Raj Jayadev writes: "On Oct. 24, the San Jose Mercury News released the video of a San Jose State math major getting beaten and tased by the San Jose Police Department in his home on Sept. 3, 2009. Police were called to the scene after 20-year-old Phuong Ho allegedly wielded a knife during an altercation with his roommate. All the viewer can hear, in between groaning cries of pain and calls for mercy, are the cracking sounds of the batons as they meet 20-year-old Phuong Ho’s head and body, and the torturous zapping of a Taser gun. It is, in a word, disturbing."

"Ho, who through his attorney has filed a civil rights complaint with the FBI, is also facing misdemeanor charges of exhibiting a weapon and resisting arrest. He was not armed when police arrived, and became the recipient of the beat down when he bent down to get the glasses that fell off of his head.

"As a member of a local community group that has been calling on police accountability in San Jose for years now, I have been receiving multiple emails with the subject line, “San Jose’s Rodney King.” They don’t mean the person. They mean the moment. The comparison is natural since both incidents contain the same basic patterns: unarmed men of color excessively beaten without cause by numerous police officers -- and it is all caught on video.

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Silicon Valley Debug: Vietnamese Community Association Responds to Police Beating of San Jose State Student | Raj Jayadev: "What Would Have Happened If Dr. Gates Was Arrested in San Jose?" | SiLiCoN vAlLeY dE-bUg

On October 30th, Doug Zuidema, Director of Judiciary Affairs at UCSC, notified a collection of students that they were potentially subject to disciplinary proceedings. Occupy California writes that, "The University increasingly functions like a police apparatus: taking surveillance photos at protests, compiling dossiers on individuals, modifying response protocols and manufacturing phony charges against students and workers for kangaroo courts." Read more

See also: A Three Day Student, Worker and Faculty Strike Starting on 11/18

On October 26th, Free Radio Santa Cruz hosts The Maestr@s spoke with James Loewen, a researcher, author, teacher, and history-doer. His latest book is a how-to guide for teachers, with the aim of reclaiming history from boring dates and names, and replacing a vibrant sense of connection to the past. Teachers for Class War airs every Monday at 6pm on FRSC 101.1 FM.

Jim Loewen is best known as the author of Lies my Teacher Told Me, a hugely influential look at 12 leading high school history texts comparing what they prioritize, what they leave out, and what they just plain make up. He's also the author of Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism. Lowen's latest book is called Teaching What Really Happened: How To Avoid the Tyranny of Textbooks and Get Students Excited About Doing History. Read more and listen to the interview

On Free Radio Santa Cruz, The Maestr@s spoke with a fellow media activist, Oaxaca City resident, and parent of a school aged daughter about the state of education in Oaxaca, Mexico, where teachers mounted and led a massive uprising in 2006. They discuss the effects on schools and school children, three years later.

Read more and listen to the interview

UC Financial Crisis: Big Picture and Practical Actions is a public forum occuring at UCSC's Classroom Unit 2 on Thursday, October 29th from 7-10pm.

Two of the featured speakers have been particularly devoted to investigating the University of California's finances. Stanton Glantz of UCSF, is the author of The Cigarette Papers, which has played a key role in the ongoing litigation surrounding the tobacco industry. He is now working with the Keep California's Promise, an organization to restore the Master Plan for higher education, and has turned his investigative skills to the administration and financing of the UC.

Robert Meister is the President of the Council of University of California Faculty Associations (CUCFA) and director of the Bruce Center for Rethinking Capitalism at UCSC. For a decade he has been an active critic of the privatization trend at UC and an advocate of the shared governance tradition. His open letter to UC students "They Pledged Your Tuition" and subsequent writings have been widely circulated. Read more

See also: Monday, Nov. 2: Worker & Student March Against Budget Cuts

On October 21st, Fresno State saw one of its largest mobilizations since the 1960s. The student walkout was in protest against the recent fee increase of 32% (fees go up almost every year typically by around 10%), class furloughs (pay more get less), over-crowded classrooms, faculty layoffs, staff layoffs, a corrupt administration, a corrupt Associated Students, Inc., which refuses to represent the students, and the entire California State University (CSU) system. The CSU master plan from the 60s promised free education to all, but the university is now run like a for-profit corporation.

A rally was attended by 300 students and faculty who spoke and expressed their shared rage. This was followed by a march of well over 600 students chanting things like "no cuts! no fees! education should be free!" and "hey! hey! ho! ho! [university president] Welty's gotta go!". This march went down Shaw from Maple to Cedar and around the Shaw/Cedar intersection several times before rallying in front of the school.

After the march, a group of students took a list of demands to President Welty's office on the 4th floor of the library -- during the rally there were many references to Welty's tower where he could look down on his subjects and maintain inaccessibility. The students were initially met by campus police who blocked the elevator saying they had to make sure it was okay to come up, so the delegation instead took the stairs. Once the small group made it up, it was met in the hallway by campus police who said President Welty was not there. As this dialogue was going on, students just kept coming out of the elevators, and by the end the students had moved forward nearly 30 feet and 80 students were clogging the hallway leading to the administrators' offices. Welty's assistant explained that the president was at a meeting. The students responded "fine, we'll wait" and all sat down.

Read More Article and photos

On Thursday, October 15, hundreds came to Civic Center, to protest president Obama's appearance at the Westin St. Francis Hotel in a fundraiser for the Democratic National Convention. Earlier in the day another demonstration took place at SF City Hall to oppose the continuous cuts in education funding.

At the SF City Hall, unions, teachers, politicians and students gathered in hopes of rallying people to mobilize and take action over the continuous cuts in education funding. People also expressed their frustration over the lack of leadership in the City and State governments when it comes to education.

Among those holding signs and protesting at Union Square were physicians supporting single payer health care, Code Pink submitting petitions that call on the government to withdrew from Afghanistan, 9/1-Truth activists demanding for new investigation of 9/11, and Green Peace raising attention about global warming.

Photos from the Union Square protest: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

On Thursday, September 24th, actions against the budget cuts, fee hikes, layoffs and furloughs at University of California campuses took place throughout the UC system. Workers, graduate student employees, staff and faculty held a strike, walked out, and demonstrated in defense of public education and fair labor practices.

Under the cover of the summer months, the UC administration pushed through a program of fee increases, enrollment cuts, layoffs, furloughs, and increased class sizes that harms students and jeopardizes the livelihoods of the most vulnerable university employees. According to one analysis, with the next round of proposed fee increases (32% over the next year) UC would be funded more by student tuition than by the state, effectively making it a private university. Even with furloughs going ahead for many UC employees, management is laying off workers, cutting services, and planning to reduce in-state student enrollment to make room for nonresidents.

On September 23rd, students, faculty and staff joined together at the SFCC Mission Campus to speak-out against the massive attacks on education and to encourage organizing in solidarity with the UC statewide strike and a Northern California Educational Workers and Students conference at SFSU on September 26th at the SFSU Student Union. Video

On September 24th on the UC Berkeley campus, the day started with picket lines and teach-outs happening around campus, with a mass rally and march at noon and a general assembly in the evening to plan the next steps forward.

Thousands at labor/student picketlines at California universities | Audio from UC Berkeley Walkout | Reports from around California (and the world) - The UC Walkout | "Solidarity, What Is A Public University" A Poem For The UCB Strike/Walkout | California students and faculty denounce education cuts | UC "Student Leaders" Sabotage Occupation of Wheeler Hall | Blanca Misse UCB UAW-AGSE2865 & SWAT Member Speaks At UCB Strike/Walk-Out | UC Berkeley One Day Mass Walkout & Mass Rally-Workers and Students Speak Out | UC Berkeley Teach-Out Schedule | Poster for UC Berkeley Walkout

On September 24th at the UC Santa Cruz campus, picket lines began at 6am followed by a noon rally and afternoon general assembly at the base of campus. Also, students at UCSC began an occupation of the Graduate Student Commons as part of the day of action at all UCs across the state. The occupation lasted until October 1st.

Walkout and Rallies at UC Santa Cruz | UCSC Students Occupy Graduate Student Commons

Over 1,000 UC San Diego students and supporters walked out, marched and rallied on September 24th, the first day of the fall quarter, to protest tuition increases, pay cuts and furloughs, administration pay raises and privatization of the UC.

UCSD Students Walk Out September 24 | Reports from UC Riverside and UCLA

The Associated Students of the University of California (UC Berkeley Student Government) endorsed the walkout unanimously saying that "Never before has there been such a large-scale single action across all of the UCs. For the first time, we have seen an alliance being built among students, faculty and staff all taking a strong stand against the erosion of the quality, accessibility and affordability of our UC education. United, we are confident that we can fight these budget cuts, oppose the enormous fee increases being proposed, and preserve the excellence of the UC public education system at this very pivotal moment in time."

The September 24 Walkout is supported by the American Association of University Professors, the UC Student Association, the University Professional and Technical Employees and all of the student governing bodies of UC Berkeley. UPTE Strike Announcement

Related: INVITATION - October 24 Mobilizing Conference to Save Public Education | UC Walkout: Trapped in a Partisan Cul-de-Sac? | UC Berkeley Is Rising | An Open Letter to UC Graduate Students | UC Faculty Walkout - September 24

Related Indybay Feature: Service Workers Ratify Historic Contract With UC

During the massive 10-campus walkout on September 24th, several dozen students and workers occupied the Graduate Student Commons at the University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC), issuing statements acknowledging their intention to escalate the conflict: "Occupation is a tactic for escalating struggles," they note at their website, "We must face the fact that the time for pointless negotiations is over."

Their supporters aim to initiate some thought about the role of higher education in the economy. "A university diploma is now worth no more than a share in General Motors," observes the author of the Communique From an Absent Future:

We work and we borrow in order to work and to borrow. And the jobs we work toward are the jobs we already have. Close to three quarters of students work while in school, many full-time; for most, the level of employment we obtain while students is the same that awaits after graduation. Meanwhile, what we acquire isn’t education; it’s debt. We work to make money we have already spent, and our future labor has already been sold on the worst market around. …Even leisure is a form of job training. The idiot crew of the frat houses drink themselves into a stupor with all the dedication of lawyers working late at the office. Kids who smoked weed and cut class in high school now pop Adderall and get to work. We power the diploma factory on the treadmills in the gym.

Noting that public employees, the homeless and the unemployed have been demonstrating across the state, supporters argue that "all of our futures are linked" and the struggle over higher education is "one among many, [so] our movement will have to join with these others, breaching the walls of the university compounds and spilling into the streets." Read more

On Thursday, September 24th, students at UC Santa Cruz began the occupation of the Graduate Student Commons as part of a day of action at all UCs across the state. The building is located in a central location on campus, across from the Bay Tree Bookstore. The occupiers held a dance party on Friday the night and another dance party on Wednesday night. By Thursday morning, the occupation had come to an end.

A communique read from the occupied building states, "We are occupying this building at the University of California, Santa Cruz, because the current situation has become untenable. Across the state, people are losing their jobs and getting evicted, while social services are slashed. California’s leaders from state officials to university presidents have demonstrated how they will deal with this crisis: everything and everyone is subordinated to the budget. They insulate themselves from the consequences of their own fiscal mismanagement, while those who can least afford it are left shouldering the burden. Every solution on offer only accelerates the decay of the State of California. It remains for the people to seize what is theirs."

Read more with video | Photos: 1 | 2 | Solidarity | Flyers | Interview | Why occupy the GSC?

See also: Walkout and Rallies at UC Santa Cruz to Defend the Future of Public Education