50th Anniversary of the Free Speech Movement
Art for Social Change
Jon-Paul Bail (Political Gridlock)
Silkscreen, 2014
Berkeley, CA
43910
Poster text: There comes a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even tacitly take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all. Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Free Speech Movement UC Berkeley #Printatcal #artforsocialchange 2014
Universities are gearing up for back-to-school, but this year, campus administrations across the country have hammered out new rules to limit student protests:
University of California President Michael Drake issued new regulations calling on campuses to enforce a zero-tolerance policy around encampments, face masks, and the occupation of walkways to university spaces.
At California State University campuses, encampments are also banned, and the public display of posters, banners, and chalk are only allowed with permission from the campus.
At George Washington and Rutgers Universities, student organizations that support Palestine have been suspended.
Professors at Northwestern and Colombia are under investigation or have been fired for speaking critically about Israel.
New York University introduced guidelines to expand protected classes to include the political ideology of Zionism, essentially equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.
A primary purpose of protest is to bring attention to injustices. This can most effectively be achieved by disrupting the status quo, yet these new policies seek to limit dissent to the point of ineffectiveness. This has not stopped students from protesting.
This crack down on free speech is in response to last Spring’s student protests demanding an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza. The universities claim the new rules are to ensure campus safety, yet in the one instance that violence did occur on a UC campus, the violence was instigated not by those staying in the encampment, but by off-campus Zionist counter-protesters…and the UCLA campus police did nothing to stop them while student protesters were injured.
Limiting student expression is a devastating way to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Berkeley’s Free Speech Movement (FSM). The FSM began when the University attempted to prevent political organizing on campus. 10,000 students surrounded a police car after the arrest on October 1,1964, of Jack Weinberg, a Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) student activist for tabling without a permit. CSPG’s Poster of the Week features Mario Savio (1942-1996), key activist with the FSM, and excerpts from a speech he made when over 800 students were arrested during the occupation of U.C. Berkeley’s Administration Hall, Dec. 2-3, 1964. At the time, this was the largest mass arrest in California history. Sather Gate, the iconic entrance to the UC Berkeley campus, is depicted on top.
By 1965, student activists had achieved their demands for free speech on the Berkeley campus, and set a precedent for decades to come. Last month, UC Berkeley’s chancellor Rich Lyons touted that Berkeley is “a free speech university. But to intentionally break the rules … now you’re in the world of civil disobedience …”
Since the FSM, student activism has played a central role in the success of movements such as the anti-Viet Nam War movement, the Ethnic Studies movement, and divestment from South Africa. Where would we be now if not for civil disobedience?
Students deserve to feel safe on campus, but there is a difference between the right to safety and the right to comfort. Free speech requires discomfort; having one’s ideas and values challenged is never comfortable, but it is absolutely imperative for an equitable democracy. It is also the role of the university.
Resources:
Comments