There is a great tradition in the US of non-violent protest, which should be understood and respected.

One part has to do with arrest, which is done to get publicity. One has to wonder what planet the 40 professors OCCUPY, where they don’t understand that the PURPOSE of non-violent occupation IS TO GENERATE ARRESTS, for publicity! Do these academics actually READ?

On top of which, WHAT of the OWS agenda does UCLA oppose, that it deserves protest and occupation? It is simply a civil institution. One wonders when Union Rescue Mission will be Occupied?

Higbie, when he states that OCCUPY strives to avoid the incident at Berkeley and Davis, is oblivious to common sense and intellectual honesty. I have personally been to some of the protests and watched a number of live streaming video. What I’ve seen is continual provocation to law enforcement, attempting to provoke violence. Look at the OCCUPY webistes, and you will see the CELEBRATION of the incidents, as a tool for publicity and legitimacy. You get the sense that they pray for a protester fatality to produce a martyr.

A camp of tents that no one sees, appropriating UCLA property, does nothing. I don’t agree with Higbie, perhaps I’ll set up a tent in his office? Hope he won’t get on the phone and drown out my free speech. It ain’t your office, buddy, it belongs to the State, and therefore the PEOPLE!

Inasmuch as Higbie is much closer to the 1% than to the 99%, you can’t help but wonder about his agenda. He certainly wasn’t out in a tent getting arrested.

As faculty member who signed the open letter to the Chancellor, I would like to clarify what I believe to be the purpose of the Occupy UCLA movement and of civil disobedience.

I believe that the Occupy UCLA protests actually support what the administration says it wants: lower tuition and the UC’s continued existence as a truly public rather than a privatized “state supported” institution. They want corporations, who have profited greatly from the tax loopholes of Proposition 13, and banks, who have profited richly from privatized student loans, to re-fund public institutions through a progressive taxation policy.

Why then does the administration not encourage rather than discourage students from doing everything they can to draw attention to these issues and build pressure on legislatures both in California and Washington? Why don’t they suspend the “camping” rules and recognize that in the context of the Occupy Wall Street movement tents are both teaching aids and symbols of resistance to a corporate status quo ?

Since corporations (including banks, of course) have not only been declared people but have also been granted the loudest speech free speech rights, how can one break through the din of corporate cash to reach the ears of elected representatives? Only by organizing and saying “NO” to what has happened to this country and to California in the last thirty years.

Civil disobedience need not have as its goal getting arrested. It uses the non-violent tool of moral suasion to draw attention to injustice or social need. In 1993, student and faculty supporters of creating a Chicano Studies Department camped for 14 days in Schoenberg quad. Several went on a hunger strike. Chancellor Young did not evict or arrest them. Instead, negotiations produced compromise that eventually resulted in a department that is considered a UCLA treasure today.

As the above example shows, civil disobedience can be good for the university. The UCLA administration should declare the campus a safe zone for student voices, including voices raised in and around tents. Revitalization of our precious public university may result.

@Ken Murray

Except that Michael Chwe, one of the signees, teaches a class on social movements. I’m pretty sure he understands non-violent occupation well enough.

UCLA students oppose the tuition hikes which result from a budget shortfall which results from a crap economy, which OWS connects to greed on Wall Street. That is how they are connected. Please do your research… although I don’t understand why research would even be necessary given that figuring out their motives should require only common sense.

Thank you professors for supporting us! This movement is not just for us, but for you too! and for the workers who clean our school, cook our food, etc. etc.! We love you!

Professor King, you actually prove my point about the futility of what is happening: In the example that you gave, the protest was with the decision-makers themselves, who had the power to make change.

For example, I could OCCUPY your office and strike you and picket you until the cows come home (I guess that would be in Davis), and YOU DO NOT HAVE THE POWER to change wall street, taxation, executive compensation, government funding, election fairness. You do not have that power. Neither does the University. The actual decision makers are under NO PRESSURE WHATSOEVER. Tell me how the Republican legislators responsible for the tax shortfall and budget cuts the Univ, are experiencing that pressure?????

By engaging in these side shows, instead of concentrating on what will ACTUALLY create change, the voting booth, all of the energy is wasted. The only alternative is violent revolution, and the American people will not support that.

Uhhhh, that line of thinking supports connecting anything indirectly. If you are proposing that any institution that is affected by the state of the Union, it sounds like we can look forward to OCCUPATION of nursing homes, hospitals, the VA, soup kitchens, and every thing else. OCCUPATION of the VICTIMS will accomplish nothing, except sympathy for the victims you’ve chosen, and contempt for you.

I say these things as a supporter of the general concepts behind OCCUPY. But becoming an enemy of middle class institutions and perceived as a threat will not win support.