As students began to zip across the country for Thanksgiving break last Tuesday, UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau shot out an audio message to the UC Berkeley community — at last an apology for the highly-criticized events of Nov. 9.
It takes courage to take full responsibility for the police use of excessive force against protesters and resulting injuries that day. We are glad that the chancellor finally issued this apology and that he committed to ensuring such events do not happen again.
Still, the message falls flat. Birgeneau sent the message nearly two weeks after the incident set the campus and nationwide communities ablaze with anger, and it falls amid numerous calls across the state for further review of the events. Birgeneau seemingly underestimates the power and the impact that physically standing before his students -— rather than disseminating an impersonal audio file online — can possess. After a series of distant emails regarding the incidents, the first of which offended many by calling the protesters’ actions “not non-violent,” students need to receive a more direct response from their chancellor. The campus should have heard straight from Birgeneau’s lips words of sincere apology and support.
Birgeneau has been criticized in the past for his aloof responses to student protests and lack of presence during such events. He should now take a more active role in engaging with his community and in speaking with those who were affected by police use of force. The responses he could receive and the perspectives he could glean from such interactions would be far more profound than those he could otherwise obtain through emails.
We should reflect on why this day shook our campus so hard. Police officers hit students and faculty members with batons and reportedly pulled some by their hair while protesters demonstrated their right to free speech in a nonviolent manner on their own campus — an institution that has been a bastion for protest efforts for decades. The events contradict an important role of the campus administration: to protect students and their rights and not to deter them from exercising such freedoms.
Birgeneau should also keep this in mind while reviewing the events of Nov. 9 and in analyzing how the administration may improve its methods for the future. It is never too late to physically apologize or reach out to the community to move forward from this incident together.