Just months after UC Davis police pepper sprayed seated students in the face during a protest against university privatization and police brutality, Chancellor Linda Katehi's administration is trying to send some of the same students to prison for their alleged role in protests that led to the closure of a US Bank branch on campus.

On March 29th, weeks after an anti-privatization action against US Bank ended with the closure of the bank’s campus branch, 11 UC Davis students and one professor received orders to appear at Yolo County Superior Court. District Attorney Jeff Reisig is charging campus protesters with 20 counts each of obstructing movement in a public place and one count of conspiracy. If convicted, the protesters could face up to 11 years each in prison, and $1 million in damages. Support has been requested for their arraignment, which has been rescheduled to May 10th.

Last year, UC Davis and US Bank entered a relationship. The deal was that US Bank would provide some money each year to UC Davis, an amount based on how many students opened up accounts with US Bank, in exchange for Davis leasing an office to the bank in the Student Union and issuing new student ID cards, ones with a US Bank logo, that could be used as debit cards. This is a deal that benefits both sides, US Bank gets a captive group of possible customers and UC Davis gets some cash. The only people who do not benefit are the students. The logic of privatization is most clear when a student ID card is branded by its corporate sponsor.

11 UC Davis Students, Professor, Charged for U.S. Bank Blockade | Support The Davis Dozen! Drop All Charges!

The Long Haul and East Bay Prisoner Support have settled their lawsuits over an armed, over-broad police raid after the law enforcement agencies agreed to delete improperly seized computer data and pay $100,000 in damages and attorney's fees. Moreover, the University of California-Berkeley Police Department (UCBPD) acknowledged that at the time of the raid one of the groups qualified for federal protections designed to protect journalists, publishers, and other distributors of information from police searches, despite the police's persistent denial of that status throughout the lawsuit. UCBPD and the FBI raided the building housing the Long Haul, an alternative library, Infoshop and community center in Berkeley, in August of 2008 as part of an investigation into e-mail threats sent to UC animal researchers that allegedly came from public-access computers in the building.

"I have no faith that this agreement will change the attitudes or behaviors of the UC police or the FBI," said EBPS representative Patrick Lyons. "From kicking in our door and stealing our stuff, to the now-infamous UC Davis pepper spray incident, it is clear that the UC cops are at war with radicals, anarchists, and activists, and that will not change. I do, however, think that it is important that when they attack us, we fight back. I sincerely appreciate the hard work of EFF and the ACLU because in this situation our best weapon was our ability to make the UC police and FBI spend huge amounts of money defending their actions and concealing their agenda."

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Previous Related Indybay Features: Affidavit Discloses UCPD "Cause" for Raid on Long Haul Infoshop | UCPD And Feds Ransack Berkeley Activist Community Center

Students, educators, workers, and supporters of the budding Occupy movement, converged in the thousands on the State Capitol in Sacramento on March 5th. They were there to demand that the government fund education and social services.

They came in response to a call by Occupy the Capitol put out by Occupy Education California.
In the morning, a march left Sacramento's Southside Park headed for the Capitol. There they were joined by thousands of other protesters. They came from across the state. Some had even marched for five days from San Francisco to be there. Students came from the Central Valley, Los Angeles and elsewhere in Southern California, the Bay Area, and from northern counties too.

A large rally took place on the Capitol lawn at 11 am. The crowd was diverse, mostly young, but with a healthy dose of veteran activists and elders. Student groups and campaigns, such as the petition drive to put a millionaires tax on the ballot, and community organizations such as ACCE (Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment), were more in evidence than teachers' unions - though there were many educators present. A few politicians where there. Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom was allowed to speak, and later sat on the floor in a hallway with protesters.

By noon, protesters were already entering into the Capitol, which remained open, but heavily guarded. Rigorous security inspections were conducted of every person entering the Capitol. A general assembly was scheduled for 1 pm, but long waits on long lines to get in, pushed that back.

Photos: 1 | 2 | 3 | Videos: Oakland Send Off for Marchers to Sacramento on Occupy Education Day of Action | Occupy the Capitol M 5 video

On March 3rd, the Student Environmental Center at UC Santa Cruz hosted the 11th Annual Campus Earth Summit. This year's Campus Earth Summit included student-led workshops on a wide-variety of subjects, live performances, and keynote talks by Santa Cruz Mayor Don Lane and Eric Holt-Giménez of Food First.

An announcement for the event states, "Earth Summit is an opportunity for students to unite over shared passion for environmental sustainability, social justice, education, and food! It's time to get our hands dirty planting the seeds of action. Come engage with faculty, staff and students, learn about campus action plans, and get involved for the future!"

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On March 1st, hundreds of students at the University of California Santa Cruz, with the aid of local community members, built a tent university at the base of campus as part of a coordinated day of Occupy Education actions statewide. A general strike with regards to the main campus was also planned, and students blocked both entrances to the university, which effectively shutdown UCSC for approximately 16 hours. In the words of one UC police officer that day, "students have taken control of the campus."

It was a cold, rainy day, but according to reports from demonstrators, hundreds of students showed up to both entrances of the UC Santa Cruz campus during the pre-dawn hours. Police subsequently set up roadblocks down the hill from the campus entrance on Bay Street, and vehicular traffic heading towards UCSC was limited. While the police barricades were in place, the actual blockade of the main entrance was only casually maintained by the demonstrators. At the time of the first rally, which was scheduled for noon, tents and geodesic domes were set up, and a variety of classes and workshops were held. At the rally, in addition to student speakers, professors spoke, as did community members involved with Occupy Santa Cruz.

Read more and view photos | Photos part 2 | A Small Taste of Student Fists: The UCSC Campus Shutdown

March 5th, 2012: Thousands Protest at State Capitol to Save Public Education and Social Services

Coverage of Tent University Santa Cruz in 2005: Police Brutalize Students for Sitting on Lawn at UCSC || Mass Arrest: UCSC Cracks Down on "Tent State" University || UCSC Academic Senate Releases Tent University Report That Includes Anonymous Spy Testimony

After effectively shutting down and preventing employees from starting the workday at the Hahn Student Services building at UC Santa Cruz starting at 5am on November 28, students held a rally at Quarry Plaza at noon followed by a general assembly at 2pm. After discussion of agenda items, students reached consensus on holding the remainder of the GA at the Hahn building to support those who were still maintaining the shutdown. At Hahn, it was decided on that the building would be entered and occupied.

The occupation of the Hahn building began at about 4pm, and the general assembly was moved to the second floor balcony. Some students listened to the proceedings from inside the offices. While occupying the building, students utilized conference rooms for working group meetings, and the restrooms were briefly re-identified as "gender neutral." The general assembly was to be reconvened at 7pm so that students could break into specific working groups. The main office cubicle area was eventually transformed into a study area that students used as the evening's general assembly stretched late into the evening. By 11pm, and 4 hours into the resumed GA, students had reached consensus on how to proceed if the police arrived and asked them to leave the building. In addition, the group decided on the location of an encampment should they leave Hahn.

The day of actions at Hahn Student Services was held in solidarity with students who faced police brutality and repression of student free speech at UC Davis. Throughout the day, students maintained their three specific demands, that UC Davis Chancellor Katehi resign immediately, that all police be removed for UC campuses, and that fee hikes be eliminated.

Read and view more photos | UCSC Students Shut Down Hahn Administration Building | Demands | Purpose and Explanation

Previous Coverage: Tree Sit Ends, Redwoods and Oaks Cut on UCSC's Science Hill || UC Santa Cruz Students Occupy Graduate Student Commons || Study-in at UCSC's Science and Engineering Library || UC Santa Cruz Students Occupy Administration Building

On the afternoon of Friday, November 18th, UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi ordered the UC Davis police to clear student protesters from the main quad on campus. Many of the students had participated in a rally on November 15th against tuition increases and police brutality on UC campuses. The rally took place in solidarity with students and faculty who were bludgeoned with batons, hospitalized, and arrested at UC Berkeley on November 9th. Those protesters had linked arms and held their ground in defense of tents they set up beside Sproul Hall. In a gesture of solidarity with those students and faculty, and the national Occupy movement, students at UC Davis set up tents on the main quad. Police in riot gear arrived to remove the tents, and students responded by sitting in a circle and linking arms around the tents. Without provocation, police pepper-sprayed the students.

Chancellor Katehi's actions have been met with international shock, outrage, and condemnation. The Davis Faculty Association Board has called for the immediate resignation of Chancellor Katehi, stating, "The Chancellor’s authorization of the use of police force to suppress the protests by students and community members speaking out on behalf of our university and public higher education generally represents a gross failure of leadership. Given the recent use of excessive force by police against 'occupy' protestors at UC Berkeley and elsewhere, the Chancellor must have anticipated that, by authorizing police action, she was effectively authorizing their use of excessive force against peaceful UCD student protestors. The Chancellor’s role is to enable open and free inquiry, not to suppress it."

UC Davis students, alumni and others will converge on Monday, November 21st at noon on the quad to show solidarity and support for the students who were beaten and pepper-sprayed, and for a conversation about the university’s future.

Open Letter to Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi | No Cops, No Bosses | Ten Things You Should Know About Friday’s UC Davis Police Violence | UC Davis Students Call Strike in Wake of Police Pepper Spray Attack

Occupy CSU Monterey Bay will hold a rally, march and general assembly on Tuesday, November 15th starting at 1pm at Library Plaza on Divarty St and 5th Ave at CSUMB. A flyer for Occupy CSUMB states, "The California State University system is infected with the same disease as the rest of our sick society. It is designed to allow a small group of people to enrich and empower themselves at our expense. So as our tuition rises every year, and the staff and faculty are denied promised raises, the top administrators throughout the system receive outrageous salaries and benefits.

"But it's not just about money. Its about power; its about control. None of us have any meaningful control over our education. Students choose courses that we did not help create. Staff and faculty are forced to carry out policies that they did not help create. We are all forced to eat food from companies that we did not invite onto our campus. Even the “shared governance” that is offered to the faculty is a sham. The Academic Senate now meets only once a month, and they still have to work within the parameters that are set up by the Chancellor’s office and the CSU Board of Trustees (BoT)." Read more

Students at UC Berkeley walked out of classes on November 9th to protest budget cuts and rising tuition, and to support the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. The rally protested economic inequality and its impact on students, the poor and the young — in the words of the occupy movement, a protest by the 99% of the people who are exploited by a system that only benefits the top 1%. Later that night, students were beaten by police batons as they tried to set up tents in Sproul Plaza, and six students and an assistant professor were arrested. Students continued to occupy the plaza without tents, however.

Occupy UC Berkeley was given terms from the UC which severely restricted the students' rights to assembly and free speech. The terms the UC tried to place on the students went beyond no tents. Students were denied sleeping bags, and even denied the right to sleep at night. Even in the event of rain, no tents would be allowed, only tarps. The protest was only permitted for one week. Amplified sound was only permitted three hours a day; from noon until 1PM, and from 5PM to 7PM. Further restrictions came from the police, including no signs or banners, and no bullhorns (even if not in use).

UC Berkeley police also searched any large backpacks and demanded the ID from individuals wearing large backpacks. UC police stopped and searched at least one medic. The police believed the red cross symbol to be a ruse, and thus searched through the medic's supplies.

According to UC police Capt. Margo Bennett, "the individuals who linked arms and actively resisted, that in itself is an act of violence...I understand that many students may not think that, but linking arms in a human chain when ordered to step aside is not a nonviolent protest."

Occupy Cal, in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring, have called for an open university strike on Tuesday, November 15th following the actions of police brutality on non-violent civil disobedient protesters on November 9th.

Videos | Photos: 1 | 2 | Audio | see also: UC Santa Cruz Students Join Occupy Movement with "Occupy Education" Protest

On November 9th, over 500 students at the University of California, Santa Cruz joined various local workers' union members and Occupy Santa Cruz protesters for "Occupy Education," a protest against corporations and corruption in education. Protesters gathered at noon for a rally on the UC campus before taking to the streets. The group marched down Bay and Mission streets, blocking traffic on several major streets along the way.

Demonstrators made their way to the US Post Office downtown where another rally was held. UC students gathered with various union leaders, K-12 teachers, and other community members to demonstrate against the latest proposed tuition hikes. The UC Regents are meeting on November 16-17 at UCSF Mission Bay to vote on a tuition increase of 16% each year for the next four years. The resulting price for one year's tuition would be about $21,800.

At the same time, students at UC Berkeley were beaten by police batons as they tried to set up tents in Sproul Plaza, and six students and an assistant professor were arrested. Students continued to occupy the plaza without tents, however.

UC Santa Cruz Students Join Occupy Movement | UCSC Day of Action Unites Local Movements | more photos: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | see also: The Budget Cuts and the Privatization of the University of California

On October 29, the 18th Annual Peace & Unity March was held in Watsonville. The march was organized to honor victims of gang-related violence in Watsonville and to push for an end to the violence in the community. Sandino Gómez, historian for the Watsonville Brown Berets, recounted how the march began in 1994 to honor Jessica and Jorge Cortéz, 16 and 9 years old, who were gunned down because they had witnessed a gang–related crime. Gómez emphasized that “violence is not the solution” and that everyone present “must be part of the solution”. A representative of the mothers of victims, Rose de Ramirez, who lost her son to gang-related violence sixteen years ago, emphasized, “We need support from the community to stop violence”.

The march is part of multiple efforts on the part of the Watsonville Brown Berets and other community groups to stop gang-related violence in the Watsonville area. According to Brown Beret Diego Espinoza, one challenge is that public after-school programs have been cut and there are limited spaces for youth to express themselves besides getting involved in gangs. The Brown Berets seek to fill this gap by providing an open space at the Bike Shack in Watsonville for youth to participate in workshops on Youth & Power, art and music, indigenous and Latino culture, and to organize around important community issues, such as the struggle to ban the use of methyl iodide on crops in California.

Read more and view photos | previous coverage: 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009