments in Los Angeles, Boston and New York, to conduct an independent review of Friday’s (UC-Davis) incident…

Full story at http://www.sacbee.com/2011/11/22/4074483/university-offers-to-pay-medical.html

Interview with UC-Davis chancellor by student TV:

Note: The postponed Regents meeting will take place Nov. 28 through a teleconference at various campuses. At UCLA, the location is the James West Alumni Center. The meeting begins at 8:30 AM.

Official statement from President Yudof:

President Yudof launches initiatives to address policing and protests

Date: 2011-11-22
Contact: University of California Office of the President
Phone: (510) 987-9200

University of California President Mark G. Yudof moved on two fronts today (Tuesday, Nov. 22) to address policing issues in the wake of the pepper spraying of UC Davis students and other incidents involving law enforcement officers and protesters.

Acting in response to a written request from UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi, Yudof agreed to conduct a thorough review of the events of Nov. 18 on the Davis campus.

As a first step, Yudof reached out to former Los Angeles police chief William J. Bratton to undertake an independent fact-finding of the pepper spray incident and report back the results to him within 30 days.

Bratton, who also led the New York City police department, now heads the New York-based Kroll consulting company as chairman. He also is a renowned expert in progressive community policing.

“My intent,” Yudof said, “is to provide the Chancellor and the entire University of California community with an independent, unvarnished report about what happened at Davis.”

Assembly Speaker John A. Perez also had made a request to President Yudof and UC Regents Chair Sherry Lansing for an independent investigation.

Under the plan, Bratton’s report also will be presented to an advisory panel that Yudof is forming, again at Katehi’s request. The panel will consist of a cross-section of students, faculty, staff and other UC community members.

The advisory panel, whose members will be announced at a later date, will review the report and make recommendations to Chancellor Katehi on steps that should be taken to ensure the safety of peaceful protesters on campus. She will present her implementation plan to President Yudof.

On a second track, Yudof appointed UC General Counsel Charles Robinson and UC Berkeley School of Law Dean Christopher Edley Jr. to lead a system-wide examination of police protocols and policies as they apply to protests at all 10 UC campuses.

This effort will include visits to campuses for discussions with students, faculty and staff, and consultation with an array of experts.

The review is expected to result in recommended best practices for policing protests across the 10 UC campuses.

“With these actions,” Yudof said, “we are moving forward to identify what needs to be done to ensure the safety of students and others who engage in non-violent protests on UC campuses. The right to peaceful protest on all of our campuses must be protected.”

Source: http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/26712

Earlier posts on this topic:

http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2011/11/another-pepper-apology-lets-focus.html