A Series of Tubes

There was a meeting for grad students and representatives of the University to discuss the LRDP and the tree sitters. The meeting was interesting and illuminating because the officials revealed the position of the University and its thinking in regard to the tree sitters. First off the University is worried about avoiding a tent University type of situation. Tent University was sort of an outdoor camping/teaching thing with tents set up at the front of campus. There was complaints from neighbors about late night noise. The police were called and the police used strangling techniques to render people at Tent university unconscious so that they could be easily removed. This was an obvious excessive use of force. Hoping to avoid a violent confrontation force has not been initiated by the University police with the current tree sitters although it was discussed as an option.

I expressed to the University officials that I felt that the students concerns were not listened to or their concerns were not acted upon during the LRDP drafting procedure. From two different officials I got two responses. The first was that there was the Strategic Futures committee that preceded the LRDP. Many of the issues about where the University should expand and if it should expand were discussed a lot in this committee, or so I have been told. So if I as a student wanted to have my concerns heard I would first have to have heard about the strategic futures committee and then attempted to contribute to it. This is unacceptable. The planning of the University should be a open and democratic process. The second response came from the Associate Vice Chancellor/Dean of Students who was more concerned that student voices were not heard in the LRDP drafting proceedings. She seemed very willing to hear student concerns and work with students to form a solution. This was very encouraging and instead of providing excuses why student voices were not heard, instead wanted to plan a way forward where student opinion is heard. The tree sitters should sit down with her if they are serious about negotiating and getting their demands met (once they actually have demands that the University can meet).

There are obviously some people in the administration who still want to used force to get the tree sitters down. The University officials want a peaceful resolution of the tree sitting, but some are at the end of their rope. Currently the plan of action for the University officials is this: Go and meet with the tree sitters on a daily basis, attempt to start any sort of negotiations so that the concerns of the tree sitters can be determined, addressed, and resolved. The current roadblocks to this solution have been a lack of leadership with the tree sitters (and therefore no point of contact) and a lack of focus in the demands of the protesters. The tree sitters protest the environment, animal testing, increased population, traffic, greater public utilities usage, funding of Art and the Humanities versus science and engineering, diversity, corporatization and private funding of UCSC, anything with the words nano or bio in them (because all evil things are small and medical), patents in the pharmaceutical industry, the lack of democracy in the planning of the University’s future, and many more things. The University is in a position to address some of these things, some of them would be supported by a rational person, others would not be supported by a rational person, and some of them can only be addressed at the state level.

The tree sitters are slowly but surely losing my support. They have not entered into negotiations with the University to ensure a peaceful and amicable solution nor have they even outlined what actions they would like the University to make. They have not condemned graffiti or pulling of fire alarms on their website or through any channels that I could find. Using emergency equipment for unintended uses is awful and should be a no brainer to oppose. The tree sitters have not. You can get the message about lrdp resistance without using graffiti. The tree sitters have moved rocks that are used to prevent erosion to their encampment site. There are also concerns about how the tree sitters are disposing of human waste. This can lead to people contracting cholera and dysentery. The tree sit can effect public health and safety. Of these criticisms of the tree sitters some of the complaints are from personally viewing the site or campus, others are expressed by University officials, and still others by fellow grad students. Denounce, defend, condemn, or support these claims about the tree sit should be specifically addressed.

I don’t really know what the tree sitters plan to do to address these issues. I plan on going to talk to them sometime this week so that I can get information from them directly. I also want to see who is still around during the break. Are there students willing to spend Christmas and winter break in a tree? I will hopefully find out.

update: My original analysis of the tree sit was published in the student newspaper.

Further Update: Well I kind of liked Aaron Dankman’s letter to the editor so I googled his name. Unfortunately he has the quote: “Compromising isn’t the point, it’s too late for that,” he said. “When you sit down and bargain with the university, you lose.” found here. If bargaining is losing then is a violent confrontation with police is wining?