Just wanted to update you on Monday’s rally in support of the hunger strikers, who are going into day 6 of their strike! They NEED your love and support. They NEED your bodies present (if only for one hour) to remind ADMIN that they are not alone! Tell all your people to come check it out.

The recent cuts affecting the department of Ethnic Studies, resulting from Organizational Simplification (a sub-committee of Operational Excellence), is yet another example of the administration subjecting Ethnic Studies to a process of attrition. But what must be understood is that cuts to departments and programs that serve underrepresented students on this campus is detrimental to the value of education in the state of California.

This attack on education is another example of how history repeats itself. Over the last two years we have seen the mass mobilization of students to protect education. With the wheeler 43 occupation of November 20, 2009, the May 2010 Hunger Strike to oppose SB1070 legislation, to this year March 3rd Wheeler ledge protest, the momentum to save education continues on. Thus, we repeat a sentiment popular in our community “Respect our Existence or Expect our Resistance”. The University continues to believe that students will sit in silence as education is attacked, yet again, under department budget consolidation happening under the auspices of Operational Excellence. In 1969 we saw the way in which the Third World Liberation Front challenged the university and demanded a Third world College. In 1999 we saw those demands emerge yet again as students fought against what they perceived as the “near extinction” of the Ethnic Studies Department, which at the time had no full time Native American Studies professors and only one full-time Chicano Studies professor. We would like, for once, to feel that Ethnic Studies is appreciated for all of the diversity work we do on this campus, including recruitment of, and support to, students of color that are NOT even Ethnic Studies majors. We demand more than lip service, we want to see material support! So why are we pushed to a hunger strike yet again? The university has set April 30th as the day when the effects of Organizational Simplification will be seen. On the 30th key staff in various departments will be fired. This is only the beginning of the downsizing and homogenizing of services and value of education UC Berkeley students can expect in the years to come. Conscious of the history of Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley and the Lack of respect with which the department has been historically treated, regardless of its material and intellectual accomplishments, we demand the following: Demand 1. Reinstatement of the FTE staff positions in Ethnic Studies, Gender and Women’s Studies, and African American Studies cut by organizational simplification under Operational Excellence. 2. End the current process of Operational Excellence 3. Publicly support for the Legislative Resolution –ACR 34, co-authored by Assembly members Ricardo Lara and Luis A. Alejon in support of Ethnic Studies in California. 4. We demand that the administration publicly acknowledge the unfulfilled promise of the creation of a third World College at UC Berkeley Again, if the administration does not respect our existence then they can expect our resistance. We need people to come out and support and fight not only for Ethnic Studies and Gender Women Studies but also for your education. This is a movement that will continue untill our demands are met. The cuts being made to education will not be tolerated. This affects all of us and we will not stop. It’s a collective fight. As your fee’s go up and the value of your education spirals downward, it becomes clear that it is time to change the status quo and begin to demand our rights as students to the University. This is our university so lets show administration what were capable of. WE WILL BE HERE ALL DAY AND NIGHT AND WE HOPE THAT ALL OF YOU COME SUPPORT THE STRIKE AND STAND IN SOLIDARITY TO SAVE EDUCATION. ALL WATER, BLANKETS, HONEY, VITAMINS, AND ANYTHING THAT YOU SEE FIT TO BRING TO THE HUNGER STRIKE, PLEASE BRING IT. WE NEED PEOPLE IN THE MASSES SO COME OUT!

After much pressure from students, workers, and faculty and lengthy discussions with California Hall, the administration has agreed to enter negotiations over our concerns.  These are first steps in working towards making CAL a better, safer, more inclusive, place for the Raza community in particular, and the CAL community at large.

Our vision for social justice, through the hunger strike, has inspired many beyond UC Berkeley.  We showed the world that we have a vision for a University that makes student’s concerns central, and that it’s imperative that administration condemns racism and racist logic, such as reflected in Arizona’s passage of SB 1070 and HB 2281.  We showed the world that we had passion, dedication, and determination to make a better university and society possible.

This movement is far from over, and we will continue to organize and struggle to transform our society. Please come back here for more updates.

After 190 hours without food, strikers have yet to have face-to-face meeting with UC Berkeley Chancellor Birgeneau

BERKELEY, CA, May 11th— California State Senator Leland Yee (D – San Francisco/San Mateo) is joining faculty, student groups, employee unions and political organizations in calling for UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau to meet with hunger strikers to end the 9-day fast. “I urge the Chancellor to stop his refusal to meet with the negotiators. He has not yet held a face-to-face meeting and the actions yesterday by the Berkeley Administration did not show a good faith effort to resolve the situation. The Chancellor should meet immediately and begin a dialogue before anyone is hurt”.

The return of Chancellor Birgeneau on Monday, after his travels in Europe during the first week of the strike, coincided with a much more forceful approach to the non-violent demonstration. Early Monday morning, UC Police arrived at the encampment of the hunger strike with an order to disperse or face arrest. Hunger strikers, visibly weak after fasting for over 170 hours, were captured on TV struggling to take down the camp. In the afternoon a group of students responded by blockading the entrance to the main Administrative building and in the evening a gathering of over 200 supporters appeared at the Chancellor’s Mansion requesting that he meet with negotiators.

“They say they’re doing this for our health and for the good of the students” says Marco Amaral, a freshman who is one of the organizers of the strike. “But if Chancellor Birgeneau really cared about the health of the students he wouldn’t have forced us to leave the encampment in this manner. If the Chancellor truly cared about the students and workers of this campus he would meet our demands and end the strike.”

Students, workers, and community supporters have been protesting on the front lawn of California Hall since last Monday. The 19 individuals on the hunger strike have demands of denouncing racist legislation in Arizona, creating a sanctuary campus and ending retaliation against student and worker activists (see next page for complete demands).

A rally has been planned today at 3:30pm in front of California Hall.

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For a list of student groups, political organizations and faculty calling for immediate negotiations between the Chancellor and those on the hunger strike go to: http://hungryforjustice.wordpress.com/supporters-of-negotiations/

The demands to end the hunger strike are:

1. Publically denounce Arizona’s SB1070 Law and ask President Yudof and other UC Chancellors to do the same.  We urge you to bring this up at tomorrow’s UC system-wide meeting with other Chancellors.  Blatantly racist and xenophobic laws run counter to the values of the UC education system.

2. Make UC Berkeley a Sanctuary Campus and provide extensive protection for undocumented students.

3. Drop all student conduct charges related to protest actions that occurred during the academic year 2009-10.

4. Stop cuts to low-wage workers on campus and stop attacks against union activists; rehire all AFSCME service workers and UPTE union activists and Cal performances employees.

5. Suspend the Student code of conduct and initiate a democratic student-led process to review the code. Those participating in this process should be charged with attending particularly to concerns about students’ due process rights and to free speech considerations. If, through this review, it is determined that a new code can be written in any way that adequately addresses these concerns, a new code should be written by a democratic, student-led body. If not, the student code of conduct should be abolished.

6. Accept responsibility for the violence and escalation of the confrontation surrounding Wheeler Hall on November 20th and December 11th 2009 that resulted in injuries to many students and jeopardized the safety and security of AB540 students. Additionally, commit to using non-violent means of ensuring safety at student demonstrations in the future.

Estudiantes de la Universidad de California en Berkeley y un activista latino se declaran en huelga de hambre; demandan nombrar el campus santuario de indocumentados y advierten que llegarán hasta lo último.

http://impreso.milenio.com/node/8765260

Furthermore, despite presenting the chancellor with a reasonable compromise guaranteeing that dry strikers would start drinking water Monday night and guaranteeing that the hunger strike would end Tuesday in exchange for a meeting, the chancellor refused to accept any compromise to put this matter to rest. Chancellor Birgeneau continues to jeopardize the health of student strikers and despite eight days without food, a faculty petition in support of immediate negotiations, and a day of mass sit-ins at California Hall and University House, he still refuses to negotiate in good faith. Throughout this entire strike, peaceful student protesters have shown a willingness to compromise to bring this situation to an end while Chancellor Birgeneau, Vice Chancellor Breslauer and their staffers have expressed a failure to compromise, to speak respectfully to our negotiators, and understand the struggles of the students on strike.

Birgeneau’s handling of this situation serves as an example of the kind of racist and classist logics that university administrators use to marginalize, control and instill terror in students workers, and faculty on our campus. The fact that students and workers who find themselves terrorized in the wake of heartless budget cuts, hate crimes at UC campuses across the state and racist legislation, can’t get a simple meeting with the Chancellor of our university to make concrete reforms to make our campus more inclusive is an outrage. But this is why we are engaged in this struggle. We understand that Arizona’s racism is alive and well here on our campus. Birgeneau’s treatment of our solidarity coalition underscores the systemic marginalization that the hunger strikers are trying to end at Cal and in our country. Birgeneau’s actions not only validate the need for direct action, they strengthen our resolve.

So, the strike continues. There are now eight dry strikers and a growing list of solidarity hunger strikers. We call on supporters to join in solidarity with a hunger strike tomorrow. There is a rally tomorrow at 3:30PM. We continue to request immediate negotiations with Birgeneau and Breslauer and an immediate and peaceful end to the strike. We hope that Birgeneau and Breslauer can find it within their conscience to do the right thing and compromise, negotiate, and understand the struggles of the student strikers.