60 protesters arrested at UC Berkeley for occupying classroom building, authorities say

Police at UC Berkeley arrested more than 60 trespassing students and other protesters early this morning after a four-day "open occupation" of a classroom building, university officials said.

The protesters were arrested at 4:40 a.m. for misdemeanor trespassing inside Wheeler Hall, where they had planned to host an all-night dance party with a DJ and guest performances, said Dan Mogulof, a university spokesman. The group included at least 24 who identified themselves as students, he said.

“In the beginning, they went out of their way to not disrupt classes,” Mogulof said. “They told us they’d be out by Friday evening because they knew finals were there Saturday [morning]. But things changed. They scheduled and began to heavily publicize an all-night hip-hop concert.”

A flier provided by the university said the concert was set tonight from 8 until the "the cops kick in the doors."

A total of 65 occupants were inside the building at the time of the arrests, and one was outside attempting to cause a disruption, Mogulof said.

The protesters had maintained the illegal, largely non-disruptive 24-hour presence inside Wheeler Hall since Monday, claiming to do so in the name of "opening the university." Mogulof said their motives were not entirely clear because they never made any demands.

“It’s hard to know. It was about demonstrating a new model for an ‘open university,’” Mogulof said. “Obviously it happened in the wake of raising fees.”

For weeks, students have protested a 32% tuition hike at University of California campuses.

Ianna Owen, a graduate student, was arrested Nov. 20 in a similar demonstration at Wheeler Hall. The 23-year-old said the protest was an attempt  demonstrate what an actual public university should look like.

“[We want] a university that is accessible to all people, that is free to all people and that educates people," Owen said in a telephone interview. "Right now, the lessons we’re learning is that you’ll get beaten or arrested for standing up in what you believe in.

“It’s very ridiculous the school is so proud of their diversity and having a role in the free speech movement," she said. "But they got those things because people did what we’re doing now. They can’t have it both ways.”

Owen said Wheeler Hall was on lockdown, with only faculty and staff allowed to enter. She said she supports a plan to march to California Hall, a central administration building on campus, to protest the arrests and hold a rally.

-- Gerrick D. Kennedy

Comments

[Elldogg]

"...that is free to all people...". I think one reason why higher education has been costing more in California is because people think this way too often. When something is free it is not appreciated as much, and the numbers of students that don't go on to receive their degree within the 4 or 5 year period (or at all) shows this to be true. I have given the State of California the nickname of the "gimme state". Medical coverage, food, housing, etc. is an expectation of too many in California these days. The problem is that if everyone decides to yell gimme then who is doing the giving.

[Howard]

Don't understand what this was about

[Mary]

I have no pity for these freeloaders wanting someone else to pay their tuition. I have even less pity for those overpaid jackasses calling themselves professors who don't do 10 hours of teaching per week and nonetheless haul in 6 figures.

As the financial collapse continues to unwind in 2010 and 2011, you will see a lot more of this across the nation. Students will be forced to drop out or go somewhere cheaper. Schools like Berkeley will counter by raising their tuition even more, and of course they will plead with Washington for handouts, all so they maintain their lavish lifestyle. The house of cards is coming down.

[LA Lifer]

They publicized an all night hop-hop party???
What a bunch of idiots. They should be kicked out of school for stupidity.
Typical San Francisco liberal blathering.

[Freedom]

This hip hop party thing was designed to harm the protest movement. They are trying to get rid of these students' right to protest.

[cgc_in_socal]

Protesting a 32% tuition hike? Did those kids just wake up to reality?!? Hey kids guess who'll be paying for Obama's bailout? That's right: You and your kids' kids.

[Mufon]

Ahh yes, the foolish days of college protests, and the futility, uselessness and juvenile nature of it all. I was there once, took me a few years to see that it was useless posturing without result, but it was admittedly fun.

[Angry Mom]

My son was studying for a final in a quiet classroom. He was arrested, sat in jail all day, and missed his final. The police didn't seem to notice his books or his laptop. What the he** is going on?

[Kris]

I am a UC Berkeley Student.
I visited Wheeler Hall many times while it was occupied. When students controlled the building, all classrooms were open, there were 24-hour study halls, as well as guest-lectures, skill-sharing workshops, and free food to students studying. The building was kept clean and in order, and we cleaned up after ourselves. In addition, any lectures, study-halls, and discussion-sections planned for classes and faculty were allowed to take place. No demands were made because this was not an occupation. It was not intended to disrupt, but instead to provide students with democratically controlled resources that the university is failing to provide.
Now, after the 4AM raid and arrest of the 64 students studying and sleeping there, the building is locked down and classes must be moved to other buildings.

Public education should be free. This was Thomas Jefferson's idea. He thought that democracy depended on it, as in order to avoid a oligarchy of the elite, the population needed to be educated and given the power of the vote. Now, education, and therefore knowledge, are a commodity, which requires money to access it. this makes real democracy impossible, and fossilizes class structures.

In this society we are somehow deathly frightened of the concept of commonly-held resources. We think that if an area is not formally and forcefully controlled with limited access, it will inevitably become trashed and violent. This is a sad assumption and leads to the world we inhabit today being built on hate and exclusion.

[Matt]

Too many of the people criticizing the student protesters don't understand how much they have benefited from our system of higher education, and how much that system has done for the state.

California is the only state in the country that, if it were an independent nation, would be a member of the G8. We did not get that way by being a low-tax state. We achieved that status because after World War 2 Californians, like the country at large, decided to secure their economic future by investing in the most important resource of any economy: its workforce.

California has perhaps the most dynamic and diverse workforce in the world. Would HP, Apple and Google have headquartered themselves in California if they did not have 33 public universities supplying an educated, highly skilled workforce? Would the international film industry be based in Hollywood were it not for the creative types churned out by our world-class colleges and universities?

The beauty of public education is the schools also conduct research, and as public institutions, the research is a public good. Businesses and corporations know this, and they locate in areas where they will benefit from knowledge "spillover." Again, Silicon Valley absorbs not just California's college students into its workforce, but also benefits from advances in technology that are developed in our public university labs.

UC Davis alone is a global leader in three of California's most important industries: wine, dairy and agriculture. These industries are worth tens of billions of dollars each per year. Where would California's vintners, dairies and farmers be without the groundbreaking research UC Davis conducts every year?

UC Davis is also developing plug-in hybrid, plug-in electric, biofuel and hyrodgen fuel cell vehicles. When these technologies are patented, the money comes back into the state from the licensing, and car companies will set up shop here to build the new cars (Tesla Motors is already doing this).

Californians need to realize the fee hikes affect not just the students who get priced out; by limiting the number of our residents who can attend and earn a degree, we only shoot ourselves in the foot. California's economic power over the last five decades is inextricably linked to the quality and access of its higher education system. Our parents and grandparents made that investment and it paid off in spades. But now, the reaction of many people to the student protesters indicates we may be reneging on that investment.

The attitude of Californians to the protesters--indifference and outright disdain--is selfish and shortsighted. Much of the response has come from Californians who attended UC or CSU at a time when those institutions were virtually free. Now they scoff at the "spoiled" or "whiny" students who had the affordable education they were promised pulled out from under them. Indeed, many of the UC regents are graduates of UC at a time when California was still willing to make that investment in its young people. Today it seems we are not, and we will only suffer for that sudden bout of thrift.

Cutting the business tax so the Olive Garden can hire another busboy will not make California a world leader in biotechnology, nanotechnology, alternative energy, green building, sustainable agriculture or medical science. These technologies are realized and developed in our university labs. We must invest in them now before someone else does, otherwise we will be left behind in obsolescence.

[Joseph C. Nickl]

These people are idealistic idiots who think that it's still the 1970s.
Why can't they all just go get jobs and stop trying to make a difference!? Do they really think that ordinary people working together can change the way things are run? It's not ever worth trying to change things because it will never happen and things are fine the way they are. Why do they want the state to provide more civic resources? Nothing's free and that's why we have private corporations. How about that president of the UC just sells it off to BP and Bechtel... (wait actually he already sold them some...) maybe Texaco, Monsanto, Halliburton, whoever! They can pay for their stupid educations and they'll actually learn how to operate in our modern world!

[Rob]

I was among the ones arrested in Wheeler Hall on December 12th. What the media hasn't mentioned was that when we were arrested, many of us weren't allowed to grab our jackets or shoes. It was early in the morning and most of us were in our night time clothing. When we were handcuffed and taken to a classroom downstairs in Wheeler Hall, one officer decided to open all the windows and would not close them when we asked. We were also taken outside to the bus without shoes or jackets and many of the windows on the bus were down.

[Rob]

The media didn't mention anything about those arrested not given access to their coats and shoes and being put in a classroom where an officer opened all the windows in the room. Or being led out to the "jail-bus" with many of us either bare foot or in socks in the middle of December.

[Mary Ann Walker]

I know one of the students arrested and was provided a description of what occurred during and after a legitimate protest. We have sent and are continuing to send many young Americans into harms's way (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc) to fight for the establishing the rights we are supposed to have here in the USA, for example, free speech, right to assemble, etc. What hypocrisy that another group of young Americans cannot exercise these same rights here in the USA without fear of reprisal (arrested, felony charges, labeled "terrorists", etc)! No wonder the rest of the world calls the USA a nation of hypocrites and worse--we can't walk our own talk! Wake up USA! if protestors can be labeled and treated this way at UC Berkeley, this could happen anywhere in the USA-- Students at UC Berkeley are representative of our best and brightest young Americans. They are well read, deep thinkers and definitely not idiots. The "hip-hop party flyer" was put out there to detract from the major issue of balancing the state budget on the backs of those who have the least but stand to gain the most versus going after corporate realtors who are largely responsible for our fiscal morass via the passage of Prop. 63 many years ago. When that measure limiting property tax was put on the ballot, the legislative analyst warned that it's passage would create a fiscal nightmare for the State of California and that warning has come to pass.