Tag Archives: University of California

Workers at the University of California Seek Justice

(I added a photo of Sen. Yee joining the protest at UCSF. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

Sen. Yee at UCSFThe people who cook lunches, clean classrooms, and provide medical care at the University of California live in poverty.  96% of the people who do these important, necessary jobs are eligible to receive public poverty assistance.  Many people working at the UC — one of the world’s most prestigious universities — have to work two or even three jobs just to pay rent and put food on the table for their families.

I just got back from the picket line here at UC Santa Barbara, where I’m a teacher and graduate student.  The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Local 3299 (AFSCME), which represents the 8,500 people who cook, clean, and work in health clinics across the University, today began a five-day strike after more than a full year of demanding a better contract with fair wages .  There are about 100 or so workers and supporters at the main entrance to UCSB right now, demonstrating for a fair contract.  Spirits are high, because everyone knows that the University simply cannot work without them — so they’re going to win a fair contract.  It’s just a matter of time.

The contract that these folks have had for the last several years is terrible.  Currently in Santa Barbara, the median home price is $1,000,000.  Average rents for a one bedroom apartment start at about $1,600 (check Craigslist for a taste of that nonsense).  Yet, these workers are paid only $10.28 to $11.50 per hour .  No wonder so many of them get public assistance simply to afford housing.

The workers aren’t asking for much.  Just a raise to $15.00 per hour, and a pay scale that includes a raise every now and then.  $15.00 per hour still won’t be nearly enough to afford housing in one of the most expensive housing markets in the world, but it will help some people work fewer hours at their second and third jobs, so that they can spend more time at home, with their children.

Even though Governer Schwarzenegger is trying to protect his rich buddies and their yacht tax breaks by cutting the budget for education , there is no reason why the UC cannot afford to pay its workers enough to afford an apartment near their place of work.

The University of California has a massive budget, and they have plenty of money to spread around to pay the salaries of important people like basketball coaches and executive administrators.  It’s time for the UC to give the same respect to all of its employees.

Yoo’s Law: And Why We Cannot Be Silent

As I wrote earlier today, the revelation that top-level officials in the White House actually debated what interrogation techniques to use on high-value targets, including torture, just sickens the stomach.  In this context, it’s clear that torture lawyer John Yoo was writing a document that was already written – a justification for the most heinous of crimes.  That the Administration had to dip all the way down into the mid-level of the Justice Department, bypassing even the Attorney General, shows how difficult it was to find a cad willing to cover up their misdeeds, someone willing to disgrace the office and disgrace himself.  

Yoo was a pawn bit none of this absolves him from blame.  House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers would like a word with him.  Attorneys for Ali al-Marri, a so-called “enemy combatant” at Guantanamo, are using the memo to make the legal argument that his detention was actually illegal, since the memo was eventually withdrawn after al-Marri was captured and detained based on its legal theories.  The “footnote” contained in the memo, that a previous memo waived the Fourth Amendment with respect to “domestic military operations,” is causing Administration officials all sorts of grief on Capitol Hill.  (That worm Mukasey, by the way, wouldn’t say whether or not the Fourth Amendment waiver memo has been withdrawn.)

And now the National Lawyers Guild has called on Yoo to be disbarred and removed from the Boalt Hall School of Law, and for the Congress to repeal that part of the Military Commissions Act which gives him essentially legal immunity for his crimes.

In a memorandum written the same month George W. Bush invaded Iraq, Boalt Hall law professor John Yoo said the Department of Justice would construe US criminal laws not to apply to the President’s detention and interrogation of enemy combatants. According to Yoo, the federal statutes against torture, assault, maiming and stalking do not apply to the military in the conduct of the war.

“John Yoo’s complicity in establishing the policy that led to the torture of prisoners constitutes a war crime under the US War Crimes Act,” said National Lawyers Guild President Marjorie Cohn.

Congress should repeal the provision of the Military Commissions Act that would give Yoo immunity from prosecution for torture committed from September 11, 2001 to December 30, 2005. John Yoo should be disbarred and he should not be retained as a professor of law at one of the country’s premier law schools. John Yoo should be dismissed from Boalt Hall and tried as a war criminal.

For those who want a “variety of views” to be expressed in the academic sphere, I think the National Lawyers Guild has a broader perspective about the First Amendment and freedom of expression.

There are things we can do at home as well.  First, Mark Ridley-Thomas’ resolution on torture must be passed, and used as a means to discover more about how medical professionals served this lawbreaking and who was involved all the way to the top of the chain of command.

As we recently commemorated the non-violent life and legacy of Dr. King, we cannot ignore the immorality of war that, he said, ravages our economy and “mutilates our conscience.”

Nowhere is that “mutilated conscience” more evident than in the alarming issue of health professionals involved in torture in the Iraq War […]

Reports from the International Red Cross, The New England Journal of Medicine, the British Medical Journal, military records, and first-person accounts, provide overwhelming evidence that military physicians and psychologists have directly participated in the development and cover-up of torture and abuse of detainees in U.S. custody.

Medical professionals are reported to have advised interrogators as to whether particular prisoners were fit enough to survive physical maltreatment, informed interrogators about prisoners’ phobias and other psychological vulnerabilities that could be exploited during questioning, failed to report incidents of alleged torture, force-fed prisoners who were on hunger strikes, and altered the death certificates of prisoners who died […]

As professional licensure and codes of ethics are regulated by states, California has the obligation to notify members of laws concerning torture that may result in their prosecution.

This week, I will put to a vote Senate Joint Resolution 19 on the floor of the Senate that states that the U.S. Department of Defense has “failed to oversee the ethical conduct of California-licensed health professionals related to torture.” […]

Torture is much more than a political issue. It is an ethical, moral and spiritual issue that has not only become a shame, but it is an evil in our midst.

Dr. King would not remain silent on an issue of such moral importance. Nor will I. Dr. King repeatedly warned us that, “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.”

And perhaps most important, on April 14 at the Bancroft Hotel, Yoo will make a public appearance in an event with Georgetown Law Professor David Cole and others.  Perhaps citizens who stand against the torture and murder of human beings in service to a failed theory of extreme executive power ought to stop by and let him know how you feel.  

April 14, Bancroft Hotel.  Be there.

UPDATE: The American Freedom Campaign has also called for the dismissal of John Yoo.

Why Are We Paying War Criminal John Yoo’s Salary?

At my home site I took a look today at John Yoo’s recently declassified memo, which is more responsible for torture and detainee abuse at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and throughout American prison sites abroad than practically any other document.

If you’re interested in weeping, you can read the 81-page memo yourself.

Part 1

Part 2

Yoo simply made up a new set of executive powers that trumped the Geneva Conventions, domestic statutes against torture, and virtually the whole system of the law itself.

If a government defendant were to harm an enemy combatant during an interrogation in a manner that might arguably violate a criminal prohibition, he would be doing so in order to prevent further attacks on the United States by the al Qaeda terrorist network. In that case, we believe that he could argue that the executive branch’s constitutional authority to protect the nation from attack justified his actions.

Kind of a “self-defense before the fact” belief, completely contrary to how the American legal system works […] The closed loop here is self-perpetuating.  The DoJ writes a memo saying that the President has virtually unlimited power in wartime.  The CIA and the Pentagon then takes the memo and uses it as proof of legality for their crimes.  So we have an executive branch validating the rest of the executive branch, essentially a one-branch government that writes, executes and adjudicates the law.

There is no question that John Yoo is a war criminal; he provided the legal theories that the executive branch follows to this day, even though the Defense Department vacated this particular memo in 2003.

Elsewhere in the piece I noted that Berkeley must be exceedingly proud.  Yoo is a tenured law professor who has been teaching at the University of California since leaving the Justice Department.  The UC, as we know, is a public university system paid for with 3.2% of the general fund budget.  Full professors there can earn up to $164,700 a year annually.

That comes out of my hide.  Your hide.  John Yoo is making his living based on public payments through taxes and other receipts.  And he is absolutely a war criminal.  (over)

John Yoo’s Memorandum, as intended, directly led to — caused — a whole series of war crimes at both Guantanamo and in Iraq. The reason such a relatively low-level DOJ official was able to issue such influential and extraordinary opinions was because he was working directly with, and at the behest of, the two most important legal officials in the administration: George Bush’s White House counsel, Alberto Gonzales, and Dick Cheney’s counsel (and current Chief of Staff) David Addington. Together, they deliberately created and authorized a regime of torture and other brutal interrogation methods that are, by all measures, very serious war crimes.

If writing memoranda authorizing torture — actions which then directly lead to the systematic commission of torture — doesn’t make one a war criminal in the U.S., what does?

I believe in academic freedom and understand the slippery slope of removing a faculty member with tenure because of their political views.  In a best-case scenario The Hague would be making the decision of when John Yoo leaves his cushy law professor job by dragging him off in leg irons.  But failing that, there has to be at least some standard of competence and dignity among a public university.  The shoddy logic and faulty reasoning in this declassified memo should be a firing offense alone; and the implications of that memo should be more than enough to cement that.  Not only is John Yoo teaching your kids about the Constitution and the law, we’re all paying him to do it.  And so at the very least the UC Regents need to hear from everyone in California, expressing their disappointment that they are harboring a war criminal at their flagship school, and determining what they will seek to do about that.

UPDATE: The American Freedom Campaign has a petition you can sign to demand this abuse of executive power.  It’s astonishing that it took the ACLU to force declassification of this memo rather than oversight from the Congress or the media.  As the AFC says, “Prosecutions may be appropriate.  Impeachment should not be out of the question.  But what is needed immediately is a thorough investigation into the Bush administration’s understanding of the extent of the president’s power as commander-in-chief. “

Sunday Night Week In Review

Here are some notes from a few stories I’d been meaning to get to all week.

• Frank Russo had a good recap of the initial hearing from the three-judge panel charged with finding a solution to California’s prison crisis.  This panel may result in the early release of thousands of prisoners to reduce overcrowding.  The panel does not appear to be able to be swayed by political expediency (unlike the Legislature for the past 30 years), saying  “This is a judicial and not a political process.”  It is clear that the torturous conditions in California jails and the inability to deliver even basic medical care violates the Constitution and will be dealt with swiftly.  Even the Correctional Officers union has come around to the point of view that reductions in the prison population are needed.  Only a cowardly, leadership-challenged political class refuses to face reality.

(more on the flip):

• Here’s a fun tale of health care at the Tribune Company, parent of the LA Times and local TV station KTLA:

The Tribune Company has come up with a new tactic to cut costs and annoy the hell out of its employees – again. It seems that everyone on the staff at the L.A. Times (and so I assume KTLA) has to prove that their spouses and children really are theirs, and thus eligible for medical benefits. Though wasteful and mildly insulting it sounds easy enough, but apparently it’s not. They call it a “Mercer Audit” and its demands have some staffers in an uproar.

They’re demanding documentation (a birth certificate or marriage license, I guess) with a deadline of days from actually giving employees notice.  I’m sure in the boardroom this is considered “sound business sense.”

• At our Calitics Quarterly event, I talked with Digby about her contention that the GOP is targeting California as the big blue state where Rudy Giuliani can break through and get the paradigm-shifting win they need.  It’s true that the big hitters in the state have all come out for him – although the Pete Wilson endorsement garnered all of three reporters to the announcement.

• Continuing on this theme, a new SUSA poll shows head-to-head general election matchups for all of the top three candidates on either side, and in California, it shakes out like this: against Romney or Thompson, all the Democrats win by between 15 and 33 points.  Against Giuliani, Clinton beats him by 20, but Obama wins by only for and Edwards by only 2.  Wow.  Of course, Giuliani is still riding the name ID coattails.  However, his clear penchant for wanting to be competitive in California is evidenced by the fact that the mystery fundraiser for the dirty tricks initiative was the chairman of Giuliani’s northeast fundraising operation.

• Rik Hertzberg had an interesting footnote to the possible demise of the dirty tricks initiative:

Why would Schwarzenegger want to shoot down a proposal that has the potential of delivering the White House to his party next year?

My guess is that he isn’t losing any sleep over the probability of a G.O.P. Presidential rout, which would make him the indisputably most important Republican in America. His current port tack, on issues like health care and climate change, suggests that he knows which way the wind is blowing.  Doubtless he would rather be swept along than swept away.

Then there’s this. Anybody remember the first Republican debate, on MSNBC back in May? I’ll bet Arnold does. He was in the front row at the Reagan Library when Chris Matthews asked the ten candidates if they would support changing the Constitution ever so slightly to make naturalized citizens eligible for the presidency. The vote onstage was eight to one against. (The one was Giuliani; McCain said he’d “seriously consider it,” which I count as an abstention.) Eight to one, in other words, in favor of crushing the ultimate and perfectly legitimate dream of the distinguished Governor of California.

If I were Schwarzenegger, I wouldn’t lift a finger to help these bozos.

• Finally, tonight at midnight, the UAW Local 2865 contract runs out.  While the United Auto Workers settled their contract dispute with GM, Local 2865, which covers over 12,000 academic student employees at UC campuses (TAs, for example) has made little headway with UC.  You can read all about it here.  The whole idea of student employee unions gets lost in the shuffle, but they are being royally screwed, and are planning to file lots of unfair labor practices charges, in addition to keeping negotiations going and reserving the right to strike.  We ought to support their efforts.

September 12, 2007 Blog Roundup

Today’s Blog Roundup is on the flip. Let me know what I missed.

To subscribe by email, click
here and do what comes naturally
.

When I was a student, we
called this cramming — didn’t work very well then either

The Librul Academy: or
how the taxpayers of California still employ John Yoo as a law
professor at UC Berkeley

Big fish, smaller ponds

Candidates are people too

Everything else

July 11, 2007 Blog Roundup

Today’s Blog Roundup is on the flip. Let me know if I missed anything in comments.

Health and Health Care

Our Environment

Pretty Much Everything
Else

A Bubbling Cauldron at UC Irvine?

Last night, UCI Chancellor Michael Drake met with Jewish students to discuss the recent unrest on campus. Here’s what The OC Register has to say about it:

UC Irvine Chancellor Michael V. Drake told several hundred concerned Jewish community members Wednesday night to join in on discussions and work together against what he calls isolated incidents of anti-Jewish speech by outsiders on campus.

Drake answered questions during a 90-minute town hall meeting at Shir Ha-Ma’alot in Irvine addressing concerns about what the Jewish community calls ongoing anti-Israel and anti-Semitic activity on UCI’s campus.

“We promote dialogue, understanding, growth and tolerance at UCI,” Drake said. “I’d like to enlist all of you in working with me to make Jewish life on campus as strong as possible.”

So what’s happening on campus? Is there an anti-Jewish problem on campus? Is there an anti-Muslim problem on campus? Why is UCI becoming such a hotbed of controversy? Follow me after the flip for more…

So what exactly is happening at UCI? Jewish groups on campus have been complaining about anti-Semitic incidents for quite some times now. Pajamas Media likes to call what’s happening an “intifada” against Jews on campus. The Jewish Journal asks if UCI is a hotbed of anti-Semitic harassment. So is there an anti-Semitic problem at UCI?

But wait, is this all that’s happening? After all, the very same Muslim Student Union that is being accused of being behind all this harassment is itself claiming harassment. In fact, police are still investigating the charge that an FBI agent threatened a Muslim student who was just taking down a protest wall on campus. And most recently, the folks at Red County/OC Blog accused the Muslim Student Union of “preaching terror on campus”, even though The Daily Pilot found no anti-Semitism and no incitement to “terrorism” at the previous speech in the week-long series on the Israeli-Palestinean crisis. If anything, it seemed like it was the commenters on the OC Blog story preaching hate.

So what’s the problem? Why do both sides feel so victimized? Perhaps there are incidents of radical extremists targeting Jews on campus. Perhaps there are right-wing extremists who seek to stir trouble with the Muslims on campus. Perhaps the controversy at UCI is getting way out of control. What can be done to quell the controversy? What can be done to reconcile the differences between the Jewish groups and the Muslim groups on campus? Why is the conflict at UCI almost reaching Israeli-Palestinean levels of intensity?

Hopefully, UCI Chancellor Drake and the administration can come up with a solution here. Something has to be done to address this bubbling cauldron. Something has to be done to stop this from bubbling past the boiling point.

Is the FBI Harrassing Muslims at UC Irvine?

“There was a confrontation, if you will,” said UCI Police Chief Paul Henisey, who is investigating the incident to determine if any crime was committed. The students “demanded to know why this person was following them, then the person left,” he said.

The incident that the UCI Police Chief is referring to is quite a nasty one. Today’s OC Register is reporting that police are now investigating this incident in which a Muslim student is claiming that an FBI agent threatened him. If this is true, then it wouldn’t be the first time when federal agents clashed with Muslim students on campus. However, this has already developed into another major headache for Orange County’s Muslim community.

Follow me after the flip to see what happened Monday night that caused this new furor…

So what happened Monday night? A UCI economics student claims that he was just taking down a protest wall when a surprise visitor appeared. At the Irvine campus, protesters with the Muslim Student Union erect a wall every day that symbolizes the “apartheid wall” that the Israeli government is trying to erect. However due to university policy on large displays, the Muslim Student Union agrees to take it down ever night. And when the economics student was taking down the wall, something strange happened.

From The Register:

UCI economics student Yasser Ahmed said he was driving a borrowed truck up onto the Ring Road near the library loading dock Monday night, on intending to haul away the wall, when he noticed a silver Ford Taurus with blackened windows following him.

Ahmed said he stopped the truck in view of other campus observers and stood in front of the Taurus, trying to look through the blackened windshield and asking the driver to identify himself. When he would not speak, Ahmed said he tried to take a photo of the car’s license plate with his camera phone.

“He could have just rolled down his window and said, ‘I’m an FBI agent,’ and that would have been the end of it,” Ahmed said. “There was nothing improper going on.”

Instead, according to Ahmed, the driver revved his engine threateningly and began pushing him backward with the car’s front bumper. Ahmed said he then began calling for help, and dozens of other students ran over to assist.

“I was frightened,” Ahmed said. “I felt I could have been killed or seriously injured if I hadn’t jumped out of the way.”

If this is true, then we need to be afraid. VERY AFRAID. Afraid of our own government.

So is this what really happened? Campus police confirmed that the mysterious man was an FBI agent. But why would an FBI agent be at UCI in the middle of the night?

The next morning, Ahmed said, he went to the campus police station and was told by the police chief that the man in the car was an FBI agent.

Ahmed, who lives with his family in Orange County, laughed at the idea the FBI could be investigating him.

Sociology student [Marya] Bangee said UCI’s Muslim Student Union opposes violence and its members are not terrorists.

“All we do is speak out against injustice,” Bangee said, though she said she believes the FBI has been spying on students.

“We have nothing to hide,” Bangee said. “If something illegal ever happened, it might make sense. But nothing ever has. It’s complete xenophobia.”

Of course, this wouldn’t be the first incident when Muslim Americans were harassed for simply being who they were. And this wouldn’t be the first time that the FBI was involved in suspicious activities monitoring the American Muslim community. However, it should ALWAYS trouble us when we hear that our government is unfairly targeting and harassing a community simply because of who they are. If these individuals are not involved in any crimes, then the FBI shouldn’t be snooping into their lives… And they definitely shouldn’t be harassing any one.

So why were FBI agents on the UCI campus Monday night? And why were they driving around the Muslim Student Union’s protest wall? And if the FBI agent in question truly did attempt to ram down the economics student with his car, why did he feel that he had license to do so? I thought that these agents were supposed to enforce the law. When our government suddenly begin breaking its own laws?

Oh yeah, I almost forgot.