Yesterday I went to the campus protests. I listened carefully to each of the 7-10 students personally describe their experience of being pepper-sprayed. Then at some point during the telling of these stories, a highly respected faculty member who had gone to college in the 60s, turned to me, and shaking his head, said: “ ‘We’ stopped a war.”
Everyone I know is appalled at the pepper-spraying incident. The video is devastating to watch. I’m also hearing a lot of: what is it they [the protestors] want? I have to confess I find this confusing as well. Sunday night I went to dinner at one of the dorms and sat with 10-15 undergraduates ranging from political science to biology. They were unanimous in their condemnation of the police actions; they were also unanimous that – at least on the UC Davis campus – the protestors did not fairly represent their concerns. I asked them what their number one concern was and they responded tuition increases. I asked them what they thought the protestors were protesting, and they paused and said, that’s the problem, we’re not sure.
Yesterday’s protests seemed to be some about the experiences of the students who were sprayed, reasonable enough. Some of it also was about ‘taking back the system’, which means what? And a lot more than I expected seemed to revolve around a young English professor getting everyone to chant that the Chancellor should resign.
If she did indeed authorize force that night, I’ll be the first to say she must go, but the things is – we don’t know. We don’t know what the chain of command approved, said, or did that day. And we won’t know for a while. So what is it that the English professor thinks the Chancellor should resign for exactly?
Which brings me next to the “Davis Faculty Association”, who has also called for the Chancellor’s resignation and has been quoted everywhere (BBC, ABC News, WA Post). Who are they exactly? According to their membership list, there are about 120 active faculty members. The UC Davis faculty comprises roughly 1400 faculty. How is it that these 120 represent the rest of us? Among the faculty I have spoken to, none have said they want the Chancellor to resign ahead of fact-finding. I wouldn’t expect them to, we are a science and engineering campus. We tend to value the process of fact-finding. [I subsequently added an apology to this statement - see here]
While I am completely in sync with the students regarding the pepper-spraying, I see yesterday’s protest as a lost opportunity for them. Tuition increases (not to mention completely revamping police training) are a very big deal. The unwillingness of taxpayers, corporations, the whole lot, to pay for public education is a travesty. We are sacrificing everyone’s future. Yet, none of this seemed to be the focus of the day’s protests, especially for the young English professor, who is mostly aimed at having you buy tents (“100s’ of them) to populate the quad, because that’s what the “administration cannot tolerate” . Now that’s helpful to the students.
Professsor Niemeier: I totally agree with everything that you have to say about this.
Right on! I completely agree.
I agree. I found it particularly disturbing that the English professor, under the guise of the representing the faculty, is now using the students and the pepper spraying for his own aims – namely to show his power and force the resignation of the Chancellor without any fact finding at all.
I totally agree and while no one condones the use of pepper spray on a peaceful protest, the virulent response of a few is almost as bad as the incident. The Davis Faculty Association does not represent my views.
I want to thank you. I felt very conflicted yesterday. I’m glad I went to the rally, but calling for Katehi’s resignation at this time seems unwarranted and unproductive. This is what I posted on a thread at the FB page for Occupy Davis:
I came to the Quad yesterday to support our students, faculty, and staff…as well as the future direction of our public universities. I was humbled by the ways in which our community has modeled peaceful expression & dissent. Further, the example set by students challenged me to get more involved with addressing the issues that were central to the protesters’ original concerns.
The way the UCD police handled the situation on Friday was horrifying, but I am not yet calling for Katehi’s resignation. I respect other people’s points about her tenure and leadership, but I’m not big on caricatures that strip her of her humanity. I don’t presume to understand her intent, motivation, nor what she may have learned from the events of the past few days. I am in the minority, it appears, but it just doesn’t sit well with me. I can be comfortable being in the minority when it means I’m living according to my core beliefs. I look forward to tackling issues of access and affordability in higher education, as well as ensuring that our campus has systems in place to prevent the unnecessary brutalization of nonviolent UCD community members again.
Until I have a better sense of Katehi’s conversation, specific decisions, and the exact information she was provided on Friday, however, I will not call for her resignation…nor villify her. Excessively personal attacks on her will detract from the more important issues at play.
A Note to the Media:
The Davis Faculty Association and the English Department do not Speak for Me
For the past few days my campus, my professional, cultural, and intellectual home for 32 years, has been made a pariah in every media outlet in the world.
And we deserved it. The pepper spray events brought shame to us all. We failed in our obligation to tolerate free speech and the right to public demonstration. We failed to practice our own teachings. We failed our students. And we made matters worse in a botched attempt to manage the media and our message afterward. Through our failures we have earned our misery.
Yet in the media scrum that has followed this event, there has been the impression that the faculty are monolithic in their view that Linda Katehi, our Chancellor, should resign. The Davis Faculty Association, the English Department, and one very noisy assistant professor in need of a hobby have been portrayed as representing us all. This is flat wrong.
I have yet to meet a faculty colleague who thinks that Linda Katehi should resign. Most of them have the same answer: let’s reserve judgment until we have the facts. Now it may be that my involvement with the science side of the campus makes us naturally disinclined to jump to a conclusion, preferring more information before we seek a remedy. Something like hypothesis testing.
However, I think it is much more than that. Linda Katehi has brought much to this campus. This very talented, accomplished scholar has been open, communicative, and creative, helping steer the campus through the rough times brought upon us by a legislature that has lost interest in higher education. Her administration screwed this up. But do we know enough to be sure SHE screwed this up?
So to the media I offer this: to an individual, we are disgusted by the events of last week, but many, if not most of us, are unwilling to call for the resignation of Linda Katehi until we have a much clearer understanding of what, beyond the pepper spray, actually happened. Ask us how we feel when we finally know more. And ask us, the 99%, not the 1% you have focused on.
As Mark Twain said: “All generalizations aren’t worth a damn. Including this one.”
I appreciate your articulate posting. I also wondered who is the membership of the Davis Faculty Association, and I wonder if all of them support the call for the chancellor to resign in their names.
The issues are muddled together. The news media are insatiable for sensational headlines, they seek and perpetuate the incendiary, which undermines all of us, and adds no clarity.
I think it is premature to call for her resignation or a vote of no confidence. It is to our benefit as a community and to hers, to see how events unfold and what conversations reveal.
I entirely agree. As appalling as the pepper-spraying was, the knee-jerk reaction to it (asking for Katehi’s resignation without any further fact-finding) is equally alarming. Of all the people I’ve met on campus (including students), I’ve found an overwhelming majority to share my view on this. As usual, the ones who actually want to act in a reasonable manner are also the ones least likely to be passionately vocal. Thanks Deb, for giving us a venue to express ourselves in a unified voice.
I agree with much of this sentiment, especially with the fact that the views portrayed by the media don’t represent those of most UCD community members that I know. After the police violence against Berkeley students and faculty, I think it was irresponsible for Katehi to send police into the student gathering just a few days later on our campus. So, regardless of “chain of command,” I do think that she, as the leader who called in the police, was responsible for the harm to students. However, I don’t want her to resign or be fired. I think that replacing her would give justice to the harmed students, and that justice is warranted. But I think as a campus, we need reform more than justice. I think that’s why the students were setting up tents in the first place. And I think our chance at reform may be greater with Katehi, after these events, than it will be with someone new in her position. As a qualitative researcher in the social sciences, I don’t test hypotheses. I do believe in gathering as much data as possible before jumping to conclusions, though. Beyond that, I prefer thoughtful reform to reactionary change. This campus needs more than a simple change in leadership can achieve. I suspect Katehi has learned that, but we can’t know for sure. I would like to find out.
I say more here:
http://myucdlife.blogspot.com/
K. Enright, Asst Prof, School of Education
Dear Deb and others,
Thank you all for posting your comments. Friday’s incident was an absolutely horrible event. The media sensation that UC Davis has become is quite troubling. What has concerned me about the post pepper spray fall out is the fixation on the Chancellor as scapegoat, before we really know what role she played. Are we so fickle as a community to fire a very fine chancellor because of this horrible blunder by her administration before we know all the facts? Katehi is an educated, compassionate human being, who has surely learned a lot these past few days and she will certainly work with the community to make substantial and radical change. We need to focus on how to convince the state to fund the UC’s again and to not let them put the burden on students’ backs. With Professor Brown’s and the students’ calls for Katehi’s resignation, are they unaware of how much money and time would be spent on the next search? Who would want the job if they knew someone could be booted out in this manner?
The fixation of the media on Nathan Brown and the Davis Faculty Association as the sole voices of our faculty is troubling as well. The faculty as a whole needs to be consulted and we need to decide collectively on a course of action after the facts have been presented to us.
Thanks,
Gina Werfel
I think the English Department should set a better example of thoughtfulness. Do they really want to debate the need for police on campus? Other speakers at Monday’s rally in fact demanded more police protection for minority students.
Listening to some students at the Town Meeting tonight very hostile to “Katehi” it reminded me of the way “Obama” has been cast as an outsider for his name and origins. Their anger about the police, tuition, etc. is justified, but it’s too easy just to look for a victim.
I appreciate reading people’s comments.
Hearne Pardee
I am so happy to read this article as I had a very similar reaction to the rally on Friday. I am not faculty but a former graduate student and a Davis resident for nearly 40 yrs who did work to “stop a war” all those years ago. I was very put off by the young English professor — it was as though he had been waiting and waiting for a spotlight and now his chance had come. I have no opinion on Katehi ‘s general effectiveness as chancellor, but do know it took real courage to walk on that stage after previous speakers had worked up the crowd with chants for her resignation. I am happy to hear that most of the faculty — and apparently many students–are waiting to find out what actually happened before joining in the noise about resignation.
[...] All comments The Gradient the space between black and white Skip to content About « “We stopped a war” [...]
The generation known as Millennials is 92 million people strong in the U.S. That means that nearly 1 out of every 3 persons living in this country is a Millennial.
Worldwide they are even more profound — some social scientists claim that people under age 40 make up nearly 60% of the world’s population right now.
Born between the years 1983 – 2003, they are the future. They will be as disruptive to the early 21st century as the Baby Boomers were to the mid 20th century. What they call for is their vision of the future. What the old (mostly white, mostly male) Establishment stands for is worn out 20th century blah, blah, blah to Millennials. That they love to gather and talk (sometimes face to face but also with technology) is a trademark of this generation. The Occupy movement is a natural expression of Millennial sentiment. While they have grown up with a wealth of creature comforts, they also are not innately materialistic. They want peace and justice, and they will achieve it with an IPad or an Android.
Yes, the Boomers stopped a war. But that was a different era. The Millennials have grown up being told they could do anything. They were coddled and rewarded just for showing up to the party. They were given stickers in school for effort rather than quality. They were told they deserved it just because they existed. Not surprisingly the Millennials internalized all these messages. Thus when they show up for the protest with a diffuse set of “demands” the older generations (the Establishment) are dismayed that they are not more organized. Yet the Millennials have accepted all the commodified, commercialized, consumeristic messages thrust upon them. They are a living, breathing culmination of capitalistic consumption. If Boomers and the like don’t appreciate the result, the Boomers have no one to blame but themselves.
Meanwhile, and despite our Establishment misunderstanding of what guides Millennials, this is their revolution. Old cats like me can just watch, try to mentor and hopefully support them. Opposing them, or the ideas they are bringing forward, is to alienate yourself from their power. They are the future.
Thank you. I very much agree.
Chancellor Katehi has not has a magical, inspirational moment since Friday’s pepper-spraying, but after her initial disappointing letters to the campus community she has taken most of the right steps. (I wish she had announced that the minor charges against those arrested Friday would be dropped.) However, while being hugely inspirational in the wake of a rare horrible event is a wonderful quality, it isn’t what I want most in a university leader. I want someone who cherishes academic excellence, has the numeracy to manage our huge budget (and budget cuts), and is bold enough to identify and tackle even large and difficult problems. Chancellor Katehi has done well with all of these, and I continue to support her.
There is a huge urge to take some action, and it is far easier to destroy than to be constructive. I hope that we can get through our initial emotional response and then deliberate more calmly on where to go next.
Hi. Just discovered your blog. Like the premise of exploring the gray zones.
I too am a member of the UCD community, have worked there for nearly 20 years, was at the demonstration, and have been troubled by all of this enough to have been nearly preoccupied with it. I concur with your opinion that people should not be knee-jerk demanding Katehi’s resignation before knowing facts. However, I depart from many of the sentiments expressed above.
First of all, regarding the statement “We stopped a war”: Is this country’s wholesale redistribution of wealth, abandonment of the poor, and drastic reduction of funding for public education and other infrastructure not akin to a war? I subscribe to the belief that poverty is violence. A few minority and Native American students spoke at the demonstration, one of them mentioning that as tuition goes up, many in their communities will find higher education pulled out of reach. This was a very white audience; perhaps they forgot that many of these gifted students are coming out of communities that might as well be at war, what with all the drugs, violence, lack of jobs and basic medical care, banks, even grocery stores with real food in them. Unless we fund education more equitably and fully, we are condemning vast numbers of people to these types of economically-based forms of violence. Enormous numbers of people are dying now due to the morally corrupt politics behind this abandonment of social responsibility. I implore you all to spend some time thinking about this.
Regarding the sentiment focusing on the Davis Faculty Association, well, shame on anyone (or any news media) that doesn’t question who they are. I don’t know who they are. But your logic that they don’t represent majority opinion because they are only 120 out of 1400 faculty likewise needs to be questioned. And in the end, whether they are right or not is really the question. My heart goes out to her, but how carefully did Chancellor Kathi consider her decision? I heard that at an executive faculty just before the arrests were made that she was questioned about the possibility of police violence, and that she answered that the police were “well trained.” Has she not noticed the dozens of examples of out-of-control police at Occupy demonstrations around the country–notably just the week before at UC Berkeley? The fact that Officer Pike so grossly deviated from the law and common sense–and that police have similarly mis-used physical force in so many places recently–is evidence that there is systemic, cultural, and leadership problem in America’s police forces today. This is the waterboarding of American civil liberties and we need to stand up and say “NO!”. If a commercial airliner had a problem like this, all airplanes of it’s type would be grounded until a thorough investigation could be conducted.
I personally am very thankful that some students are out there demonstrating. Nothing would be happening right now if people around the country hadn’t been so frustrated that they started setting up tents in public spaces, marching, chanting, and demanding resignations and change. It’s absurd to criticize this movement for not having a more specific agenda. Be thankful that their agenda is being worked out from the bottom up. Do you want the agenda to continue to be set by the super-rich, the wealthy corporate interests that now grossly dominate our democracy?
The main issue we face as a society now is not whether or not Chancellor Katehi, keeps her job, nor if Lt. Pike goes to jail. The bulk of the enormous crowd in the Quad Monday were there primarily because they were outraged at the University’s insults to constitutional rights. The students obviously feel threatened, and are perhaps lashing out. I personally don’t know much about Katehi, and will reserve judgment. I think it’s a mistake to get distracted by one chancellor, one English professor. I do think it’s very important for everyone involved to search in their hearts for compassion and forgiveness, for that’s what our country really needs to bridge the great divides that have developed, to move forward as a nation that takes care of all of it’s citizens.
Finally, I must say that the students on the Quad–both in tents and in the demonstration–have made me more more proud of UCD than ever. I do not feel shame for UCD. I feel great pride. For on Monday, UC Davis set an example for the rest of the world of the power of non-violence and peaceful demonstration to affect change. No rocks were thrown, no police cars flipped and burned. Just hundreds of cell phones giving eyes to the world. Those tents, that line of students that got pepper sprayed, are students “putting their bodies on the gears of the machine.” There will be change, and it will come only because of these students.
Love ya Deb. Know your work and have heard you speak. This is a bit cheeky, but hopefully it will be warmly received.
As far as being confused about the protesters aims–
I thought the 1,700 students gathered were clear on their intentions and voted on 2 counts:
1. tuition hikes
2. police brutality
Their message is very focused, and they’ve been clear with the media on this. Those who do not “know” have not spoken with them or attended the rallies or meetings or probably read any newspaper in the last four days.
I object to: “we are a science and engineering campus.”
Not if you’re in the humanities, social sciences or liberal arts. That’s just plain arrogant and raises all sorts of questions about who owns our campus anyway.
There are now 3 task forces and many more upcoming meetings and rallies. What happens to the chancellor is a matter of history, but to call out other people as vague is a misnomer.
Also, if you don’t like what message is being communicated, it is up to you science folk to get the media’s attention. Something tells me, however, you won’t be very successful in that regard.
The ones who are squeaking the loudest are getting their wheels greased, and while that might not feel very nice, it takes a social scientist, artist, or rhetorician to know how to do it properly.
5th year PhD Candidate in Performance Studies.
writing my dissertation on the history of Yoga and activism.
(somewhere between Oxford Institute of Hindu Studies and
Cambridge Centre of South Asian Studies, as well as the Theatre Dept at UC Davis)
Amy – Even though I endorsed the original post, I have to agree with some of what you are saying. UC Davis isn’t JUST a science and engineering campus; I agree that that’s an arrogant viewpoint. I am certainly in the camp that wants fact-finding rather than resignations. But even if I wanted to credit the science and engineering departments for not over-reacting, it wouldn’t quite fit the facts. So far two departments have written resignation letters, Physics and English, and that’s one each in science and humanities. Of course, in the end, the whole conception of a university is that science, humanities, etc., should work together. It really contradicts the point if any of the colleges or divisions lord it over the others.
On the other hand, I don’t think that science departments have any real shortage of media attention, in general. Just as with the humanities or the students or any other part of the university, it’s up to us to use media access wisely.
To be honest, the message of Occupy UC has been confusing, at least for me. Yes, it makes perfect sense to protest tuition hikes and police brutality. But the first issue is a tough uphill battle, while the second one is circular. Concerning tuition, some of the protest slogans make it sound like we should just seize banks and use their money to pay for everyone’s tuition. It’s not nearly that simple, even though I agree that the financial system has a highly problematic structure. In any case none of these banking problems are actually located at UC campuses. Concerning police brutality, if the protests only denounce police brutality against the protests themselves, as I said, that’s a valid issue, but it’s circular. What do the protest movements do if, as we all hope, police brutality against them ends?
guilty as charged, please forgive the snide comment; it was written in a moment of irritation while reading an amazon wish list….deb
Concerning the Unwarranted Use of Violence by Police on the Quad on November 18
A Statement by Departments and Programs
We, the undersigned departments and programs of UC Davis, register our shock and protest at the unwarranted use of force against peaceful protesters on the Quad on the afternoon of November 18. That this would happen so shortly after excessive violence at UC Berkeley was roundly criticized is stunning. We are only grateful that the students showed such restraint in the wake of this violence.
We demand a full investigation of the decision to use pepper spray on these protesters and full accountability for those responsible. This investigation must be independent and include meaningful representation from among the students, faculty, and staff.
These gruesome images have now been seen by hundreds of thousands of people around the world, irrevocably harming the reputation of the university. Someone has to be held responsible for decisions that result both in unnecessary violence and in grave harm to the standing of the university.
Sincerely,
UC Davis Faculties of:
The Program in African American & African Studies
The Department of Art History (Profs. Jeffrey Ruda, Katherine Burnett, Heghnar Watenpaugh)
The Department of Art Studio
The Program in Asian American Studies
The Program in Cinema and Technocultural Studies
The Department of Comparative Literature
The Program in Cultural Studies
The Department of French and Italian
The Department of German and Russian
The Department of Native American Studies
The Program in Religious Studies
The Department of Theatre and Dance
The University Writing Program
I’m a little confused at the outrage over tuition hikes. One can attend Berkeley- one of the most prestigious universities in the world- at a quarter of the price of a place like Harvard. If people are so concerned about tuition increases, we need to cut the undergraduate fat where it can be eliminated. According to some websites, approximately 33% of undergraduate students transfer from a community college campus. While someone needs over a 4.0 to attend a place like Berkeley or Santa Barbara, the “transfer” agreement is MUCH lower. I don’t understand how we can celebrate mediocrity by allowing someone to attend one of the world’s BEST universities by simply signing a contract saying: “I didn’t do well in high school. And I will continue to show minimum competency at my local community college. Now please let me attend Davis, Santa Barbara, or Berkeley.” Higher education is not an inherent right, and if we raised the standards this would compel students to work harder. Those who don’t really care, or maybe shouldn’t attend college in the first place, would not make the cut. College is not a god-given right, and its time we reclaim what “college” means.