What does dakka think of this? (UCSC Politcal Activism)

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**hotsauceman1**

So, Yes, this is my school, I just didnt think it would make the news like this

Santa Cruz is a sleepy college town nestled at the base of a mountain range on California’s Central Coast. Recently, the city, famous for its beach boardwalk and redwood forests, experienced an act of civil disobedience by six of the university’s students.

This news might seem unremarkable for a college community known for its alternative lifestyle and liberal leanings. But the demonstration—held in early March in opposition to tuition hikes across the state—has led to some soul-searching for the University of California, Santa Cruz, which is coming under scrutiny for abandoning its tradition of political activism and the values it still uses to market itself. Despite lasting only a few hours, the protest has also dragged Santa Cruz into the center of national conversations about student debt, generational divides, and the efficacy of certain protest tactics designed to attract attention.

The six students are all California residents between the ages of 19 and 28 who decided to protest the tuition increases by blocking a major thoroughfare in the area. They now each face sentences of 30 days in jail for two misdemeanors, including for creating a public nuisance, though the local district attorney is reportedly striving to convince the judge to sentence them to more time. (They were initially charged as felons for criminal conspiracy, but those charges were later dropped.) Meanwhile, the university administration has suspended them each for a year and a half, during which time they will not have access to housing or healthcare.

UC Santa Cruz, or UCSC, is part of a ten-campus network that is widely considered to be a paragon of state university systems. Traditionally, California residents were able to attend the world-class institutions at a relatively affordable cost, but that has started to change in recent decades, as budget crises and a decrease in state support for higher education prompted sizable tuition hikes. Undergraduate tuition, which is uniform across the UC system, has more than doubled in the last decade to its current level of $12,192. It’s increased at a much higher rate than the national average, which in 2014 was $9,139. Officials point out that financial-aid programs for low- and middle-income families make tuition free for more than half of the schools’ in-state students—but as the recent controversy suggests, that’s not always enough.

UCSC doesn’t have the same recognition as UC institutions such as UCLA and Cal Berkeley; it’s endowment is much smaller, and its athletics are Division III. What it is known for, however, is its foundation in radical politics and its support of student activism. Founded in 1965, when Vietnam-era activism was growing across American campuses, Santa Cruz’s student body immediately took part in the nationwide movement. That character stuck even as UCSC grew and prospered in the ensuing decades. In 1991, the university hired Angela Davis, a luminary of the Civil Rights Movement and a close associate with members of the Black Panther Party, as a professor of feminist studies. Then, as environmental activism expanded across the country, UCSC students and faculty spearheaded efforts to stop development projects that would have compromised access to the cliffs on the city’s west side. Students and faculty ran for, and were elected to, local political offices. Their liberal politics sometimes clashed with the town’s conservative leaning.

Recently, on-campus activism has revolved around the UC tuition hikes, intensifying after Janet Napolitano, who currently serves as the system’s president, announced in November annual increases of 5 percent over the next five years. Students throughout California loudly opposed the measure, marshaling lobbyists, deploying delegations to a Board of Regents meeting, occupying buildings, and coordinating demonstrations across the state—all to little avail.

“I’ve been here for 35 years and I’ve never seen this level of punishment for civil disobedience that was nonviolent.”
For the six students the prospect of even more tuition hikes, especially when university administrators continue to garner high salaries, was intolerable.
So they came up with a plan.

At approximately 9 a.m. on March 3, the students gathered trash cans full of concrete and chains, put them in a U-Haul van, and headed to the Fishhook Bridge, which connects Route 1 and Highway 17, the main thoroughfare between Silicon Valley and Santa Cruz. By 9:30, the protesters managed to form a blockade on the bridge with their materials, shutting down traffic for three hours—and spurring response from 85 uniformed personnel and a helicopter. Officials used a sledgehammer to eventually extricate the protesters.

For much of the morning, commuters—many of whom were on their way to work—sat in traffic until the road was cleared at 2:30 p.m. At one point, a motorist was so angry he marched to the front of the gridlock and launched into a profanity-laced tirade that later made the circuit on social media.

By the end of that afternoon, an online petition calling for UCSC’s chancellor, George Blumenthal, to expel the protesters had garnered 3,000 signatures; as of Thursday, the number had grown to roughly 4,300. Blumenthal didn’t go as far to expel the six students, but he strongly condemned their actions, saying in a statement the day of the protest that the university “deeply [regretted] the impact these events had on our neighbors.” Emphasizing that the university’s students are “all members of this community,” he went on to say that school leaders would “exert” their responsibility and in the future discourage such means of protesting. “It's more than just an inconvenience,” he said. “Obstructing traffic jeopardizes public safety in ways that potentially could put people's lives at risk.” In the afternoon, as the students sat in jail waiting to be processed, the university then notified the students of interim suspensions; the suspension was eventually extended.

An increasing number of community members, faculty, and students, however, have begun pushing back, circulating letters of support and criticizing the university administration of caving to outside pressure by enacting excessively harsh punishments without following appropriate due-process protocol. Bettina Aptheker, a feminist-studies professor, characterized the university’s decision to suspend the students as “draconian and unnecessary.” “I’ve been here for 35 years and I’ve never seen this level of punishment for civil disobedience that was nonviolent,” she said. “The punishment is way out of proportion to the offensive.”

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Still, Lori Nixon, the only one of the six students who agreed to an interview, said she was bewildered by the initial reaction to the protest. “We set out to send a political message,” she said, noting that freeway shutdowns are a common tactic in other places. Indeed across the country, shutting down critical thoroughfares has recently figured as a popular protest tactic across the country. Following the St. Louis County Grand Jury’s announcement last November that Officer Darren Wilson would not be charged for shooting and killing Michael Brown, an unarmed black man, many of the demonstrations focused on shutting down highways. Marchers in St. Louis blocked traffic on Interstate-70, while in New York, demonstrations thwarted traffic on FDR Drive at the Williamsburg Bridge. In Boston protesters sat down on Massachusetts Avenue, and in Oakland protesters shut down the bridge at the I-580, a method protesters in that community have employed repeatedly, including just last month.

Those in favor of protest movements and who support the underlying social issues inspiring them have argued that the inconvenience of encountering annoying traffic jams is minor relative to the grave and systemic injustices to which the movements are attempting to bring attention.

A recent high-profile controversy involving a Twitter-rant by the actor Alec Baldwin revealed that divide: Baldwin complained about sitting in New York City traffic because of fast-food workers who were rallying to raise the minimum wage to $15, obstructing a large swath of midtown traffic. “There are ways to rally people without inconveniencing an entire city,” Baldwin wrote in a tweet. Then, the day after his post, he was blasted in The New York Times by the opinion writer Rachel L. Swarms: “The convenience factor! Now, that, Mr. Baldwin, is an issue that doesn’t get raised every day by your fellow supporters of a living wage. And it reminds me that this point rarely comes up when we consider the history of social movements in the United States: the sheer inconvenience that peaceful protests create for people who are not protesting.”

“There are ways to rally people without inconveniencing an entire city.”
Deborah Gould, a sociology professor at UCSC who studies social movements, said attitudes such as Baldwin’s are common. “People who participate in social movements are invariably disparaged by the media and by bystanders,” Gould said. “People don’t like to be inconvenienced, and I understand that, but in order for necessary social change to occur people are going to be inconvenienced.” With regard to the tuition hikes at the university, students often feel their grievances are routinely dismissed by the administration, she said, and believe that protests are their only recourse—a sentiment demonstrated by Nixon.

“In the face of very bleak futures, the economic crash of 2008, an economy that is not only limping along but doesn’t seem to really need these students,” Gould said, “we should not be surprised that these students have turned to more militant forms of protest.”

But in Santa Cruz, issues beside the cost of college are at play, too. The protest has underscored divides between the Baby Boomers, many of whom paid for college simply by getting summer jobs, and Millennials: a generation incurring tens of thousands of dollars of student debt, often just to have an opportunity in an already-crowded job market.

Among UC students who took out loans and graduated in 2013, the average debt was $20,500. They are also paying more for less, as the higher volumes of incoming freshman combined with cuts to faculty mean higher class counts and less individualized attention.

Eric John Nelson, the attorney representing Lori Nixon, said there is a deep irony in that the young people grew up dealing with financial crises ranging from the recession to widespread unemployment, largely because of poor policy choices made by the very generation that is now seeking to punish them for taking a stand on the repercussions of those policies.

Yet, one theme frequently evoked by those criticizing the students’ protest tactics is that the young people were spoiled and entitled brats unfamiliar with the “real world.”

Nixon, who was four classes away from graduating with a degree in sociology at the time of her suspension, said she is currently $25,000 in debt. A victim of the recession, she lost her job at the San Diego Unified School District in 2011 due to across-the-board employee cuts and had her house foreclosed as a result. “I know the struggle of working to pay for community college classes and trying to make ends meet,” she said. “I’ve struggled a lot to get where I am and now I’m in danger of losing my health care again. It’s really scary.”

Moreover, according to Nixon, some of her fellow demonstrators face difficult prospects, too, now that they’ve lost on-campus housing and have had to scramble for places to stay while going through an onslaught of administrative processes.

“The scary part of this whole thing is that the state can punish them twice,” Nelson said. The UC System is a state entity, meaning the students continue to face heavy penalties from two government agencies, according to Nelson.

Furthermore, student advocates claim the group’s due-process rights, as guaranteed by the university, were also violated, citing the university’s decision to suspend them within hours of their arrest. It’s in violation of university policy, they said, to take such action without a hearing.

“Our very founding in 1965 was a revolt against the educational status quo.”
“The suspensions were issued within hours of them being arrested,” Aptheker, the feminist-studies professor said. “These students are being disciplined for off-campus actions and you can’t suspend them until they have a hearing.”

The UCSC spokesman Scott Hernandez-Jason declined to comment on the specific case, citing university policy, but emphasized that “due process is at the heart of the student conduct process.” The university has the right to punish students for off-campus activities, he said, noting precedents in which students have been subject to disciplinary action for hosting parties that disturb neighborhoods. Still, concern is growing among the faculty and student body that establishing such a precedent is troubling and has the potential to be applied arbitrarily and unevenly. The university, for example, hasn’t taken any disciplinary action against a UCSC student who was recently ticketed after participating in a protest outside the U.S. Capitol.

All in all, the Santa Cruz community now appears ambivalent over the outcome, many criticizing the heavy punishment handed to the students but supportive of their mission. Ultimately, even if UCSC had taken steps to discipline the student, the university’s tradition of radical politics raises questions about its decision to punish students who participated in peaceful demonstration.

“The Original Authority on Questioning Authority,” reads a T-shirts for sale in UCSC’s gift shop, bearing a popular school slogan. Indeed, many argue the university has strayed far from its founding philosophy—a philosophy that it still uses to market itself to prospective students. And, at least according to its website, it’s one the school should continue to espouse today. “Our very founding in 1965 was a revolt against the educational status quo,” reads a passage on the university website. “Now, in an era of increased conformity and risk aversion, we invite you to join us in pursuit of a more just, healthy, and sustainable world.”

I just want people to know, 5 days later they staged a protest doing the same thing, but on school openings. This lead to a shutdown of the entire bus system for Santa Cruz because 10 routes run through UCSC, requiring many people to walk or be late to work. And what this article fails to mention is on person was airlifted out off Highway 17 for a heart attack, another went into labor(Very dangerous) and another lost her cat on the way to the vet.
The Sociology department(My department) is outrageds about this saying they are punishing students to harshly for actitivism. But I argue you represent your school like you do your company.

**marv335**

You have to take responsibility for your actions.
These students, if they had been successful in their protest would have, no doubt. taken credit for the policy reversal on fees.
The also now have to take responsibility for the harm they caused during their protest.

**BobtheInquisitor**

Having driven through Santa Cruz a few times recently, all I can say is I am shocked that they shut down Highway 1 for 3 hours and anybody noticed. It once took us that long just to go 4 miles through Capitola, and we didn't even have any doe-eyed students to blame. Clearly they should have been protesting for more automobile infrastructure.

Santa Cruz is a nice little town. It reminds me of Arcata. It's adorable that they think their student protests are comparable to the big time UCs'.

**Frazzled**

Taze them Bro!

As a former California student, protests on campus were a weekly event, like having lunch. Protest off campus and throw the

ing book at em.

**Relapse**

Once more, stupidity on display. Did these students bother to think about the situation of people that might be penalized for getting to work late, graveyard workers trying to hurry home so that their spouse can leave the kids in their care so they can get to work, emergency workers trying to get to the scene of an accident, fire, or crime?
No real thought for anyone but themselves and getting their 15 minutes. I think there should be a fine levied for each hour of work lost by people in the traffic jam and charges related to anything more serious that held up emergency crews.
Definitely not green, either, if you think about the extra gas burned by cars held up in the jam.
A totally stupid stunt carried out by stupid people

**hotsauceman1**

Frazzled wrote:
Taze them Bro!

As a former California student, protests on campus were a weekly event, like having lunch. Protest off campus and throw the ing book at em.

Well yeah, I cant go a week without some form of avtivism going on here.
Its usually about legalzing pot.

**Alpharius**

Glad to see the future is such good hands!

**hotsauceman1**

Alpharius wrote:
Glad to see the future is such good hands!

Well, Almost everyone I talked to disapproved of it

**Ensis Ferrae**

hotsauceman1 wrote:
and another lost her cat on the way to the vet.

To this I say, "So? Who gives a feth? It's a damn cat!"

The school I'm currently at is facing the same exact issue of raising tuition... It is a complex issue, that started with mismanagement of money, and extremely short sighted policies.

By mismanagement of money, I am referring to the continual efforts by various state legislatures to cut funding to schools everywhere, and still expect the same results. A part of that includes many colleges using adjuct professors for ridiculously low wages (one interview I saw, the interviewee, an adjunct English professor, claimed to make 16k per year), who then in turn, don't give a feth about their classes and are very lazy in their teaching. These sort of short sighted "money saving" policies are leading many adjuncts to attempt to join teachers' unions, or form their own union.

**Sienisoturi**

Funny how some people think that making everybody's life harder will get them support.

**Relapse**

Sienisoturi wrote:
Funny how some people think that making everybody's life harder will get them support.

They have the same mentality and maturity level of a 4 year old throwing a temper tantrum.

**hotsauceman1**

And when they are taught that is how you get change from proff. I have yet to have Deborah gould, but I hear she is radical.

**Tannhauser42**

Ensis Ferrae wrote:
hotsauceman1 wrote:
and another lost her cat on the way to the vet.

To this I say, "So? Who gives a feth? It's a damn cat!"

It could also have easily been "and another lost her child on the way to the emergency room."

This reminds me of the protesters I see every now and then on my way home from Dallas to Fort Worth. Every couple of months they're on one of the bridges over the highway with their "honk to impeach Obama" or "remember Benghazi" banners or somesuch that backs up traffic for an extra 10-15 minutes. Making my already longassed commute longer does not encourage me to support you. Strange that they're not dedicated enough to their cause to be out there when it's raining, freezing cold, or burning hot. There was one time when they were protesting that whole thing about illegal immigrant/refugee children getting to stay in the country not long ago, and the next bridge down had some counterprotesters with a "what would Jesus do" banner.

**Ensis Ferrae**

Tannhauser42 wrote:

It could also have easily been "and another lost her child on the way to the emergency room."

You notice that I did cut out the airlifted person, and the woman who went into labor?? Humans > Cats. Media reporting on this the, in my eyes a lazy plea for an emotional reaction, similar to the always inserted "an unarmed black man" right after Michael Brown's name (in his case, it may as well be a title, similar to Duke of York or something, it's said so often)

While I somewhat agree that the students may have gone slightly overboard in their protesting of the school by blocking a major traffic point, I actually think that their punishment is more overboard and unwarranted.

**hotsauceman1**

Im sure to that women, that cat doesnt matter in the slightest, not enough to take it to the vet.

**feeder**

Relapse wrote:
Sienisoturi wrote:
Funny how some people think that making everybody's life harder will get them support.

They have the same mentality and maturity level of a 4 year old throwing a temper tantrum.

You do realize the skyrocketing cost of tuition is pushing the idea of an American meritocracy further and further into myth territory, right?

I mean, your country was founded on the back of direct action. How many people were inconvenienced then?

**hotsauceman1**

feeder wrote:
Relapse wrote:
Sienisoturi wrote:
Funny how some people think that making everybody's life harder will get them support.

They have the same mentality and maturity level of a 4 year old throwing a temper tantrum.

You do realize the skyrocketing cost of tuition is pushing the idea of an American meritocracy further and further into myth territory, right?

I mean, your country was founded on the back of direct action. How many people were inconvenienced then?

UC is not a tyrannical government

**Ensis Ferrae**

hotsauceman1 wrote:

UC is not a tyrannical government

Depends on your point of view....

BUT, the problems that may, and probably will come with increased tuition will only become more exaggerated as time goes by.

**feeder**

hotsauceman1 wrote:
feeder wrote:
Relapse wrote:
Sienisoturi wrote:
Funny how some people think that making everybody's life harder will get them support.

They have the same mentality and maturity level of a 4 year old throwing a temper tantrum.

You do realize the skyrocketing cost of tuition is pushing the idea of an American meritocracy further and further into myth territory, right?

I mean, your country was founded on the back of direct action. How many people were inconvenienced then?

UC is not a tyrannical government

The point is, direct action is increasingly becoming the only way to get results. I imagine these kids were hoping to spark a wider protest.

**Relapse**

feeder wrote:
Relapse wrote:
Sienisoturi wrote:
Funny how some people think that making everybody's life harder will get them support.

They have the same mentality and maturity level of a 4 year old throwing a temper tantrum.

You do realize the skyrocketing cost of tuition is pushing the idea of an American meritocracy further and further into myth territory, right?

I mean, your country was founded on the back of direct action. How many people were inconvenienced then?

You do realize that it's the dumbest thing in the world to block a major traffic route for an impromptu protest, putting people's lives, property, and jobs at risk?

**feeder**

Relapse wrote:
feeder wrote:
Relapse wrote:
Sienisoturi wrote:
Funny how some people think that making everybody's life harder will get them support.

They have the same mentality and maturity level of a 4 year old throwing a temper tantrum.

You do realize the skyrocketing cost of tuition is pushing the idea of an American meritocracy further and further into myth territory, right?

I mean, your country was founded on the back of direct action. How many people were inconvenienced then?

You do realize that it's the dumbest thing in the world to block a major traffic route for an impromptu protest, putting people's lives, property, and jobs at risk?

No. You just described what a major demonstration is. The difference here is only six kids participated, making it easy to identify and punish them.

How would you address this issue, if it was affecting you?

**daedalus**

I remember when people were protesting about things slightly larger than what happened on their own 1 sq mile large bastion of sophism.

**AlmightyWalrus**

daedalus wrote:
I remember when people were protesting about things slightly larger than what happened on their own 1 sq mile large bastion of sophism.

Yeah, increasing college costs in no way affect anyone else, it's all those darn selfish students!

**Relapse**

feeder wrote:
Relapse wrote:
feeder wrote:
Relapse wrote:
Sienisoturi wrote:
Funny how some people think that making everybody's life harder will get them support.

They have the same mentality and maturity level of a 4 year old throwing a temper tantrum.

You do realize the skyrocketing cost of tuition is pushing the idea of an American meritocracy further and further into myth territory, right?

I mean, your country was founded on the back of direct action. How many people were inconvenienced then?

You do realize that it's the dumbest thing in the world to block a major traffic route for an impromptu protest, putting people's lives, property, and jobs at risk?

No. You just described what a major demonstration is. The difference here is only six kids participated, making it easy to identify and punish them.

How would you address this issue, if it was affecting you?

Did you even read the entire first post and how this group tied up travel and put people at risk? If not, I suggest you do. As for the issue they were having a tantrum about, I sure as hell wouldn't go about screwing up or risking the lives of people who have nothing to do with it.

Just so you realize the risk they put people to, here is an addition from Hotsauceman that wasn't reported but he knows about:

"I just want people to know, 5 days later they staged a protest doing the same thing, but on school openings. This lead to a shutdown of the entire bus system for Santa Cruz because 10 routes run through UCSC, requiring many people to walk or be late to work. And what this article fails to mention is on person was airlifted out off Highway 17 for a heart attack, another went into labor(Very dangerous) and another lost her cat on the way to the vet."

**daedalus**

AlmightyWalrus wrote:
daedalus wrote:
I remember when people were protesting about things slightly larger than what happened on their own 1 sq mile large bastion of sophism.

Yeah, increasing college costs in no way affect anyone else, it's all those darn selfish students!

Well, not on the scale of many other things. Even then, protesting by annoying motorists off the campus makes about as much sense as an Occupy Wall Street protest in northern Montana. It endears no one to your cause, it doesn't really bring in other people who feel the same pain, and it doesn't provide the people increasing those costs with an actual real life visual of the opposition of what they're trying to do.

Also, in the USA, I don't think that it DOES terribly impact anyone else. I mean, not really. You could argue the economic impact of having less educated people, maybe. Arguably, we could use a shortage of people with degrees.

Here, there's "student aid", but at least for me that was a drop in the bucket compared to what I was actually out for, and I'm no Rockefeller. I come from a lower-middle class family here.

**Relapse**

AlmightyWalrus wrote:
daedalus wrote:
I remember when people were protesting about things slightly larger than what happened on their own 1 sq mile large bastion of sophism.

Yeah, increasing college costs in no way affect anyone else, it's all those darn selfish students!

Yeah, and those people who had serious medical conditions requiring immediate attention that couldn't get it without an airlift because they were trapped by the student caused traffic jam, blame the college and those dang tuition rates. Their next of kin would have understood they died for a good cause.

**Eadartri**

I don't speak for Dakka Dakka. I offer only my opinion. I reviewed the article.

Considering that this is reported accurately, I am glad the criminal conspiracy charge was dropped. It is absurd.

The creation of a public nuisance charge seems light. The time sentenced seems appropriate (maybe light) considering where the nuisance was created: a major thoroughfare. If I understand correctly, a vehicle thoroughfare. (Maybe this is incorrect). The involved placed themselves at risk and perhaps endangered others. Now it could be that at the place where they were there were such low speeds this was unlikely. A higher speed zone means higher risk.

I am for peaceable assembly, including protest, and petitioning for the redress of grievances. On a sidewalk, anywhere public, not involving endangerment or other criminal activity, fine. First Amendment "zones" are after all totally absurd. Moving vehicles require certain consideration. My time as a first responder showed me what's involved with roads, accidents, hazards, and risk. Rights and negligence are two different things. Glad for the former, not the latter. This is my opinion based on what I read.

edit: oh, I forgot to mention. The combining of public universities with private enterprises seems to lend itself to tremendous abuse. Tuition increases could be one of those abuses.

**Ensis Ferrae**

Relapse wrote:
AlmightyWalrus wrote:
daedalus wrote:
I remember when people were protesting about things slightly larger than what happened on their own 1 sq mile large bastion of sophism.

Yeah, increasing college costs in no way affect anyone else, it's all those darn selfish students!

Yeah, and those people who had serious medical conditions requiring immediate attention that couldn't get it without an airlift because they were trapped by the student caused traffic jam, blame the college and those dang tuition rates. Their next of kin would have understood they died for a good cause.

Not to be completely callous... but if you have an issue that a ton of people should care about, you have to make them care about it.... Hypothetically speaking, if Mr. Heart Attack had actually died, someone would have used it politically to get others to fight for lower tuition costs.

This is basically the exact same way that MLK made people care about his issues. The term he used was Non-Violent Direct Action. To MLK, that action was to be taken to create a situation that was so uncomfortable for the "oppressor" (or whoever it is that's being fought against), that they MUST come to the table and negotiate in good faith.

In this situation, there seems to be a few steps missing, since only 6 people were present at this protest, which means one of a few things. One being that they could be protesting "too soon". Or that things aren't as bad for people as these protesters seem to think.

**Relapse**

I would put forward the theory that people who lost jobs or family members to such an action would not be coming down on the side of the idiots that pull these stunts. I would further imagine that several would probably seek redress in one form or another.

**Dreadwinter**

If people lose their jobs for being late to work one day because of a traffic issue they have no control over, we may need better laws protecting workers. As far as the people life flighted out, that is what those choppers are there for. No person died or was harmed. Just a lot of inconvenience.