Occupy Cal
 Police response to Occupy Cal protesters on YouTube, Nov 9 |
Occupy Cal included a series of demonstrations that began on November 9, 2011, on the University of California, Berkeley campus in Berkeley, California. It was allied with the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York City, San Francisco Bay Area Occupy groups such as Occupy Oakland, Occupy Berkeley, and Occupy San Francisco, and other public California universities. "Cal" in the name "Occupy Cal" is the nickname of the Berkeley campus and generally refers specifically to UC Berkeley.
A major theme of the Occupy Cal demonstrations is the role of education in creating jobs and improving quality of life for society as a whole. Tuition increases for students, mandatory furloughs for professors and staff, firings or forced realignment of lower-ranking workers as part of the "Operational Excellence" reorganization, and raises for the highest paid administrators have further fueled discontent.
Occupy Cal continued to engage in organized meetings, events and actions through March 2012.
Budget cuts, tuition increases, and unpaid furlough days affecting public California universities have been the target of protest by UC Berkeley students, faculty, and employees in recent years. The UC Regents has approved increased tuition fees nine times in seven years. In September 2009, several thousand students, faculty, and employees converged on Sproul Plaza to protest a proposed tuition increase of 32%. Simultaneous protests on University of California and California State University campuses occurred throughout the state. The statewide campus protests did not sway the UC Regents, however, and the 32% tuition increase was approved in November 2009, setting off another round of protests that included the temporary occupation of campus buildings. Protests continued through 2010 and 2011 with Occupy Cal being the most recent iteration of a multi-year protest for affordable public education. UC Berkeley has a long history of student activism. Berkeley spearheaded the Free Speech Movement in 1964 and was a leader in the opposition to the Vietnam War throughout the 1960s.
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