Today — Monday, Oct. 7 — is the first anniversary of the terrorist attack on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza. Protests are expected on the campus of UC Santa Cruz, five months after police broke up a large encampment of protesters and arrested 122 people. It comes as the University of California system has promised a zero-tolerance policy toward encampments and any protests that block access to campus roads or buildings.
UCSC pro-Palestine encampment 2024
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
The UC forced strikes to end — but behind the scenes, it’s still waging war on student workers
The University of California system – and UC Santa Cruz in particular – is not treating its graduate student workers fairly and is committing illegal, anti-labor actions, writes UCSC graduate student worker and labor union organizer Rebecca Gross. Student workers across the 10 UC campuses are being punished, she writes, for the spring labor and Palestinian solidarity strikes that upended campus life. The student workers say they are seeing their pay docked and that they have received warning notices about their spring strike activities. Gross says UCSC has illegally attempted to fire four graduate student workers because of strike activities. The state Public Employment Relations Board is set to rule on the legality of the strike this fall.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
The cult of all-or-nothing activism made UCSC campus arrests inevitable
Violence and arrests at the UC Santa Cruz Gaza protest was inevitable, writes Colm Fitzgerald, a 2023 graduate who served as chair of the Undergraduate Student Assembly from 2021-2022. That’s because UCSC students don’t believe – and are not being taught – that listening to arguments they disagree with is necessary, he says. The students believe compromise shows weakness. This, he says, is a dangerous trend for academia and democracy.
Posted inEducation
UCSC rescinds some campus bans for pro-Palestine protesters even as criminal charges linger
UC Santa Cruz students and faculty that were cited by police May 31 at a pro-Palestine encampment say their arraignments have been postponed from July to September. The District Attorney’s Office hasn’t yet received police reports from the incident.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Free speech and civil disobedience – let’s get the differences straight at UCSC protests
Lookout politics columnist and former Santa Cruz mayor Mike Rotkin has been arrested “about a dozen times,” including during the war in Vietnam and during the Civil Rights Movement. Here, he offers advice to UCSC students on what he has learned about police action, arrests and the legal consequences of taking a moral stand.
Posted inEducation
UC graduate student worker strike officially ends
Graduate student workers are no longer striking after reaching an agreement Thursday with the University of California. Union members authorized a strike in May over the UC’s handling of Gaza solidarity encampments at several campuses.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Shutting UCSC campus down won’t help Gaza – let’s take constructive action
Protesters at UC Santa Cruz need to take it down a notch, writes humanities professor Kirsten Silva Gruesz. She understands the need to disrupt business as usual to make a point, but believes the disruptions have missed their mark. “The rhetoric of many student protesters and some of their faculty allies comes disturbingly close to a moral absolutism that divides the world into good and evil sides,” she writes. That won’t lead to an understanding of our ethical responsibility for the suffering of others, she says, calling for a full investigation of the police intervention on May 30 and 31 rather than a rush to judgment.
Posted inEducation
Eight arrested at UCSC after brief protest at University House; grad students poll on whether to continue strike
Though there were no graduate student picketers Monday at UC Santa Cruz, eight protesters were arrested after a group of more than 20 occupied the unused University House on campus. Meanwhile, UCSC leaders of the union representing grad student workers are polling members to decide on next steps after a restraining order Friday stopped their strike.
Posted inEducation
Court grants UC restraining order to stop graduate student strike
An Orange County Superior Court judge granted University of California its request for a temporary restraining order Friday forcing the graduate student union to stop its strike, three weeks after workers began walking off the job for free speech rights and in support of Palestine.
Posted inEducation
UC Santa Cruz Academic Senate opposes police deployment against student demonstrations
The UC Santa Cruz Academic Senate passed a resolution this week against using police to break up the pro-Palestine encampment and demonstrations, with more than 70% of faculty who cast ballots supporting the largely symbolic – but high-profile – stance.