A group of Occupy Cal protesters continued an encampment on the steps of Sproul Hall as of Sunday afternoon, extending a protest that began Thursday on the three month anniversary of the Nov. 9 campus protests.
Around 3 p.m. Sunday, 30 to 40 protesters gathered on the steps for a potluck, and seven tents remained set up. So far, UCPD has not issued a dispersal order to the protesters, and they plan to continue the occupation, according to UC Berkeley senior Navid Shaghaghi.
“We have someone out there every few hours, to check up on the situation,” said Claire Holmes, associate vice chancellor for public affairs. “The dean of students spoke to the students Thursday night to make sure they were aware that they were violating school policy. They have not asked to speak to us, and we have been trying to keep our exchanges going well.”
The protest originally started when demonstrators set up five tents Thursday afternoon and subsequently held a 6 p.m. general assembly, according to protesters. Dean of Students Jonathan Poullard arrived at the assembly around 6:15 p.m. with two police officers. Protest organizers then asked him to leave, requesting that he come back without the officers, according to Berkeley resident Ergoat Oneiric.
Poullard left but returned about two hours later with four officers to tell the protesters that they were in violation of campus policy, stating that those who chose to remain may be subject to “disciplinary action under the university code of conduct or arrest.”
Protesters said they were disappointed that Poullard brought officers to the meeting.
“You can’t be civil with guns,” Oneiric said. “It is worth noting that even barbarian hoards had a code of honor in sending unarmed emissaries and messengers.”
Thursday night continued peacefully, interrupted only by a visit from one UCPD officer at 3 a.m., according to Shaghaghi. Students passed the time with frisbee games, soccer, singing and storytelling.
“Our goals right now are visibility and dialogue,” Shaghaghi said. “The more people see us, hopefully the more support we get.”
As protesters were setting up a rally on the steps at noon Friday, Assistant Director in the Center for Student Leadership Jeff Woods informed them that they would not be able to use speakers because they did not receive approval from the campus administration to reserve the space, according to UC Berkeley junior Sarah Frasco.
“We are in conversation with students and groups to use this space,” Frasco said. “It’s unfortunate that the administration doesn’t see the value we add to this community. Right now they see us as a threat.”
Friday and Saturday evenings saw little incident, protesters said.
“At midnight last night, a police officer came by and did a tent count,” said UC Berkeley senior Alex Kim at Sunday’s potluck. “We work to self-police and diffuse any conflict. As long as we’re not breaking anything and aren’t violent, the police know we’re not a threat. We don’t want to distract them from real crime occurring.”
According to Kim, at least a dozen protesters were on site over the course of the weekend. He added that the protesters are discussing the idea of moving around, but where and when has not been determined.
Shaghaghi said the protesters also plan to attend demonstrations that will take place March 1 to March 5, including a march from Berkeley to Sacramento which is currently being coordinated between multiple UC and CSU campuses.
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Occupy is a fucking joke. Why don’t they stop wasting their time and go study and finish their education so they can pay off the loans they agreed to take out. Freeloading scumbags…
Right, because I’m sure the laptops and books and notebooks they have in their tents have nothing to do with their schoolwork. And it’s a total waste of time to call attention to the university’s jacking up tuition costs rather than supporting a mass movement to get the legislature to refund education.
Please, please, please just go away. Being an eyesore on Sproul every day will do absolutely nothing about the state’s financial (and in turn, public education’s) issues, and instead, serves as a massive and ultimately useless irritation.
Seriously, because the fact that there are actually tax hike measures on the ballot for the first time in god knows how long to help fund public education has nothing to do with the statewide occupy movement. Totally useless.
Here’s how I’ve viewed it:
1) “Ok fine I’ll deal with the annoyance, maybe you guys will achieve something” (Fall 2011)
2) “You guys have achieved nothing by trying to take on too much (just like the national movement), so now please go away and let us return to peace, you’ve failed”
You do realize that for some people, their livelihood is at stake here? They will have to drop out of college if fees keep going up. Their siblings won’t be able to attend college. You may be fine without the movement, but don’t shit on those who aren’t.
[You do realize that for some people, their livelihood is at stake here?
They will have to drop out of college if fees keep going up.]
Ad you do realize that your silly little protest will do NOTHING to address any root causes of that issue?
10:00 P.M. tonight, Saturday night, wander over to Sproul en masse and tell these fuckers to pack up their tents and leave. From the anthropologists to the zoologists, from the Greeks to the Geeks, EVERYONE tell ‘em whose university it really is. Spread the word.
You can just imagine how top employers are viewing this whole thing. That sound you hear, Berkeley grads, is that of doors closing. Why? Because once again a radical and vocal and irritating minority has taken the campus hostage, and the administration is too cowardly to do anything about it.
It’s ironic (and a little comedic at the same time) that Birgeneau fully supports, in his heart of hearts, those students who drop “F Birgeneau” banners from campus rooftops. Lovely.
Come on now, Birgenau’s merely a bureacrat. He’s neither G_d nor the reincarnation of Satan as the Occupy folks insist, merely another example of the spineless, go-along-and-don’t-make-waves example of Political Correctness in academia and government.
You are obviously not an employer.
You have obviously never held a real job.
PLEASE
JUST
DIE
Where are the protests against the Obama wars? Guess that doesn’t fit the wealth redistribution pro Obama plan. So the Obama redistributionista sheeple continue….LOL@Cal Kiddies
Wow. These comments are disappointing. You Berkeley students have totally lost touch. Anybody remember this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Speech_Movement
free speech and being squatters are two different things. I don’t see their rights to say what they believe is being blocked or what ever the right word is. I see no real injustice like when the Free Speech movement happened. I see what bothers the UC administrators is them camping there. Sure Sproul area is a public area, but someone owns the campus. By not following the rules that students are supposed to agree to when coming to this university is violation. I guess”Occupying” can be comparable to “tresspassing”. Honestly those people are getting annoying and their methods is obviously not working because neither the UC Regents nor banks really want to deal with them and only see them as pests.
Since when did squatting become an unacceptable form of protest?
They’re violating rules? So what! Ever heard of something called civil disobedience? The poor banks and UC system are just so innocent and I can’t believe these nasty protesters would say mean things about them. What a bunch of bullies!
Honestly, people who’ve been spoonfed a narrow view of reality like you come across as, are getting annoying because it’s only helping perpetuate structural injustice, but I guess that’s to be expected when you live in a bubble of privilege.
I mean, you guys couldn’t even get on board with a substantial occupation only until after Occupy Oakland got teargassed. What is that, coming from a school with such a rich tradition of radical politics?
Hope you suckers enjoy your tuition hikes!
“I mean, you guys couldn’t even get on board with a substantial
occupation only until after Occupy Oakland got teargassed. What is
that, coming from a school with such a rich tradition of radical
politics?”
Perhaps people who are far smarter than you realize that concentrating on their education will do far more to improve their personal economic condition than engaging in silly protests, and that voicing one’s concerns as a civilized, responsible adult will get a more receptive audience than playing “campus radical” and fighting with the cops. Once again, we have an example of campus activists hangers-on who refuse to grow up.
Haha. That’s a laughable attempt at downplaying the effectiveness of political movements and social uprisings. You obviously didn’t pay attention to the news last year.
The funny thing about protests, is you actually have to participate in them, to make them what you want them to be… something which Cal students seem to have forgotten how to do, or just don’t care. Either way, your system is fucked, until an outside movement brings about change, because it’s sure as hell not gonna be born within Cal.
“Haha. That’s a laughable attempt at downplaying the effectiveness of political movements and social uprisings. You obviously didn’t pay attention to the news last year.”
I paid attention and as far as I can see the only thing Occupy people accomplished was sporadic violence, vandalism, some injuries, and a few of them getting arrested. OTOH, the Tea Party people at least managed to get some candidates elected to the last congress which knocked the Dems out of the House, and they did it without pitching tents, fighting with the cops, or going to jail. So who are the grown adults, and who are the rank amateurs here?
It’s not that Cal students have either forgotten how to protest or just don’t care to. There’s a third possibility: we generally disagree with the method and/or message of occupy (not that it has a coherent message).
george oh george
I have a great idea: how about every Cal student who thinks this is bullshit (that would easily be in the thousands) go to Sproul around 10:00 tonight after we’ve had a good many beers, and collectively take a moment to shout at you to get the fuck out of here with yer crap. I hope everyone, from the jocks to the geeks, unites under the banner of telling you to fuck off. It’ll be an occupation of the occupiers, I guess! In a perfect world, I guess.
Those hippies should FUCK OFF.
Just out of curiosity, does it give you pause that you are putting out a call for thousands of people throughout the campus to come together to … shout at other people for expressing their political opinions in a public space?
So what? You lefties do that all the time when you assemble en masse to crash some event and shout down the speaker because you don’t agree with his or her views. You have no moral grounds to complain if the tables get turned on you for a change…
Here’s all you need to know about the Occupy crowd:
“Protesters at Friday’s “Occupy CPAC” event, organized by AFL-CIO and
the Occupy DC movement, told The Daily Caller that they were paid “sixty
bucks a head” to protest outside the Conservative Political Action
Conference in Washington, D.C.
One protester told TheDC that all the “Occupy” activists were being
paid to protest, and that his union, Sheet Metal Workers Local 100,
approached him about the money-making opportunity.
“I have nothing nice to say about Local 100. … They just told me ‘you wanna make sixty bucks? So c’mon,’” the protester said.
Other “Occupy CPAC” protesters were unwilling to speak on camera
because they were unaware what they were protesting and what the CPAC
event was about.”
http://dailycaller.com/2012/02/10/occupy-cpac-protesters-paid-60-for-the-day/#ixzz1m1iRbFjO
I like how you didn’t post anything local, or anything contradictory to your point of view… hardly a scholar.
Why is it my duty to post stuff contradictory to my own point of view, especially in that such views are for the most part nonsensical ignorance?
“Here’s all you need to know about the Occupy crowd”
Essentially you’re saying, “all you need to know is this narrow, limited, and mostly irrelevant point of view I have.”
Play your silly games, little boy, but I managed to point out that most of your Occupy heroes aren’t interested in much else but having an excuse to demonstrate and break things. They were willing to take money to participate in some demonstration where they had no idea what they were protesting, or why. That makes it quite clear to most thinking people that the Occupy protesters are merely a bunch of lackeys and mercenary tools of whatever group is feeding them, providing transportation, or giving them beer/dope money.
You can’t point to one small group of people and say it represents an entire movement. Well you can actually, but it just makes you sound like an incredibly biased ideologue, and you never addressed my point about actually joining a movement to make it what you want it to be. Is that concept foreign to you? That sure as hell wouldn’t be suprising.
You should study up on actual demographic data of Occupy if you’d like a more accurate understanding of reality, or you could do some writing for Conservapedia. You’d probably make a good fit.
You can call the Dean of Students Jonathan Poullard at 510-642-6741 or contact him at 326 Sproul Hall | Hours M-F: 10am-5pm and express your displeasure at his conduct toward the students. CALL NOW!!!
I just called a few minutes ago.
Maybe we should call him and ask him to remove the squatters so the real students can continue their studies unmolested by a group of foaming idiots.
Done
I don’t want these hippie squatters being another weeks-long eyesore in Sproul. It’s unfortunately past 5pm now, so I have to wait until Monday to call Jonathan Poullard to ask him to expel these smelly, geriatric relics of the 1960s.