University of California mass student protests

Protesting education cut backs and fee hike suggestions, thousands of UC Berkeley students, teachers, and workers stage a walkout

(WQ) Protesting a 33% fee increase, students across the state have taken matters into their own hands. In Berkeley, Wheeler Hall has been taken over. Police broken one student's hand with a baton for touching a railing. At UCLA, protests have continued for three days. Santa Cruz, Davis, and other campuses are holding demonstrations and building takeovers to bring attention to the UC Regents' actions this week. The goal is to rescind crippling fee hikes.

(Indy Media) Despite the fact that KPFA is located in Berkeley, where a mass strike movement is developing, it has been unable to cover the ubiquitous rallies live. It even eliminated a segment on the strike. That segment was on Democracy Now, which played on Nov. 17, 2009. It discussed the planned UC Berkeley strike on Nov. 18.

One strike activist is angry that KFPA and Pacifica Radio have refused to properly cover this critical struggle. Pacifica has chosen to do fundraising rather than cover mass rallies and strike actions by students, faculty, and unionized staff on the Berkeley campus.

Are Israeli Soldiers Like Nazis?

UCSB sociology professor William Robinson compares Israel to Nazis

William I. Robinson is a Jewish tenured sociology professor at UC Santa Barbara. His e-mail has triggered a campus investigation and drawn accusations of anti-Semitism from two national Jewish groups, even as many students and faculty members have voiced support for him.

There is a [4/30/09] Los Angeles Times report on Professor William I. Robinson, who teaches sociology at UC Santa Barbara. He is in the middle of a controversy after he sent e-mails to students comparing Israel's recent Gaza incursion to the Holocaust:

Controversy has erupted at UC Santa Barbara over a professor's decision to send his students an e-mail in which he compared graphic images of Jews in the Holocaust to pictures of Palestinians caught up in Israel's recent Gaza offensive.

The e-mail by tenured sociology professor William I. Robinson has triggered a campus investigation and drawn accusations of anti-Semitism from two national Jewish groups, even as many students and faculty members have voiced support for him.

The uproar began in January when Robinson sent his message -- titled "parallel images of Nazis and Israelis" -- to the 80 students in his sociology of globalization class.

The e-mail contained more than two dozen photographs of Jewish victims of the Nazis, including those of dead children, juxtaposed with nearly identical images from the Gaza Strip. It also included an article critical of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians and a note from Robinson."

Gaza is Israel's Warsaw -- a vast concentration camp that confined and blockaded Palestinians," the professor wrote. "We are witness to a slow-motion process of genocide."Two Jewish students dropped the class, saying they felt intimidated by the professor's message. They contacted the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which advised them to file formal complaints with the university.

In their letters, senior Rebecca Joseph and junior Tova Hausman accused Robinson of violating the campus' faculty code of conduct by disseminating personal, political material unrelated to his course. More>>