Occupy Movement Goes to College
Recent controversial Youtube videos have fueled the fire driving the Occupy Colleges movement. The footage is of a UC Davis police officer in riot attire pepper spraying student Occupy protestors.
Occupy Colleges was started by students in solidarity with Occupy Wallstreet. The sister movement focuses on the rising cost of tuition, students’ mounting debt and a jobless market that makes repaying incurred educational loans difficult.
As of late Monday, Nov. 28, about 70 universities and colleges, including Portland State, Reed College, Portland Community College and even Harvard University, pledged to join the Occupy College “All Student General Strike.” The strike asked students to skip school and jobs in order to “veto the proposed budget cuts and fee increases” planned by UC officials.
The pepper spraying incident, as with most controversies, is being assessed from several opposing viewpoints. The UC Davis administration and Occupy protesters have both broadcast defensive statements regarding the incident.
UC Davis Police Chief Annette Spicuzza, according to an Associated Press article on National Public Radio’s website, said the decision to use pepper spray was made at the scene.
"The students had encircled the officers," she said. "They [the officers] needed to exit. They were looking to leave but were unable to get out."
In the same A.P. article, Charles J. Kelly, a former Baltimore Police Department lieutenant who wrote the department's use of force guidelines, said pepper spray is a "compliance tool" that can be used on subjects who do not resist and is preferable to simply lifting protesters.
On the other hand, a statement made by studentsoccupy.nationbuilder.com claims, “An assault on one young person’s right to free speech and assembly is an assault on all young peoples’ rights, and a repeated pattern of assault stifles the ability of young people to solve our nation's challenges.” Other websites noted that the officers who wanted to exit could , and did, just step over students.
The Students Occupy group, a separate Occupy group from Occupy Colleges, composed an emergency petition to University of California President Mark Yudof that they plan to deliver on Nov. 30.
The following is the petition Students Occupy have drawn up.
“To University of California President Mark Yudof, Students at UC Berkeley have been violently attacked and arrested by riot police multiple times. More recently, riot police pepper sprayed UC Davis students directly in the face and throat, simply for engaging in nonviolent protest. As young Americans and students who are also deeply concerned about extreme inequality in our nation, and the control of our democracy by the wealth and power of the 1%, we declare that we are all Berkeley and we are all Davis. We demand the University of California schools unequivocally protect students’ First Amendment rights and ensure that there will be no further aggressive repression of student acts of free speech, nonviolent protest, and peaceable assembly. In this time of crisis in our country, university and college campuses must be a place where critical thinking, public debate, and peaceful protest are not repressed but supported and encouraged.”
One of the UC Davis faculty circulated a letter asking for Chancellor Linda Katehi’s resignation. That letter now on change.org, has over 105,000 signatures.
The question of how many campuses will embrace this new spin on the Occupy Wallstreet movement is yet to be answered.
The opinions among UCC students vary concerning the possibility of an Occupy Movement reaching this campus.
“We can only look at what’s already happened. There are people that have good intentions, but there are people that will cause trouble, having a party,” says nursing student Kingsley Hubbell.
“I believe the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, so if the kids believe in something, they should stand up for their rights,” says Dawn Marlow, an EMT student.
Steve Buchko, director of security for UCC, says that there has been some discussion of what to do in the event that an Occupy Movement was to spring up here. He said that campus security is capable of handling a small scale demonstration on their own. But if it were to become large scale, the Douglas County Sheriff’s office may have to become involved.
“If it were to be 100 people or so, we would ask their (D.C. Sheriff) advice or probably put it in their hands,” says Buchko.
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