Police Assault UC Protesters

Drop All Charges Now!

(Young Spartacus pages)

NOVEMBER 30—More than 110 were arrested in demonstrations and building occupations at University of California campuses from November 18-20. Protesters rallied across the state in opposition to a massive 32 percent hike in tuition fees and a job- and wage-slashing offensive against campus workers by the UC Board of Regents. At UCLA 14 protesters were arrested for “unlawful assembly” inside the Regents meeting on November 18. The following day, AP photos showed a cop shooting a black student in the chest with a taser gun at a demonstration. Spartacus Youth Club members who participated in the protests also witnessed cops jabbing protesters with their batons.

A virtual army of cops was also mobilized to break up an occupation of the administration building at UC Davis by several hundred students on November 19. According to the San Jose Mercury News, “the California Highway Patrol arrived en masse, as did officers from Vacaville, Davis, Winters, Yolo County, Sacramento and more” (20 November). More than 50 protesters were arrested.

When some 40 protesters occupied the Wheeler Hall building at UC Berkeley on November 20, riot-equipped cops were brought in from the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department and the Oakland and Berkeley police forces to back up the armed forces of the campus cops. Protesters outside Wheeler Hall who had mobilized in solidarity with the occupation were shoved and beaten with billy clubs, while cops pointed their weapons at demonstrators. Early on, three protesters were charged with felony burglary, and all of the student occupiers were arrested and charged with trespassing. A Berkeley biology professor, Robert Dudley, who had gone to monitor the situation, was thrown to the ground and then arrested for resisting and obstructing a police officer!

The police assaults and arrests of UC protesters provide an object lesson in the class nature of the Board of Regents and campus administration as the agents of the capitalist class on campus—enforcing austerity, busting campus unions and repressing student protest. Drop all the charges against the UC protesters now! For a class-struggle fight for free, quality, integrated education for all! Abolish the Board of Regents—for student/teacher/worker control of the universities!