Geek Magnet

UC Davis: No Longer Famous for All Those Bicycles

November 20, 2011 at 9:55 am (WTF) (Occupy, police action, protests, tuition hike, UC Davis)

When I was at FSU, there was a tent city on Landis Green. Students stayed there for a long time (weeks? months? I don’t remember). The students were protesting licensed FSU clothing made in sweatshops. I didn’t participate; maybe I liked my little rented house, maybe I liked showering. More likely, I was busy with teaching and being a full time student and trying to get my master’s and I didn’t have youthful idealism anymore. I did support those students, though. I brought them a big pot of veggie chili one chilly evening.

Nine or ten years later, I am astonished (impressed by the students, horrified by the police action) at what went down on Friday at the protest at UC Davis.

News outlets, such as BoingBoing are calling the UC Davis protest Friday part of the Occupy movement. Yes, it is, but that’s not the whole story.

The irony of the UC Davis protest Friday that HuffPo, CNN, and others are ignoring is that the students were gathered in solidarity with UC Berkeley students who had been beaten with batons last week. The UC Berkeley students were protesting tuition hikes.

UC Davis students were protesting violent police action. And they got pepper sprayed. There are reports that some protestors’ mouths were pried open and sprayed down their throats. One woman was taken via ambulance to the hospital for chemical burns. Some students reported coughing up blood for hours afterward.

UC Davis defends breaking up the protest because they do not allow camping on campus.

Since when is anything in Florida more progressive than anything in California? This weekend, I’m a little more proud of my alma mater and proud of UC Davis students, especially considering their self-control: