| |

Yudof on Berkeley and Davis Incidents

Byuclafaculty

Note: See prior blog entries on the “Occupy” incidents at Davis and Berkeley. Links at bottom of this posting.
President Yudof responds to campus protest issues

Contact: UC Office of the President
Phone: (510) 987-9157

University of California President Mark G. Yudof today (Nov. 20) announced the actions he is taking in response to recent campus protest issues:

I am appalled by images of University of California students being doused with pepper spray and jabbed with police batons on our campuses.

I intend to do everything in my power as president of this university to protect the rights of our students, faculty and staff to engage in non-violent protest.

Chancellors at the UC Davis and UC Berkeley campuses already have initiated reviews of incidents that occurred on their campuses. I applaud this rapid response and eagerly await the results.

The University of California, however, is a single university with 10 campuses, and the incidents in recent days cry out for a systemwide response.

Therefore I will be taking immediate steps to set that response in motion.

I intend to convene all 10 chancellors, either in person or by telephone, to engage in a full and unfettered discussion about how to ensure proportional law enforcement response to non-violent protest.

To that end, I will be asking the chancellors to forward to me at once all relevant protocols and policies already in place on their individual campuses, as well as those that apply to the engagement of non-campus police agencies through mutual aid agreements.

Further, I already have taken steps to assemble experts and stakeholders to conduct a thorough, far-reaching and urgent assessment of campus police procedures involving use of force, including post-incident review processes.

My intention is not to micromanage our campus police forces. The sworn officers who serve on our campuses are professionals dedicated to the protection of the UC community.

Nor do I wish to micromanage the chancellors. They are the leaders of our campuses and they have my full trust and confidence.

Nonetheless, the recent incidents make clear the time has come to take strong action to recommit to the ideal of peaceful protest.

As I have said before, free speech is part of the DNA of this university, and non-violent protest has long been central to our history. It is a value we must protect with vigilance. I implore students who wish to demonstrate to do so in a peaceful and lawful fashion. I expect campus authorities to honor that right.

TV report on the Davis aftermath:

See earlier posts on Occupy demonstrations at UC:

Recent Tweets:

mark_yudof Mark G. Yudof

I intend to do everything in my power as President to protect the rights of our students, faculty & staff to engage in non-violent protest.

mark_yudof Mark G. Yudof

I am appalled by images of University of California students being doused with pepper spray and jabbed with police batons on our campuses.

Update 11/21/11: The UC-Davis police chief has been placed on leave:

http://www.sacbee.com/2011/11/21/4070465/uc-davis-police-chief-placed-on.html

and there is this about one of the police officers put on leave:

http://www.sacbee.com/2011/11/21/4070831/uc-davis-cop-believed-to-have.html

Further update:

Jerry Brown silent on UC Davis incident, student protests

Even as student protests spread across the state this fall – with national attention focused today on the pepper spraying of nonviolent protesters at UC Davis – Gov. Jerry Brown has kept silent…

Full story at: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2011/11/jerry-brown-silent-on-davis-incident-student-protests.html

Note: Those who know California political history will know that Jerry Brown – determined not to be like his father who got blamed for demonstrations at Berkeley – got his start as a public figure being tough on student demonstrations as a member of a community college board.

Similar Posts

  • Is there Twitter after retirement?

    Byuclafaculty

    Of course, the Big Question is usually is there life after death?  But we can’t answer that one here.  The lesser question – Is there Twitter after retirement? – can be answered, at least in the case of former UC prez Mark Yudof.  YES!  Not surprisingly, Yudof stopped tweeting around the time he left the UC presidency.  But then, in late December, came another tweet.  It’s actually a link to a Harvard Business Review piece, and says: “Once you know your greater purpose, there are lots of roads that will take you there.” http://s.hbr.org/18NiGul [See https://twitter.com/mark_yudof] I always thought the…

  • | |

    Another of our periodic email cautionary notes

    Byuclafaculty

    From time to time, we have provided reminders about email problems.  One problem – which we have noted – is that at a public university, your emails may be subject to public documents requests. Another problem is that hackers may try to get into your email account through “phishing,” probably to use it to send out scam messages to your contacts.  Such an event seems to have occurred at UC-Davis: Hackers compromised the email accounts of three UC Davis doctors last month, potentially gaining access to personal or medical information on as many as 1,800 patients, the university announced Monday… …

  • | |

    USC Has a Bad Patch

    Byuclafaculty

    We posted yesterday about the news from UC-Berkeley that many earthquake-prone buildings are located in southern California – including in Westwood.  The Westwood-Century City Patch, in picking up the story from the LA Times, blamed USC instead of UC-B, at least in the headline.  See above.  Probably just as well.  Who wants to be the bearer of bad tidings?.

  • |

    UC-Berkeley Releases Its Earthquake Survey to the LA Times

    Byuclafaculty

    We have followed the LA Times‘ story of the concern about certain concrete buildings in the southern California area which might be at risk in a major earthquake.  The Times identified some buildings in an earlier story but noted that UC-Berkeley had a survey list of buildings.  Berkeley was reluctant to provide the list because its intent was to get an estimate of the number of such buildings based on public records rather than evaluate each building directly.  It has now provided the Times with the list, along with a legal disclaimer.  The Times now has an interactive map on…

  • | |

    Quake Response

    Byuclafaculty

    We noted in a prior post there would be increased attention to earthquake risks in LA around the 20th anniversary of the Jan. 27, 1994 Northridge quake.  One item that began to develop was an LA Times article indicating that various buildings were at risk in the LA area, even though they were thought safe when constructed.  One of the buildings in Westwood is owned by UCLA, which asserted that it had been upgraded.  It was also reported that a team of researchers at Berkeley had compiled a list of such buildings, but was not making the list available due…

  • | |

    Is the ball still in their court or has the train left the station?

    Byuclafaculty

    Hey! Let’s rebuild the old stadium! Sorry to mix metaphors.  But Inside Higher Ed today has a long story on Berkeley athletics which have recently been in the news for low graduation rates and problems in funding a stadium upgrade.  A white paper from the Berkeley Center for the Study of Higher Education suggests that the program is running as an autonomous and relatively uncontrolled business operation. It is written by a former vice chancellor – who can now tell all -and a Berkeley grad student. See http://cshe.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/shared/publications/docs/ROPS.CSHE_.12.13.Cummins%26Hextrum.CalAthletics.1.6.2014.pdf and http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/01/08/highlighting-berkeley-paper-explores-academic-damage-expanding-independent-athletics The issue is whether control can be retaken or whether…