An Open Letter to UC Davis Chancellor Katehi Re: Civil Disobedience & Pepper-spraying of Non-violent Students

Dear Chancellor Katehi,

Please consider speaking for yourself instead of all of us.

You wrote: “Yesterday was not a day that would make anyone on our campus proud…”

I am VERY proud of my students and colleagues who stood up to tell you and the board of regents that they believe the hiking of tuition at UC Davis and the slow privatization of our public university is a bad idea for everyone – except, possibly, for you.

However, I am appalled at your ordering of this use of force and your Orwellian email response excusing it:”… to comply with campus rules that exist to protect the health and safety of our campus community…” the implicit end to this phrase is “we had to ask police dressed in riot gear to pepper spray them… directly in their faces… you see, because it’s not very effective if you don’t get it in their eyes, noses, and mouths.”

I realize how cheap the word “Orwellian” has become – which is, in itself, Orwellian – but I use it here because it’s the polluted water in which we little fish swim. I don’t wish to register any dismay at your remarks rather my absolute inability to be shocked by them. Your text was exactly what I expected, so was your tone. Neither the words, the notions, nor the tone are yours. You speak volumes by saying nothing. What you emit is a drone vibrating in resonance with the same drones coming from corporate board rooms, from the White House and the Halls of Congress. You speak the language of the machine: downloaded, saved to your hard drive, filed, then pulled up, copied, pasted, formatted and sent. Your speeches also have this same quality. Listening to you, I experience the function and effect of monoculture. It’s not your fault. Big fish swim in the pollution as well.

Lastly, I want you to know that I stand with UC Davis, Assistant Professor Nathan Brown (See his open letter to you below) in calling for your resignation for your failure to protect our (and your) students’ First Amendment right to assemble, and for your actions which threatened the students’ physical safety in the name of protecting it.

At the below link is a petition at Change.org calling for your resignation. Please forward this far and wide and sign the petition. Such an act may show that you indeed have the needs of the students at UC Davis in the forefront of your mind. 

http://www.change.org/petitions/police-pepper-spray-peaceful-uc-davis-students-ask-chancellor-katehi-to-resign

Many Thanks,

John Zibell

PhD Candidate

Performance Studies

Look at That Angry Mob!

Alexis Madrigal Feels Bad for Lt. John “Pepper-Spray” Pike

In response to Alexis Madrigal’s Atlantic.com article about why he feels bad for a peace officer who pepper-sprayed a group of non-violent protestors as they sat on the ground, I wrote this email questioning the writer’s desire to clean up the officer’s image.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/11/why-i-feel-bad-for-the-pepper-spraying-policeman-lt-john-pike/248772/#

Dear Mr. Madrigal

Lt. John Pike is undoubtedly a human being. I’ve seen him in the flesh. There is no question there. He probably loves someone – perhaps some of his family members, some of his friends. He may or may not engage in “regular guy” acts like getting drunk. And your compassion for him is necessary. I don’t take exception with that. But here comes the “however.”

However, Tens of Millions of Americans lie down every day and allow their oppressors to walk all over them for fear of attacks from men like Lt. Pike. And worse, those who chose, unlike the student protestors at UC Davis, to keep their faces in the turf as the jackboots tred across their backs enable through passivity their own oppression and the oppression of those around them. Pike is no different, no less passive and no less culpable. He is the man with his face in the turf and he is the jackbooted thug enabling oppression – he’s a paradox.

Those are my colleagues and students standing up (albeit figuratively at this moment). I couldn’t be prouder of them. Pike could have stood with them against the oppression and brutality engendered by the system for which he serves as a dangerous weapon (earning over $100,000 / yr), but he chose to keep lying down (albeit figuratively here), to follow orders, to attack non-violent protestors who were not resisting. He’s not harmless, he enjoys his role of tool (witness the flourish he performs with the can just before issuing his chemical request for dispersal into the mouths, eyes, and noses of students trying to save a public university from virtual privatization). Pike is taking the beating in the press that he has asked for.

But where does this leave you? Compassion and all. Are you content to earn your keep rehabilitating the good Lieutenant’s image? Can you see your reflection in the sheen of his boots after you’ve knelt and polished the blood off them?

Thank You,
John Zibell

–
John Zibell
1st Year PhD Candidate
Performance Studies
University of California, Davis

And the Whitewash begins! Katehi on CNN calls the assault she ordered “Chilling”

From CNN (my commentary to follow after dinner):

Under calls to resign, the chancellor of the University of California, Davis, on Saturday called police use of pepper spray on seated Occupy protesters “chilling” and established a task force to look into the incident.
The video broadcast by CNN Sacramento affiliate KOVR showed a campus police officer, in a sweeping motion, spraying protesters point blank on Friday before other officers moved in. Eleven people were treated on site for effects of the yellow spray. Two of them were sent to the hospital, university officials said.

“Yesterday was not a day that would make anyone on our campus proud; indeed the events of the day need to guide us forward as we try to make our campus a better place of inquiry, debate, and even dissent,” Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi said in a statement.

The incident set off a flood of comments on the school’s Facebook page, most of them critical of police and the administration.

Protesters rallied again Saturday evening, chanting “resignation” and “we are peaceful, you are not.”

In a press conference, Katehi refused calls from faculty members and others for her to step down, saying she did not violate campus policies and that she has worked to make UC Davis a safe campus.

“Very unexpected, sad and very inappropriate at least on the face of it,” she said of the video, adding she wants the task force to look at how students can safely express their opinions.

The Davis Faculty Association, citing incidents at other campuses, demanded “that the chancellors of the University of California cease using police violence to repress nonviolent political protests.” It called for greater attention to cuts in state funding to education and rising tuition. Its board demanded Katehi resign, saying she exhibited “gross failure of leadership.”

“Student debt has reached unprecedented levels as bank profits swell,” the group said on its website.

Time: Watch video of police pepper-spraying and arresting students

UC Davis spokeswoman Claudia Morain told CNN that 25 tents were in place Friday afternoon — despite fliers explaining the campus prohibits overnight camping. It does so for security and health reasons, Katehi said.

After written and verbal warnings, officers reminded the protesters they would be subject to arrest if they did not move their tents from the quad, Morain said. Many protesters did decide to remove their tents and equipment, officials said.

A group of about a dozen protesters sat on a path with their arms interlocked as police moved in to remove additional tents. Most of the protesters had their heads down.

At one point, protesters encircled the officers and blocked them from leaving, Morain said. Cut off from backup, the officers determined the situation was not safe and asked people several times to make room, Morain said. One officer used pepper spray when a couple of protesters and some of the 200 bystanders moved in, she added.

Annette Spicuzza, chief of campus police, said officers in riot gear were unable to get out after they were encircled.

A use of force review will “determine whether we made all the right decisions and handled it the way we should have handled it,” Spicuzza told reporters.

Ten people were arrested during the face-off, Morain said late Friday. Tentative citations were failure to disperse and lodging without permission.

Morain said the pepper spray was used in lieu of batons. “Obviously, they use this only as a last resort,” she said of the officers.

Katehi said the incident followed weeklong peaceful demonstrations on the campus over the cost of higher education and other issues.

“During the early afternoon hours and because of the request to take down the tents, many students decided to dismantle their tents, a decision for which we are very thankful,” she wrote. “However, a group of students and non-campus affiliates decided to stay. The university police then came to dismantle the encampment. … As indicated in various videos, the police used pepper spray against the students who were blocking the way. The use of pepper spray as shown on the video is chilling to us all and raises many questions about how best to handle situations like this.”

Katehi said the task force made of faculty, students and staff will review the events and provide a report within 90 days.

“This report will help inform our policies and processes within the university administration and the Police Department to help us avoid similar outcomes in the future,” she said.