Why I'm Walking Out

Apologies for this post being so unpolished!  It was hastily written, but you get the point!

A University of California wide walk out has been called for this Thursday, September 24th, to protest the UC President and UC Regents' handling of the budget crisis.  The walkout is a joint effort of faculty, students and the unions.  The demands as laid out by the faculty are:

1. No furloughs or paycuts on salaries below $40,000.
2. The immediate institution of the Academic Senate Council's July 29 recommendation regarding the implementation of furloughs.
3. Full disclosure of the budget.

I've thought long and hard about taking this action.  Much of the propaganda in favor of the walk out have been populist claims of excesses in executive compensation and hordes of money stashed away by UC administrators, planting images of fat cats gorging themselves on caviar while the poor, downtrodden university community withers away, starving.  The reality is that you have to pay people to run the best public university system in the country and that there are no piles of cash lying around.  These arguments are dubious at best, and only serve to obscure the real problems.

First and foremost the blame lies with the legislature.  When adjusted for inflation it allocates to education half of what it did in 1990.  California ranks in the bottom 10 in the nation in education spending.  We spend as much on prisons as we do educating the people who will one day drive the economic engine of the state.  The problems in our state governance are systemic.  It is harder to raise taxes than it is to take away a fundamental right.  The uninformed voting public essentially determines the budget through the ridiculous proposition system.  However, as hopeless as it may seem, every person who cares about the University of California, especially those participating in the walk out, should call, email or write their representatives to tell them that the cuts to education are absolutely unacceptable, that education insures our future, and when they cut funding to education they are crippling California.  You can do this through this website http://www.ucforcalifornia.org/cal/home/

However, the walkout is not about the legislature, it is about the actions the UC administration has taken to deal with the budget situation.  From what I've read and from listening to Mark Yudof, the UC President, whose address to the Regents and students is below, the administration is taking a defeatist stance which is additionally out of line with the mission of the University. 

Mark Yudof at the Regents Meeting: Part 1 of 3

Watching Yudof's address I was struck by how whiny and defensive he sounds.  Nobody argues that this crisis will take sacrifices from all of us, however, he insinuates that the student body is trying to avoid them.  He flatly says that he has given up on the legislature, and petulantly complains that his opposition won't engage the politicians as he has.  That defensive and combative posture does nothing but entrench the idea of the administration pitting themselves against the University community.  They have ignored the faculty recommendations and are filling the budget gaps on the backs of the middle class.  The following video by Ananya Roy, a distinguished UC Berkeley professor, articulates the arguments for the walk out much better than I could.

Ananya Roy at Berkeley ASUC Meeting

Most importantly, I am participating in the walk out because I love the University.  Walking out and joining my voice with other Cal community members, even if I don't agree with some of their specific arguments, is a way of saying to the world that what is happening to the UC is unacceptable.  What the University of California stands for is too important to let slip quietly away.

Besides, what kind of Berkeley student would I be if I didn't go to a protest at least once a year?!?!

Here is a list of links if you want more information:

A compelling open letter by Cal faculty member Catherine Cole
A website detailing the faculty resolution, over 800 UC faculty have signed
A blog compiling news coverage and other information
A faculty member, Brad DeLong, on the academic ramifications of some of the cuts and how the administration couched them.
Also related, the legislature is trying to make a power grab and control UC, using the populist executive compensation arguments as justification, tell them to stop!

And again, please please please email your representatives and the governor.