[Wamvan] open letter re treatment of faculty and students who protested at UC Davis

Mon Nov 21 18:10:42 PST 2011

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Raoul, Valerie <valerie.raoul at ubc.ca>
Date: Mon, Nov 21, 2011 at 5:44 PM
Subject: [ws-centre] FW: letter re treatment of faculty and students who
protested at UC Davis
To: "ws-centre at interchange.ubc.ca" <ws-centre at interchange.ubc.ca>

________________________________________
From: lingling maranan-claver [linglingmc at msn.com]
Sent: Monday, November 21, 2011 12:38 PM
Subject: A letter from California

http://billayers.wordpress.com/2011/11/20/a-letter-from-california/

A Letter from California<
http://billayers.wordpress.com/2011/11/20/a-letter-from-california/>

18 November 2011

Open Letter to Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi

Linda P.B. Katehi,

I am a junior faculty member at UC Davis. I am an Assistant Professor in
the Department of English, and I teach in the Program in Critical Theory
and in Science & Technology Studies. I have a strong record of research,
teaching, and service. I am currently a Board Member of the Davis Faculty
Association. I have also taken an active role in supporting the student
movement to defend public education on our campus and throughout the UC
system. In a word: I am the sort of young faculty member, like many of my
colleagues, this campus needs. I am an asset to the University of
California at Davis.

You are not.

I write to you and to my colleagues for three reasons:

1) to express my outrage at the police brutality which occurred against
students engaged in peaceful protest on the UC Davis campus today

2) to hold you accountable for this police brutality

3) to demand your immediate resignation

Today you ordered police onto our campus to clear student protesters from
the quad. These were protesters who participated in a rally speaking out
against tuition increases and police brutality on UC campuses on Tuesday—a
rally that I organized, and which was endorsed by the Davis Faculty
Association. These students attended that rally in response to a call for
solidarity from students and faculty who were bludgeoned with batons,<
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQw7wSGrfYk&feature=related> hospitalized,
and arrested at UC Berkeley last week. In the highest tradition of
non-violent civil disobedience, those protesters had linked arms and held
their ground in defense of tents they set up beside Sproul Hall. In a
gesture of solidarity with those students and faculty, and in solidarity
with the national Occupy movement, students at UC Davis set up tents on the
main quad. When you ordered police outfitted with riot helmets, brandishing
batons and teargas guns to remove their tents today, those students sat
down on the ground in a circle and linked arms to protect them.

What happened next?<
http://www.davisenterprise.com/media-post/ucd-police-remove-occupy-uc-davis-tents/attachment/occupyucd3/
>

Without any provocation whatsoever, other than the bodies of these students
sitting where they were on the ground, with their arms linked, police
pepper-sprayed students.<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmJmmnMkuEM>
Students remained on the ground, now writhing in pain, with their arms
linked.

What happened next?

Police used batons to try to push the students apart. Those they could
separate, they arrested, kneeling on their bodies and pushing their heads
into the ground. Those they could not separate, they pepper-sprayed
directly in the face,<
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxaLKsFdcjk&feature=share> holding these
students as they did so. When students covered their eyes with their
clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their
throats. Several of these students were hospitalized. Others are seriously
injured. One of them, forty-five minutes after being pepper-sprayed down
his throat, was still coughing up blood.

This is what happened. You are responsible for it.

You are responsible for it because this is what happens when UC Chancellors
order police onto our campuses to disperse peaceful protesters through the
use of force: students get hurt. Faculty get hurt. One of the most
inspiring things (inspiring for those of us who care about students who
assert their rights to free speech and peaceful assembly) about the
demonstration in Berkeley on November 9 is that UC Berkeley faculty stood
together with students, their arms linked together.

Associate Professor of English Celeste Langan was grabbed by her hair,
thrown on the ground, and arrested. Associate Professor Geoffrey O’Brien
was injured by baton blows. Professor Robert Hass, former Poet Laureate of
the United States, National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winner, was also
struck with a baton.

These faculty stood together with students in solidarity, and they too were
beaten and arrested by the police. In writing this letter, I stand together
with those faculty and with the students they supported.

One week after this happened at UC Berkeley, you ordered police to clear
tents from the quad at UC Davis. When students responded in the same
way—linking arms and holding their ground—police also responded in the same
way: with violent force. The fact is: the administration of UC campuses
systematically uses police brutality to terrorize students and faculty, to
crush political dissent on our campuses, and to suppress free speech and
peaceful assembly. Many people know this. Many more people are learning it
very quickly.

You are responsible for the police violence directed against students on
the UC Davis quad on November 18, 2011. As I said, I am writing to hold you
responsible and to demand your immediate resignation on these grounds.

On Wednesday November 16, you issued a letter by email to the campus
community. In this letter, you discussed a hate crime which occurred at UC
Davis on Sunday November 13. In this letter, you express concern about the
safety of our students.

You write, “it is particularly disturbing that such an act of intolerance
should occur at a time when the campus community is working to create a
safe and inviting space for all our students.”

You write, “while these are turbulent economic times, as a campus
community, we must all be committed to a safe, welcoming environment that
advances our efforts to diversity and excellence at UC Davis.”

I will leave it to my colleagues and every reader of this letter to decide
what poses a greater threat to “a safe and inviting space for all our
students” or “a safe, welcoming environment” at UC Davis:

1) Setting up tents on the quad in solidarity with faculty and students
brutalized by police at UC Berkeley? or

2) Sending in riot police to disperse students with batons, pepper-spray,
and tear-gas guns, while those students sit peacefully on the ground with
their arms linked? Is this what you have in mind when you refer to creating
“a safe and inviting space?” Is this what you have in mind when you express
commitment to “a safe, welcoming environment?”

I am writing to tell you in no uncertain terms that there must be space for
protest on our campus. There must be space for political dissent on our
campus. There must be space for civil disobedience on our campus. There
must be space for students to assert their right to decide on the form of
their protest, their dissent, and their civil disobedience—including the
simple act of setting up tents in solidarity with other students who have
done so. There must be space for protest and dissent, especially, when the
object of protest and dissent is police brutality itself. You may not order
police to forcefully disperse student protesters peacefully protesting
police brutality. You may not do so. It is not an option available to you
as the Chancellor of a UC campus. That is why I am calling for your
immediate resignation.

Your words express concern for the safety of our students. Your actions
express no concern whatsoever for the safety of our students. I deduce from
this discrepancy that you are not, in fact, concerned about the safety of
our students. Your actions directly threaten the safety of our students.
And I want you to know that this is clear. It is clear to anyone who reads
your campus emails concerning our “Principles of Community” and who also
takes the time to inform themselves about your actions. You should bear in
mind that when you send emails to the UC Davis community, you address a
body of faculty and students who are well trained to see through rhetoric
that evinces care for students while implicitly threatening them. I see
through your rhetoric very clearly. You also write to a campus community
that knows how to speak truth to power. That is what I am doing.

I call for your resignation because you are unfit to do your job. You are
unfit to ensure the safety of students at UC Davis. In fact: you are the
primary threat to the safety of students at UC Davis. As such, I call upon
you to resign immediately.

Sincerely,

Nathan Brown
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Program in Critical Theory
University of California at Davis

UC Davis students being pepper-sprayed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AdDLhPwpp4

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