Date: Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Subject: VICTORY: UCB Chancellor Birgeneau resigns! Let's win all our demands - BAMN mtg Thursday
To: Ronald Cruz
Victory for the Movement—Birgeneau Resigns!
Keep Fighting to Win All Our Demands!
BAMN Meeting Thursday (3/15) 7:00 pm, Room 141 Giannini Hall, UCB
In a major victory for the new student movement, UC-Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau announced today that he will resign at the end of the year. (BAMN press release below.) This has been one of the top demands of the movement. What we now need to do is fight to realize the other demands of the movement: doubling underrepresented minority student enrollment at UCB, dropping the charges against protesters, and reversing the fee hikes, cuts, and privatization at UCB.
Come to BAMN’s meeting this Thursday. Our proposed agenda is to plan two major initiatives this spring:
A. Direct Action on April 6 to demand (1) the end to the political witch-hunt and that UCB and the District Attorney drop the criminal charges against November 9 protesters and (2) immediate doubling of underrepresented minority student enrollment at UCB for this year’s incoming class.
B. Coordinating a slate for UC-Berkeley student government: the Defend Affirmative Action Party (DAAP). We need leaders in the ASUC who will be the voice of the movement to defend public education and who are committed to building the movement. Come to Thursday’s meeting and learn more about running and supporting the DAAP slate.
- Yvette Felarca, Northern California coordinator of BAMN (Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary)
BAMN PRESS RELEASE:
Movement celebrates victory today: UC-Berkeley chancellor forced to resign
Students also demand that Birgeneau withdraw the criminal charges filed against Nov. 9 protesters before he leaves
BAMN and other movement activists are celebrating the movement’s victory today forcing the resignation of UCB Chancellor Robert Birgeneau.
At the press conference will be YVETTE FELARCA, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit brought against UC-Berkeley for police brutality from November 9, BAMN’s Northern California coordinator, and now a defendant facing criminal charges from Birgeneau and the Alameda County District Attorney for being at the November 9 protest.
“The new student movement demanding the preservation of public education and the restoration of affirmative action has won a major victory today,” Felarca said. “Chancellor Birgeneau’s resignation has been one of the top demands of the movement ever since he authorized police to beat me and countless other protesters who were standing up for public education on November 9, 2011. Birgeneau had to go. No chancellor can survive after doing what he did to his own students.”
“Birgeneau’s resignation is a confession that his policies of privatization, police brutality, and prosecutions have been a disaster,” said Monica Smith, BAMN attorney representing many protesters from November 9. “Before he leaves, he needs to withdraw the criminal charges he has brought against November 9 protesters and bring this political witch hunt to an end.”
“This victory is the result of the increased social power that students now have to determine the character of our education and the policies of this society,” said Matt Williams, UC-Berkeley senior and BAMN organizer. “On April 6, 2012, students will take direct action to double underrepresented minority student enrollment for the fall class and demand that all charges stemming from the November 9 protest be withdrawn and dropped—UC-Berkeley is a public university and must be democratically run and opened up to all of California.”
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this came from the BAMN email announcements list.
UC Berkeley Chancellor Birgeneau’s recruits born abroad and affluent out of state $50,600 tuition students who displace qualified Californians; spends $7,000,000 + for OE consultants but stonewalls consultants from examining Chancellor office for inefficiencies (prominent East Coast university accomplishing same at 0 cost); pays ex Michigan governor $300,000 for a couple lectures; tuition to Return on Investment drops below top 10; QS ranking below top ten. On all-in cost Cal. is now the most expensive public USA university – more expensive than Harvard, Yale. Chancellor Birgeneau’s fiscal track record is dismal indeed.
ReplyDeleteBirgeneau would like to blame the politicians, since they stopped giving him every dollar asked for, & the state legislators do share some responsibility for the financial crisis. But not in the sense he means. Every year Birgeneau ($450,000 salary) would request a budget increase, the timid UC Regents would agree to it, and the legislature would provide. The hard questions were avoided by all concerned, & the Birgeneau initiated inefficiencies just piled up to $150 million +.
It’s not that Birgeneau was unaware that there were, in fact, waste during his 8 year reign. Faculty & staff raised issues with Birgeneau however, when they failed to see relevant action taken, they stopped. Finally, Birgeneau engaged expensive ($7,000,000 +) OE consultants to tell him what he should have known as a leader or been able to find out from the bright, engaged people. (Prominent east-coast University accomplishing same at 0 costs)
Cal’s senior management is either incompetent or culpable. We are sympathetic to the running of higher education with declining state money. However, Cal. has been badly damaged by Chancellor Birgeneau. Good people are loosing their jobs. Recommendation: You never want a crisis to go to waste. Increasing Cal’s budget is not the solution. Honorably retire UC Berkeley Chancellor Birgeneau. Email opinions to UC Board of Regents marsha.kelman@ucop.edu
(The author has 35 years’ consulting experience, has taught at University of California Berkeley where he observed the way Cal. senior management work)