Is freedom academic? (Part 1 of 2)

We have an autocracy one which runs this university. It's manage. We were told the following. If President current actually tried to get something more liberal out of the regions and his telephone conversation why didn't he make some public statement to that effect and the answer we received from a well-meaning liberal was the following. He said Would you ever imagine the manager of the firm making a statement publicly in opposition to his board of directors. I stand sir I ask you to consider if this is the firm and if the Board of Regents of the board of directors and of President Karzai in fact is the manager. But I tell you something the faculty are a bunch of employees and with the raw materials. But what about your material but don't mean to me any process of honest no me made into any product. I mean I don't mean to end up. Being bought by some clients of the university be they the government be they industry be they organized labor be they anyone where you would be. 64. Savio student leader of the Free Speech

Movement at the University of California at Berkeley. His words by students against the administration of the university. The climax of three months of negotiations protests and demonstrations. The students informed student political organizations that they would no longer be allowed to use the campus to solicit funds or off campus political activity. The organizations from civil rights groups to students for Goldwater young Democrats Young Republicans and the young Socialist Alliance. Most of these groups and all organization the Free Speech Movement. For two weeks the students negotiated with university officials in an attempt to have the regulation rescinded. Then on September 30th some students violate the regulation. Their actions culminated in the demonstrations of October 1st and 2nd during which students surrounded a police car for more than 30

hours and refused to allow police to remove from the campus and book a former student who had joined in violating regulations. At the end of the demonstrations student representatives and university president Clark reached agreement that the demonstrators shall this new york university regulations number two representing cloning leaders of a demonstration. Faculty and administration will immediately be set up to conduct discussions and hearing into all aspects of political behavior on campus and its control and to make recommendations to the administration. 3 the arrested man will be booked but released on his own recognizance

and the university which is the complainant will not press charges. This is for. The duration. Of a suspension of the suspended students will be submitted within one week for the Student Conduct Committee of the Academic Senate not to the administration. Maybe. You wouldn't go organizations in accordance with existing university regulations. The agreement solves nothing. The day after it was signed the university announced that there was no such committee

as the Committee on student conduct of the Academic Senate and that the cases of the suspended students would be submitted to a committee appointed by the Chancellor. The chief administrative officer on the Berkeley campus negotiations began again and demonstrations resumed on November 20th. The Board of Regents adopted a policy statement under which all of the previously banned activities would be allowed. But the administration would be empowered to take disciplinary action against students who advocated unlawful off campus activity. The students responded that allowing disciplinary action for advocacy of all unlawful activity placed them in double jeopardy and that the effect of the policy statement was to rule in advance that certain kinds of advocacy were illegal thus violating the First and 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Demonstrations continued. On November 27 Chancellor Edward strong sent four students letters which

became the catalysts of the demonstrations which ended December 3rd. The chancellor informed the four students that they would be required to attend hearings before the committee on student conduct on charges of illegal activity during the demonstrations of October 1st and 2nd on December 1st. The Free Speech Movement announced that a round the clock sit in would be held in the hall. The administration building of the Berkeley campus if the university did not meet three demands by noon December 2nd the demands were that charges against the four students be dropped at the university guaranteed to take no further action against students and that university regulations be revised so that only the courts would regulate the content of political expression at the faculty students and administration would jointly regulate the form of political expression and that university regulations which unnecessarily restrict political activity would be repealed.

The demands were not met. On Wednesday December 2nd four to five thousand persons attended a rally on the steps of Sproul Hall. The main speaker was Mario Savio when the operation of the machine becomes a yes but you can't take part. You can't even passively take part and you've got to put your body on the gear down upon the wheels upon the lever is by all the apparatus and you've got to make it up and you've got to win the case to the people who run it to the people. But unless you're free the machine well be branded. Following Sabio speech. Joan Baez spoke sang and led a crowd of eleven hundred into the building to begin. People there are not. Little angry you know it's that. The

more love you feel the more chance there. Students discussed what might happen to them when they give

instructions for all the contingencies. Nobody should be standing. If the police come to eject us when the police try chiro We request you do two things to ask if you're under arrest and to go limp. It's very easy to go live. You just sort of. Feel. It's very easy to go back. It's the easiest thing to do at that time. Now if you are under arrest it's going to be very easy going to pick you up and carry you to paddy wagon. No more instructions are necessary. In terms of what goes on down there going down there. You give me your name and your address and that's all. But more likely they jacked you when you're carried out of the building and you're sat down. We're asked you not to get up then and trot off home or ask you to sit where you were after.

Laugh anything. Sit near to the door. So I repeat we don't want any waking up. We don't want any fighting with the cops. We don't want anybody hurt or any violent incidents at 7:00 p.m. The doors were closed and police announced that anyone who remained in the building did so in violation of the law but the police made no attempt to remove the student the student showed films Hanukah service was held. Ending with the gun. Are there were classes ranging from a lecture on James Joyce to instruction on civil disobedience. About midnight most students prepared to go to sleep at about the same

time Governor Edmund Brown announced. I have tonight called upon the law enforcement officials in Alameda County to arrest and take into custody all students and others who may be in violation of the law at Sprowl hall. I have directed the California Highway Patrol to lend all necessary assistance. These orders are to be carried out peacefully as a demonstration that the rule of law must be honored in California. The university had not yet issued any statement on the sit in but about 1:00 a.m. The students were awakened with the news that Chancellor strong was coming with an official statement. He arrived about 3:00 a.m.. May I have your attention. I am Dr. Edward strong chancellor of the Berkeley campus. I have an announcement. This so somebody's age has been brought to such a point that the purpose and work of the university have been materially

impaired. If. It is clear that there have been acts of disobedience on the illegality which cannot be tolerated in a responsible educational center and would not be tolerated anywhere in our society great. The university has shown great restraint and patients in exercising its legitimate authority. In order to allow every opportunity for expressing differing points of view the university always stands ready to engage in the established and accepted procedures for resolving differences of opinion. I request

that each of you sees your participation in this unlawful assembly. I urge you both individually and collectively to leave this area. I request that you immediately disperse dare you to disperse will result in just a canary action by the university. Please go. Your attention please. This is Lieutenant M. F. chancellor of the University of California Police Department. A condition of unlawful assemblage now exists under authority of a section 7 to 6 of the penal code of the state of California and in the name of the people of the state of California. I command you to just first. I further notify you that all persons who do not immediately disperse are in violation of the California state law and are subject to arrest. You have five minutes to leave the building or you will be arrested.

Although the group inside had dwindled by then to about 800. Few if any students left the building under the five minute time limit. In the next half hour police reinforcements arrived and about 3:45 the arrests began. The elevator stopped here up on the fourth floor. They're using a Polaroid camera. And the police. Are taking pictures of each of them. It seems that they're not taking chances about misidentification. Looking down the corridor now. I see another demonstrator being picked up off the floor he also has gone limp. The policemen are trying to lift him up. He slips out from under their arms twisting one arm is back in a hammerlock the other arm is bent underneath him. And there. A third policeman has lifted his legs up and he's been carried face down into the elevator and has been placed on the ground.

He's lying on his stomach I think they're turning him over now it's hard to see over the crush of people. They're using numbers printed on slips of paper. And the number they were holding up against his chest as they take his photograph is number seven. Another demonstrator is being moved on. This one hasn't gone completely limp. He's got his coat twisted around him. I guess by his own desire. He seems now in the elevator to have gone limp. Again there's this struggle to get him sent for a picture. He seems to run very limp and he looks really tall fellow. So they're having a hard time. They seem to have got him set now and there goes a flash. That according to the count that number was accurate was number eight. There comes another demonstrated this once a young lady. She's gonna live more or less but is walking along with them. You know they've carried it as she lifted off the ground and

carried into the elevator. There is a police woman Berkeley police woman who is also into the elevator with her. They say they have a policewoman along in case any of the young lady demonstrators. Are in any trouble they're holding a number nine up. Pictures been taken again. And a short description or statement perhaps or taking some kind of statement or requesting information. Is being taken the elevator is now about to descend. Policewoman has left it. By 7:15 the fourth floor was cleared but only about 70 students had been arrested. At this point the pace was accelerated. The highway patrolman and deputy sheriffs were pressed into service and the students who had until then been transported to the basement in the elevator were now taken forcibly down the stairs. At

about the same time the police attempted to arrest the leaders of the demonstration. One group of about a dozen policemen made a surprise rush up the main stairs to the second floor arrested one leader and took away the microphone of the public address system with which the students had been addressing people outside the building. But there were other leaders and an extra microphone. After that the students packed in tightly around the window leading to a balcony where the remaining leaders stood to use the P.A. system. About 8 a.m. Police made another rush this time in greater force. Lobby area. Finally one of the many

little burdens of remembering. Which you know might have been afraid of demonstrating to pee on him and kick. Him in the California Highway Patrol ran. After him and after a night stick. Pushing on up there stepping over people who it was. Who's. Watching. Those kids they're just kids. Coordinate

the parade grab one kid and push them down the steps being them on the back of the head as a kind of conflict. Now they're kicking them and throwing them down the stairs throwing them down asperse and pushing him down the stairs out of the way. I don't know what's happening to these kids. An experiment right by their feet running and they're. Literally passing them down the steps between them and the line of cops right in front of. Their tossing him down the stairs. One of the police officials has come over and shaken his head and go and. They parents by the class infront of me are laughing their friend boys and girls in the stairs their heads jostling and banging against the banisters and marble stairs. Once when I was just going down slowly and was grabbed and pushed by one particular policeman here. Apparently speaking to one of the kids sitting in the corner of. Directly to

my. Left. Was refused to move. One kid damning point to first hand histories. Some other cops are cramming in my part of the class. OK are you ok. I will find it all right. Full of. Shit. The police have wanted us to get out of the way until it is cleaned up. Have. We just just about been class stands for. Putting the kid stamp ladder legs the bouncing him down the stairs. None of the kids and I seen a fight back in any way whatsoever. The cops are turning around and going back. One of them is just kick the shooter was lying on a stair into the bunch a kid sitting down are. Available. Later reporters spoke to some of the students who had been thrown down the stairs.

I'm a student here yes. I'm a junior. Nothing happened to me. A cop just grabbed me and pulled me down the stairs and one of them somebody else called me grabbed my arm and then I went limp and then the other one other grabbed my leg and they jerked me and they you know shot me down the stairs another said. Can you walk and I didn't answer said Well all right then and he grabbed me and shot me down further and a couple others grabbed me by the legs and shot me down but I did see one cop hit a girl with his fist as hard as he could down on the on the forehead. Was there any provocation. No she was just sitting there. Did you give any provocation. No. Yes I'm a student here. I was sitting right by the banister top of the stairs and as the policeman was going along the other side of the stairs they were storming in there and it was a lot of things happening behind me that I didn't even know one. The sheriff's deputy was standing right in front of me and he asked me he

start to step through and I was sitting there and he said will you move. And I said I'm sitting here and he did he did strike me in the face with his open hand and left no injury. I'm a sophomore in college of Letters and Science. A policeman had stepped on my thigh and demanded that he look down and see what he was doing he did and responded by jumping up and down. I could not find any numbers on any of the policemen they apparently were not wearing them or were hiding them in their coats. Larry did you offer any provocation. No I did not. Ray did you see any badge numbers or badges or numbers on helmets. None at all and I went out to look at one of the homes that there is no number on it. From then on news men were generally excluded from the third floor where arrests continued and the back stairs down which the arrested students were dragged the police tape newspapers over the glass windows on doors to the stairwells. At the moment one of the university policemen is putting up some newspaper

to cover over the panes of the windows. There's another student being dragged down by two highway patrol men with white helmets. I can't see any reason why those windows should be closed except to students are being bounced down the stairs. Yeah well the point here is that I as you've probably already heard we were blocked from any view of something that we were watching for a long time. I was standing very close to the window watching the kids most of whom were at least half of whom were being bounced down the stairs some of the strange magic in the air right now that literally dragging him down you can hear the bumping and at this point one of the policemen suddenly said and you pointed to me. You stand away get 15 feet away and then I start to walk away he says not going away. Get out of the line of here so I was out of the line of vision. And then one of the of the ABC News man the social the American Broadcasting Company man came over and said look we are supposed to be allowed to be at the point of production where the arrest was taking place. He said that's what we do in San Francisco and some large town and said well that's not

the way we do it over here buddy. You helped cover up the windows terms are there any reason earlier for this. But I sort of live your life as you see I see. OK Sergeant thank you. Sergeant the university police force who said I thought I saw him covering up the windows. There goes someone right now he's being dragged down by both arms stretched out. We can only see that one turn in the stairway. It's aimed at the police haven't been able to find enough newspaper to cover up the top of the windows and we see just the top of a turn on a stairway. So you see about six feet of people being pulled down by their arms or collars with their spines bouncing on the stairs as they go. Later University President Clark issued a statement in which he said in part the university which has always stood for democratic principles including observance. THE LAWYER. Expects faculty staff and students to carry on the orderly processes of the university and to reject what has become an FSM

attempt at or create. The access and issued an ultimatum which had nothing to do with free speech. And we can't know and publicly stated university could not possibly accept this ultimatum for the application by the University of its responsibility. The ultimatum was not accepted. The FSM then I get to see you from the hall as it had done before and stated a plan to bring the university to a grinding halt. The FSM and its leaders from the start declared the police would have to haul them out. They are now finding that in their effort to escape the discipline of the university they have thrown themselves into the arms of the community at large. They have asked that they be subject only to external and external carts. They are learning that the community is no more sympathetic with pay than the university. They still violently condemn. It was after 6pm more than 14 hours after arrest began before the six

hundred thirty five policemen finished clearing Sproul Hall the district attorney announced that seven hundred eighty persons had been arrested and according to University records about 80 percent who were students faculty or other employees. They were booked on as many as three charges. Illegal assembly failure to disburse and resisting arrest a charge which includes going to limp when arrested. Bail for those booked on all three charges was set at one hundred ten dollars.