Feature Archives

On August 29, the University of California Police Department staged an early morning operation at the Memorial Oak Grove located on the South East of the UC Berkeley campus. UCPD officers erected a ten foot high chain-link fence along the perimeter of the tree-sits to prevent supporters from bringing food and water to the tree-sitters. Support marches are leaving from the Oak Grove at noon on both Friday, August 31st and Saturday, September 1st. An emergency hearing was scheduled for Thursday at 1:30pm in Alameda County Superior Court, to consider whether the fencing of the oak grove is a violation of the current court ordered injunction.

The Watsonville Brown Berets presented the 7th annual Youth & Power Conference consisting of music, activism and organizing tables, art, dance, culture, speakers, free food and more. This year's conference took place at the Vet’s Hall in Watsonville on August 14th.

The Board of Regents of the University of Colorado in Boulder voted 8 to 1 Tuesday, July 24th to fire tenured professor of Ethnic Studies Ward Churchill on charges of research misconduct. Churchill maintains that the allegations were a pretext to remove him for his controversial political views.

In a small, still mostly segregated section of rural Louisiana, an all-white jury heard a series of white witnesses called by a white prosecutor testify in a courtroom overseen by a white judge in a trial of a fight at the local high school where a white student who had been making racial taunts was hit by black students. The fight was the culmination of a series of racial incidents starting when whites responded to black students sitting under the "white" tree at their school by hanging three nooses from the tree.

On June 12th, teaching assistants and other members of UAW Local 2865 held a grade-in at the Baytree Plaza at UC Santa Cruz as part of a statewide action to highlight the UAW's demand for better protections against excessive workload. The action turned out over a thousand TAs, readers, and tutors across seven UC campuses. In the bargaining session that took place June 18th and 19th, progress was made towards adding protections against discrimination on the basis of pregnancy or gender identity.

The Renaissance Garden Project started when UC Santa Cruz students responded to a call for help that Renaissance High School students sent out about the lack of nutrition they were receiving at school; students felt unhealthy. Students from the Education for Sustainable Living Program at UCSC came to the rescue. A garden was constructed to provide nutritional food and health education.

Students and youth are participating in a week-long fast aimed at urging the California congressional delegation to move forward immigration reform that includes legal residency and a path to citizenship for hundreds of thousands of undocumented youth. On July 5th, students and supporters held a rally at Senator Dianne Feinstein's office and then marched back to Civic Center Plaza to greet approximately two dozen students who came from all over California to join the fast.