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university of california
Pro-Palestine Students, Faculty Sue UC Santa Cruz Over 'Unconstitutional' Ban
The lawsuit was filed "to vindicate the fundamental democratic and constitutional rights to free speech, free assembly, and due process against overreach by university authorities," the text said.
Sep 09, 2024
Students and staff at the University of California, Santa Cruz launched a lawsuit against the school on Monday for barring them from campus without due process after they were arrested at a pro-Palestinian protest in the spring.
The lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Foundation of Northern California, the Center for Protest Law & Litigation, and civil rights attorney Thomas Seabaugh, is demanding that the University "cease summarily banishing" people who exerciser their First Amendment rights as the new academic year beings.
"The bans were incredibly punitive and profoundly unfair," Rachel Lederman, senior counsel with the Center for Protest Law & Litigation, said in a statement. "They went into effect on the spot, instantly cutting students and faculty off from classes, jobs, and other school resources, such as meal plans and healthcare. On-campus residents were rendered homeless. Academic performance suffered."
"It's time to hold UCSC accountable for its illegal use of Section 626.4 campus bans against students and faculty as a tool of censorship."
One impacted student was Elio Ellutzi, a plaintiff and undergraduate who was not only made homeless and cut off from their campus job, they were forced to the miss a pre-scheduled doctor's appointment and delay treatment until the fall.
"It was terrible to miss that appointment and be cut off from my home, the library, and my notes," Ellutzi said. "This all happened during final exams and, even though I had been on the honor roll for the last two quarters, I struggled to complete my coursework and my grades really suffered."
Fellow plaintiff and UCSC undergraduate Laaila Irshad also suffered academically.
"I was a resident assistant living and working in campus housing, so the ban was devastating," Laaila said. "I failed my school courses as I could not access my computer, attend classes, or complete assignments."
The bans were issued to more than 100 students and faculty members who were arrested on the night of May 30, when the university called in more than 100 police officers to clear the school's Palestine solidarity encampment.
Everyone arrested that night was banned from campus under section 626.4 of California's Penal Code, which allows a university to withdraw its consent for an individual's presence on campus for up to two weeks. However, in order for a university to make use of the code, it must first either hold a hearing or decide that an individual poses "a substantial and material threat." Neither criteria were met in the case of those arrested in May, in violation of both state and federal law.
Chessie Thacher, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU Foundation of Northern California, said the bans were "unconstitutional and overbroad, depriving students and faculty of their due process rights."
The lawsuit explained further:
The campus police, acting under defendants' direction, handed out identical one-page Section 626.4 notices to arrestees. The officers handed out so many of these form notices en masse that they eventually ran out of paper and resorted to verbally informing students and faculty of the ban. Some people were also purportedly banned without getting either written or verbal notice. No hearing or opportunity to be heard was provided before any of these bans went into effect. No individualized findings were made about how, post-arrest, "the continued presence" on campus of each summarily banned person presented "a substantial and material threat of significant injury to persons or property."
The notices were also handed out after an arrest experience that was harrowing in and of itself, according to first-hand testimony from plaintiffs.
Christine Hong, a professor of critical race and ethnic studies, said she had gone to the encampment on May 30 to support her students:
When I arrived, I saw a line of officers advancing in militarized formation, moving forward, then stopping, and waiting before continuing their slow march down to the base of campus until they were just two to three feet in front of the line of students. From that point forward, they repeatedly attacked us in waves of violence. The police used their batons to force us so tightly into each other that some protesters were dry heaving from the batons being thrust violently into their organs. When students tried to move the batons away from their stomachs, they were ordered to stay still and bear the pain. The person next to me was later hospitalized for their injuries. In what appeared to be their efforts to pluck off protesters for arrest, officers in full riot gear were unrestrained in their violence, including grabbing people by the neck. One person sustained injuries so severe that they suffered neurological damage and now walks using a cane.
Once arrested, both Hong and Irshad described spending time in police vans with their hands tightly zip-tied and no chance to access facilities.
Irshad recalled:
I was arrested at 6:00 am, while other protesters remained on-site into the morning, still without basic necessities. We were then handcuffed tightly with zip ties and loaded into vans, where static radio blared at deafening volumes. When we pleaded for relief, the volume was increased, and when I asked to use the restroom, I was met with scorn and laughter. It was a shock to be treated so cruelly simply for exercising my right to protest.
The lawsuit stated that it was filed "to vindicate the fundamental democratic and constitutional rights to free speech, free assembly, and due process against overreach by university authorities."
"It's time to hold UCSC accountable for its illegal use of Section 626.4 campus bans against students and faculty as a tool of censorship," Seabaugh said in a statement. "Our clients did not engage in conduct that posed a threat of significant injury to anyone or anything. Banning them on the spot was not just heavy-handed, it was unconstitutional and a violation of basic democratic rights and academic freedoms. We're suing to ensure that in the coming school year, UCSC officials comply with the law and respect the constitutional limits on their power to ban students and faculty from campus."
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Study Shows Climate Crisis Driving Increase in California Summer Wildfire Damage
The researchers also found that California "can expect as much as a 50% increase in burned area from 2031 to 2050 relative to the past few decades."
Jun 13, 2023
Nearly all the recent increase in land area engulfed by California summer wildfires is attributable to human-caused climate change, a study published Monday revealed.
The study—published in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), multiple University of California campuses, and three Spanish universities—quantified the influence of anthropogenic climate change on recent summer forest burned area in the nation's most populous state.
"The 10 largest fires in California history have all occurred in the past two decades, and five of those have happened since 2020," noted University of California, Irvine professor of civil and environmental engineering and study co-author Amir AghaKouchak.
"The results show the role of human-caused climate change in driving fire activity and highlight the need for protective adaptations against summer wildfire seasons."
LLNL scientist and study co-author Don Lucas said that "we show that nearly all of the observed increase in burned area in California over the past half-century is attributable to human-caused climate change."
"The results show the role of human-caused climate change in driving fire activity and highlight the need for protective adaptations against summer wildfire seasons," Lucas added.
\u201cJust in: A new study by a LLNL scientist and collaborators shows that nearly all the recent increase in summer wildfires is attributable to human-caused (anthropogenic) climate change. Read more about this study \ud83d\udd25: https://t.co/VCBYyNm8BV\u201d— Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (@Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) 1686601280
According to the study's abstract:
Record-breaking summer forest fires have become a regular occurrence in California. Observations indicate a fivefold increase in summer burned area (BA) in forests in northern and central California during 1996 to 2021 relative to 1971 to 1995. While the higher temperature and increased dryness have been suggested to be the leading causes of increased BA, the extent to which BA changes are due to natural variability or anthropogenic climate change remains unresolved... Our results indicate that nearly all the observed increase in BA is due to anthropogenic climate change... We detect the signal of combined historical forcing on the observed BA emerging in 2001 with no detectable influence of the natural forcing alone.
"These findings strongly indicate that the observed increase in BA was primarily due to increased fuel aridity and not due to simultaneous variations in nonclimate factors such as human effects on ignitions, fire suppression, or by altering land cover," the study states.
In 2020, the CEO of PG&E, California's largest utility, pleaded guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the 2018 Camp fire, which was caused by the company's faulty equipment and incinerated the town of Paradise. The utility has also been implicated in numerous other California wildfires.
The study's researchers used climate models to forecast BA spread in California's future.
"Our paper makes it clear that the problem is ours to fix and that we can take steps to help solve it."
"We found that we can expect as much as a 50% increase in burned area from 2031 to 2050 relative to the past few decades," AghaKouchak said.
"Our paper makes it clear that the problem is ours to fix and that we can take steps to help solve it," he added. "By acting now to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions and pursue more sustainable transportation, energy production, and agricultural practices, we can reduce the adverse effects of global climate change."
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Cal Grad Student Worker Strike Ends With Deal Panned by Many Rank-and-File Union Members
One dissenting student negotiator said the tentative agreement "does not come close to our initial demands and it leaves a lot of our co-workers still rent burdened, still impoverished."
Dec 24, 2022
While many University of California graduate student workers welcomed Friday's strike-ending ratification of a new labor agreement that delivers increased pay and benefits, other rank-and-file union members expressed anger and disappointment that the deal does not deliver enough.
The Los Angeles Timesreports two bargaining units of United Auto Workers—which represent the 48,000 student workers—approved tentative agreements on contracts that will take effect immediately and run through the end of May 2025. The six-week strike—the largest academic employee walkout in U.S. history—will end, and most U.C. graduate workers will return to their jobs after winter break.
"It is disappointing and upsetting that we have enshrined systemic inequity in a union contract."
More than two-thirds (68%) of Student Researchers United (SRU)-UAW members approved the tentative agreement, while about 62% of UAW-2865 members backed the proposal. Support among SRU-UAW voters ranged from 19% at U.C. Santa Cruz to 86% at U.C. Berkeley Lab. For UAW-2865, U.C. San Diego (73%) showed the strongest support for the agreement, while just one in five U.C. Santa Cruz voters approved the deal.
The agreement sets minimum salary scales for student workers, raising base pay from around $23,250 to $34,564.50 for 50% time work by October 1, 2024. U.C. Berkeley, U.C. San Francisco, and UCLA workers will get at least $36,500 due to the higher cost of living in the Bay Area and Los Angeles. Childcare reimbursements, non-residential supplemental tuition, and other benefits are included in the package.
"The dramatic improvements to our salaries and working conditions are the result of tens of thousands of workers striking together in unity," UAW 2865 president Rafael Jaime said in a statement. "These agreements redefine what is possible in terms of how universities support their workers, who are the backbone of their research and education enterprise. They include especially significant improvements for parents and marginalized workers, and will improve the quality of life for every single academic employee at the University of California."
\u201c\u201cCalls to prolong the work stoppage went out across the 10-campus system. \u201cI am part of hundreds of rank-and-file workers at Davis, and thousands across the U.C. system, who are fighting for something more \u2014 a truly fair contract,\u201d Cole Manley\u201d https://t.co/xgssj5ozOu\u201d— Veena Dubal (@Veena Dubal) 1671836958
Nick Geiser, one of the student negotiators, said that "I think this represents one of the most successful collective bargaining agreements in academic history and certainly in modern American labor history."
However, many rank-and-file UAW members opposed the agreement. Fifteen of the 40 student negotiators voted against the deal, arguing that "the proposal is inadequate and that a stronger contract is within reach."
"One of the main issues I have is that the major salary increase will not come to fruition until 2024," Samia Errazzouki, a doctoral candidate in history at U.C. Davis, told The New York Times. "When I signed up and voted to authorize the strike, my understanding was that we were negotiating to see the fruits immediately."
\u201cFor the record, I voted "no." Although I haven't been able to participate in the strike from afar this fall, it's clear how badly this contract capitulates to the UC and leaves behind so many of our most vulnerable fellow workers.\u201d— Aaron Katzeman (@Aaron Katzeman) 1671872330
Janna Haider, a U.C. Santa Barbara history Ph.D. student and bargaining team member, told the San Francisco Examiner that the contract "does not come close to our initial demands and it leaves a lot of our co-workers still rent burdened, still impoverished, but also now in this weird position where they make slightly too much to qualify for certain public assistance programs."
Speaking to the Los Angeles Times and lamenting the exclusion of accessibility and police defunding provisions from the deal, Haider said that "it is disappointing and upsetting that we have enshrined systemic inequity in a union contract."
"But we will respect the results provided the ballots were counted honestly, and rank-and-file workers will continue to fight for a real cost of living adjustment, for an end to police violence, and a more just U.C. and UAW," she said.
\u201cThis. This process was not democratic, not transparent, & entirely inequitable. The union, our colleagues, our institutions DO NOT care about us. If you tell me in 2.5 years we can try again - then you have more faith in this sham than I do. Your privilege is showing. #FairUCNow\u201d— Hannah is VOTING NO (@Hannah is VOTING NO) 1671899540
Enrique Olivares Pesante, a UCLA PhD student in English and teaching assistant, told the paper that he voted for the agreement even though he believes it is insufficient.
"Getting this contract wasn't the end of it," he said. "It's just the beginning and the continuation of a very long struggle."
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