About The Coalition to Free the UC!

I. Mission Statement

II. The Problem

III. Policy Change Position Paper

I. Mission Statement:

    We are a student-led coalition that seeks to transform the University from an elitist, corporate, militaristic, autocratic, imperialist institution into a responsible, just, diverse equitable, democratically-governed, people’s University that educates and works for the common welfare.

    To walk with the Phoenix Coalition is to be on the ground level of a new radical student movement. We will use nonviolent direct action to assist the evolution of the University structurally and ethically. We will organize, educate, protest, party, obstruct, heal, learn, struggle and grow together.

II. The Problem:

The University of California is out of control!

• UC Berkeley is about to accept half a billion dollars from British Petroleum -- an oil company with a history of ecological and human rights abuses -- without student input or oversight.

• The UC refuses to pay equitable wages and benefits that it promised to custodians and other workers.

• Hundreds of millions of dollars are funding the destruction of the native Memorial Oak Grove.

• Military recruiters are allowed at our career fairs despite ASUC resolutions barring them from campus.

• The UC has just agreed to design the next wave of nuclear weapons, further endangering all life on this planet.

• An architect of the Bush administration’s policy of legalized torture is allowed to teach constitutional law at Boalt Hall.

• Cal gear is still made in sweatshops, as the University stands idle while Nike closes union factories.

• Social sciences continue to languish, education that promotes sustainability and peace is underfunded, third-world studies is almost nonexistent, and Cal still does not have an adequate multicultural center.

• The vast drop in minorities studying and working at Cal is a direct result of cuts in recruitment funding.

• The UC Police Department is used to harass nonviolent protesters and houseless people with no oversight, while students, especially women, do not receive the resources necessary to stop violence and rape and create a safe climate on campus.

• Despite student, faculty, and community abhorrence of these University practices and mentalities, student tuition has risen dramatically to fund unethical programs.

• The UC Regents, who govern the University, are not accountable to the students or to Californians in any way.

• The UC is, in the words of one of its administrators, ‘a feudal state.’

    As individuals and separate organizations, we have struggled against many problems and will continue to do so. However, we understand that these issues are rooted in deeper problems within our University and society at large, and big issues require a big Coalition.

    Standing together, we can address these deeper problems, while simultaneously dealing with individual policies from a position of greater strength.

III. Policy Change Position Paper:

Click here for a working draft.