Are you sitting in front of your computer screen, with a few minutes to spare, just itching to do some good in the world - but not knowing just where to apply yourself? Well, have I got a deal for you!
At the University of California Berkeley, 3 student antiwar activists have been found guilty by the university of petty rule infractions (participating in an illegal assembly & refusing to cooperate with university officials in a hearing). The story has its roots in their role organizing the March 20 demonstration at UC (the first day of bombing in Iraq). There was a sit-in in the administration building at the end of the demo, & a list of demands were presented to the University. 119 protestors wound up being arrested, but the county authorities dropped all charges. Suddenly 2 weeks ago, JUST these 3 leaders were notified by the University that they were facing disciplinary charges BY the University (ie, NOT by the county authorities). The penalties for the 3 could range from community service to possible suspension or expulsion.
Local activists are asking for support in a variety of ways. One can donate money, OR sign online petitions, OR write emails to the Chancellor and Assistant Chancellor, or of course any combination of these. Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, & Peter Camejo (who was kicked out of UC Berkeley in the '60's for his role in Vietnam War protests) have already signed the letter of support (below).
I actually know 2 of these 3 people, a bit. One of them gives me a stiff pain but he's certainly in the right, on this issue. Below, I'm pasting some emails I received that detail the whole story. But to make it easy for anyone willing to help -- all you need to do is write one lousy email, address it simultaneously to the chancellor, asst chancellor, & CC it to the local antiwar group here at
[email protected] . Signing the online petitions (addresses below) takes only a few seconds.
Your email should basically say, "Hey! Please drop the charges against these 3 people! Anti-war activists deserve to be HONORED and ENCOURAGED, not punished & harrassed for petty rule infractions! And by the way, guys, events have proven that THE ANTI-WAR PEOPLE WERE RIGHT!"
Rich
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Dear friends:
The University of California has found three students - Rachel Odes, Snehal
Shingavi, and Michael Smith - guilty of participating in an illegal assembly
and refusing to cooperate with university officials for their involvement in
the anti-war sit-in that took place in Sproul Hall on March 20, 2003. Not
only does this mark an attack on anti-war protesters and people of
conscience throughout the country, the entire process from start to finish
has been riddled with unfairness and makes a mockery of anything resembling
justice.
The problems with the sham of a hearing are almost too many to list: the
university refused to have an open trial (until we showed up with forty
protesters); the university refused to give students ample time to prepare a
defense; one of the three students wasn't even served with a letter telling
her to appear at the hearing; the students were unable to gather witnesses
in time for the hearing (some of them are out of the country and a few have
graduated); the university did not make all of their evidence available to
our advocate; the university has singled out three protesters from over 400
who participated in the sit-in and the 119 who were arrested that day for
selective prosecution; the university selected an all male hearing panel to
adjudicate the hearing; and the students' request for a continuance was
ignored.
Instead of being a party to this kangaroo court, students walked out of the
hearings in protest and demanded that the university at least consider
giving them more time to prepare. The university refused.
Other than the blatant disregard for procedure, there are two things that
make this decision by UC Berkeley outrageous.
First, that UC Berkeley is the only university in the nation (to our
knowledge) that is prosecuting students for protesting the war the day after
the bombing began, despite the fact that protests happened on scores of
campuses throughout the US..
Second, that student protesters were right about every aspect of the war.
There are no weapons of mass destruction. There is no proven threat of
attack from Iraq. Civilian and military casualties continue to mount and
the US continues to spend exorbitant sums to maintain a military presence in
Iraq – yet it fails to turn on the water or electricity. The attacks on
civil liberties continue to mount. Fees for students at UC Berkeley and
dozens of campuses continue to rise.
We will be sentenced in two weeks, on October 28th, 2003. We intend to
protest this decision on that date and will send out information about this
as soon as we can.
In the meantime, please take a few moments and write to the Chancellor and
the Student Judicial Affairs Office (addresses and phone information below)
and tell them that you believe that this decision is unwarranted and unjust.
Especially at Berkeley, where there are memorials to Free Speech movement
of the 1960s all over campus (the Mario Savio steps and the Free Speech
Movement Café), these kinds of attacks on free speech and civil disobedience
are not only an attempt to roll-back the activist gains won on this campus,
but also in defiance of the university's mission to promote free speech and
debate.
We have included some talking points below that you may want to include in
your conversation or correspondence with the administration at UC Berkeley.
Please do email us at
[email protected] with any correspondence
that you send so that we can keep a record of the letters that the
administration receives.
Also, please sign our online petition at
http://www.petitiononline.com/stopwars/petition.htmlWe need your help. Please lend your support to anti-war student activists
and activists who are fighting for social justice by letting the
administration know that their actions are not supported by members of the
community, students, alumni, faculty, and staff.
Sincerely,
Berkeley Stop the War Coalition
[email protected]Please contact:
Chancellor Robert Berdahl
EMAIL:
[email protected]MAIL: 200 California Hall #1500
Berkeley, CA 94720-1500
TEL: (510) 642-7464
FAX: (510) 643-5499
Assistant Chancellor John Cummins
EMAIL:
[email protected]MAIL: Office of the Chancellor
200 California Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720-1500
TEL: (510) 642-7516
FAX: (510) 643-5499
Student Judicial Affairs Officer Neal Rajmaira
EMAIL:
[email protected]326 Sproul Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720
TEL: (510) 643-9069
FAX: (510) 643-3133
TALKING POINTS
1) Students should not face charges or disciplinary actions for
participating in non-violent civil disobedience.
2) Activists should be allowed, freely, to speak and protest on campus
without harassment from the University or its officers.
3) Any attempt to charge protesters for peaceful protest represents an
attack on free speech.
4) The war and occupation of Iraq were wrong and protesters were right to
protest.
5) Student activists fought for the right to organize on this campus in the
1960s and should be allowed to continue to organize.
6) The University of California, Berkeley should declare its opposition to
the war and occupation by naming Baghdad University a sister school.
===========================================================
Message: 1
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 14:20:51 -0700
From: "Snehal Shingavi" <
[email protected]>
Subject: Defend Berkeley Students -- Sign the Open Letter
Dear Friends,
Join Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Peter Camejo and many others and add your
name to the letter below that will appear as a full-page advertisement in the UC
Berkeley "Daily Cal" newspaper on October 27. This will be the day before the
sentencing hearing for three Berkeley students being disciplined for their role
in a peaceful anti-war sit-in. Please send your name and affiliation to
[email protected]. If you are able to make a contribution to the cost of
publishing this letter, please make out a check to "BSTW" (that's the Berkeley
Stop the War coalition) and put "Berkeley 3" in the memo line. Send it to:
BSTW c/o Snehal Shingavi, 322 Wheeler Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720. Lastly, please
forward this letter to professors, students, labor and social justice activists
and leaders, writers, artists, journalists and everyone you know who cares about
civil liberties and ask them to sign on along with you.
In Solidarity,
Todd Chretien
Committee to Defend Student Civil Liberties
510-333-4604
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Berkeley Student Anti-War Protesters Deserve Due Process
On Tuesday, October 14, three University of California, Berkeley students,
Rachel Odes, Michael Smith and Snehal Shingavi, were convicted in absentia of
"disturbing the peace" by a university disciplinary panel for their role in a
March 20, 2003 anti-war sit-in. On that day, 4,000 Berkeley students responded
to the beginning of President Bush's invasion of Iraq by rallying on the
historic Mario Savio steps of Sproul Hall administration building. Over 400
students then entered Sproul Hall and began a peaceful sit-in to demand that the
University of California take a stand against the war by declaring Baghdad
University a sister school, refusing to comply with FBI requests for information
on foreign students and pledging to refrain from raising tuition and laying off
faculty and staff because of budget cuts caused by military spending. UC
administrators refused to even discuss these demands and ordered police to make
arrests for "trespassing."
Since Sproul Hall is a public building, operated and paid for by student
tuition, and it was during business hours, UC police declared the sit-in, which
was confined to the front lobby, an "unlawful assembly." Eventually, 119
protesters were arrested.
In the Alameda County District Attorney's judgment, the students' actions did
not warrant prosecution and all legal charges were quickly dropped. The UC
Berkeley administration, however, decided to press ahead with its own
disciplinary charges, which could include penalties ranging from community
service to a ban on participating in future protests to suspension from school.
If the conviction against these three prominent activists in the Berkeley Stop
the War coalition stands, it will chill free speech at UC Berkeley.
Compounding matters, the UC Berkeley administration has made a mockery of due
process rights. It has stacked the deck by assigning full-time administrators
to prosecute the students, while assigning only two unpaid and inexperienced
student advocates to the defense.
The administration has repeatedly violated its own written procedures. For
instance, two of the defendants received certified letters notifying them of the
hearing on October 3, just seven business days prior to the hearing. The third
student, Rachel Odes, never even received a letter. University policy clearly
states that defendants must be notified at least 10 days in advance of the
hearing. When this fact was brought to his attention, disciplinary hearing
committee chair physics professor Robert Jacobsen told Odes that "since her
friends told her about it, she only lost a day or two."
This disregard for university rules adversely affects the students' ability to
prepare a defense because the administration also asserts that any witnesses or
evidence to be used in the hearing must be submitted at least 5 days in advance.
Thus, the students had, at most, 48 hours to contact witnesses, gather
statements, retain legal counsel and generally prepare themselves for the
hearing. The defendants brought these procedural violations to the attention of
the five man hearing board and requested a one-month delay. Jacobsen dismissed
these concerns out of hand and admonished the students not to pursue a "scorched
earth" defense. When supporters in the audience at the hearing gasped, the
hearing board chair declared that he would "move the hearing to the men's room"
if there were any interference from the public. After realizing that one of the
defendants was a woman, he embarrassingly added, "or the women's room."
As the defendants attempted to plead their case, the Jacobsen interrupted them,
held up his finger like an umpire and said, "that's one!" When the defendants
continued, he continued, "that two!" Before they could be called out on three
strikes, Michael Smith spoke up saying, "Our academic careers on are the line.
More importantly, this is about the right of students to dissent on this campus
and to receive due process when the university comes after us. We are not going
to sit here and be part of this joke of a hearing." The three defendants then
led their supporters out of the hearing room.
We believe that Berkeley is violating these students' right to due process.
We do not understand why a reasonable delay in the hearing could not be granted.
We protest the decision to convict them in absentia.
We call on UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Berdahl and Dean of Students Karen
Kenney to step into this process and cancel the October 28 sentencing hearing.
We demand that a new hearing date be set, on a date mutually agreeable to both
parties that respects the students' right to organize an adequate defense.
The Bush Administration has carried out an unprecedented attack on civil
liberties in this country over the last two years. The UC Berkeley
administration has a special duty to ensure that its academic community stands
as a beacon of light for hard-won legal protections for which so many
generations have fought. The university should be encouraging discourse and
tolerating dissent as part of a diversified educational experience, benefiting
the student body and the community as a whole. Instead, it is cutting corners
and steamrollering students' rights in its rush to punish opposition to war. It
is time for the UC Berkeley administration to come to its senses and grant a new
hearing for Odes, Smith and Shingavi.
Signed,
Peter Camejo
Green Party candidate for governor
Noam Chomsky
Professor of Linguistics and Philosophy
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Howard Zinn
Professor Emeritus
Boston University
.....
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