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Speaker 1: Hello, Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast which

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Speaker 1: only has one button and is edited by Danil using

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Speaker 1: a ten year old Logitech Expots controller. That's a submarine

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Speaker 1: joke for those of you who who have not been

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Speaker 1: following today, I'm joined by Alex and Tom, both of

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Speaker 1: them graduate students in the UC system, and we're talking

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Speaker 1: about this really obscene charge of assault that some graduate

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Speaker 1: students are facing after they disrupted.

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Speaker 2: An alumni event in San Diego.

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Speaker 1: Hi, Alex and Tom, if you had to introduce yourselves

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Speaker 1: a little bit, as far as you feel comfortable.

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Speaker 3: Hi, Jens, sure, thanks for having us back. My name

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Speaker 3: is Alex. I'm a graduate student at University of California,

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Speaker 3: San Diego. Some of you have been listening since November.

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Speaker 3: My remember when I first came on the show to

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Speaker 3: tell you about our strike. And I guess we're going

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Speaker 3: to give some some interesting updates since then.

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Speaker 4: And I'm also graduate student at UC San Diego, and

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Speaker 4: I'm pretty managed in my program. I've been here for

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Speaker 4: a while and I can manage, which very cool.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and so I think to start out with we

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Speaker 1: should just explain, Well, we'll explain what happened in detail,

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Speaker 1: at the event in a bit, But can you just

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Speaker 1: explain what these charges that people are facing are and

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Speaker 1: how they found out that they have been charged with

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Speaker 1: assault after doing something which was not violent in the

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Speaker 1: first place.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, So the most sort of recent thing that's

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Speaker 3: happened is is and we'll talk about the details in

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Speaker 3: a moment, But as James alluded to, we held a

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Speaker 3: peaceful protest back in May related to a number of

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Speaker 3: violations of our most recent collective bargaining agreement, which I'll

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Speaker 3: also be happy to go into detail on. And in

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Speaker 3: response to what was, by all accounts, by what I

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Speaker 3: witnessed by everyone else that I've talked to, was a

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Speaker 3: completely peaceful protest, the university has decided to allege that

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Speaker 3: sixty seven graduate students, including by our account eighteen who

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Speaker 3: were either not present or not involved, are going to

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Speaker 3: be charged under the student conduct process with committing a

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Speaker 3: physical assault, as well as charges for disruption and a

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Speaker 3: vague assertion that we were threatening the health and safety

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Speaker 3: of others. These are quite serious allegations. They do carry

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Speaker 3: potential sanctions up to long term suspension and expulsion from

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Speaker 3: the university, right.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's I think people like the exposure for

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Speaker 1: graduate students is so high, right, Like, if you are

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Speaker 1: on the job market, you know that this could set

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Speaker 1: back your progress.

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Speaker 2: Already very challenging job market.

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Speaker 1: It's suspension or expulsion presumably could have long term consequences

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Speaker 1: for employability and something that like I think I spent

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Speaker 1: the better part of eight years at u c SDN.

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Speaker 1: Say you've invested a lot of time, you get paid

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Speaker 1: like shit, and if you then get nothing out of it,

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Speaker 1: that is potentially devastating for.

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Speaker 4: Each individual illness. This is absolutely never staying. These are

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Speaker 4: careers and invested, you know, a minimum of seven years

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Speaker 4: at least, humanities find there's so many of us more.

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Speaker 4: But it's also never sailing for the university itself because

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Speaker 4: these students that are being charged by from virtually having program,

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Speaker 4: so many of them are working in very prestigious, high

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Speaker 4: powered laboratories, have you know, fellowships and scholarships. So this

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Speaker 4: is really a bad look for the university as well

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Speaker 4: to you know, potentially have sixty seven graduate students under

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Speaker 4: these charges.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, totally sixty seven. It's funny, I've been sixty eight.

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Speaker 1: We could have It's when I like, I don't know

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Speaker 1: when I hear sixty obviously, I think of like nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty eight, and it's remarkable. This is a university at

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Speaker 1: one point somewhat self immolated at UCSD in protest Vietnam War,

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Speaker 1: and now we are like I had a reputation for radicalism,

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Speaker 1: and now who we are charging people for walking onto

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Speaker 1: a stage and shouting. Do you want to talk about

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Speaker 1: that they're walking onto a stage and shouting? Can you

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Speaker 1: maybe give us an account of the events and then

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Speaker 1: we'll talk about maybe how those have been represented in

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Speaker 1: the process.

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Speaker 2: That makes sense, Yeah, sure.

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Speaker 3: So this particular protest took place at an awards ceremony,

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Speaker 3: very sort of fancy sort of annual events that the

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Speaker 3: university hosts where they give awards to various alumni and

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Speaker 3: kind of as a sort of fundraising opportunity as well.

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Speaker 3: And what the protest took the form of was that

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Speaker 3: a number of graduate student workers walked on stage uninvited

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Speaker 3: and began giving speeches and holding signs demonstrating the ways

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Speaker 3: in which and informing the audience of the ways in

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Speaker 3: which that our contracts have not been upheld since we

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Speaker 3: signed them in December, the ways in which the university

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Speaker 3: is circumventing some of the raises that we were promised

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Speaker 3: for our research and teaching, and the ways it is

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Speaker 3: trying to sort of prevent those things from being resolved

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Speaker 3: in the sort of normal channels that you go through

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Speaker 3: with these sort of these sort of union and contract

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Speaker 3: administration things. And that's been I'm gooing for I suppose

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Speaker 3: six months now with relatively little process. So that demonstration

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Speaker 3: took place about up until the time that some local

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Speaker 3: police officers arrived, and at that time the demonstration was

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Speaker 3: fully compliant with those orders, and the police officers noted

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Speaker 3: such in their dispatch logs, which I was able to

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Speaker 3: retrieve from the city. And then after that the demonstration

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Speaker 3: continued outside of the venue of the event, where people

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Speaker 3: were still able to you know, make a decent amount

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Speaker 3: of noise and raise their grievances despite the walls separating

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Speaker 3: the group from the alumni inside. And it certainly did

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Speaker 3: get some attention, since we were in touch after that

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Speaker 3: with people who were sort of relatively high up in

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Speaker 3: a number of university and alumni centric offices and who

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Speaker 3: were surprised to hear of the things that we were

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Speaker 3: alleging and wanted to hear more and be able to

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Speaker 3: raise those issues further uper of the university. So these

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Speaker 3: charges certainly did sort of come as a shock, given

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Speaker 3: that at first a lot of people at the event

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Speaker 3: seemed receptive in a way, though certainly not all, but

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Speaker 3: some were certainly receptive to our concerns and what we

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Speaker 3: had to say.

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Speaker 4: A lot a couple of interesting details. And the first

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Speaker 4: one that the immediate in participate in this event was

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Speaker 4: actually the news that Chancellor Britty Coles Law was in attendance,

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Speaker 4: and this was only a week or two after they

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Speaker 4: become public knowledge that he had received a five hundred

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Speaker 4: thousand dollars arrays as an effort to keep him in

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Speaker 4: the university, which raises his salary to more than a

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Speaker 4: million dollars and I think makes him the fourth highest

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Speaker 4: paid university chancellor or president in the United States. So

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Speaker 4: we presented him within award for UCSD's most overpaid works,

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Speaker 4: and that was sort of our rationale before doing this

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Speaker 4: specific event. And the other thing is is that when

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Speaker 4: the police arrived, they actually did no verbal orders for

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Speaker 4: us to clear out. We as soon as we saw them,

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Speaker 4: we peacefully started to leave the stage and they stood

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Speaker 4: there as well. Their arrests were made, now interviews, no

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Speaker 4: orders were shouted. They remained on site for the duration

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Speaker 4: as we stood outside picking. There were no reinforcements, there

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Speaker 4: were no swat teams, and we've just one or two

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Speaker 4: squad cars. The police typically are known for having outsized

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Speaker 4: responses to minor problems, but the fact that they did

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Speaker 4: not have any kind of aggressive response to this indicate

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Speaker 4: to us that they were where it was entirely peaceful events.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and the dispatch logs don't show them having any

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Speaker 1: concerns about violence or responding to to any like real violence,

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Speaker 1: them seeing any violence responding to it, right.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so I was able to grab those and the Yeah,

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Speaker 3: it's difficult to say because it looks like maybe two

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Speaker 3: people called nine on one even though.

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Speaker 4: It was three.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Violence, Yeah, two said there was no violence. That third

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Speaker 3: person said they had secondhand reports that we had pushed

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Speaker 3: the chancellor off the stage, which we have video of

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Speaker 3: that very definitely not happening. He stood next to the

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Speaker 3: graduate students and then of his own initiative, turned and

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Speaker 3: walked off the stage. So the only allegation that's documented

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Speaker 3: in real time of any violence occurring was one admittedly secondhand,

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Speaker 3: and two is disproven conclusively by the available video.

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Speaker 1: Right, and that video is online right, like it's been posted. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's easy to find.

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Speaker 3: There's that particular one that really easily disproves it. There's

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Speaker 3: a video link for the union uploaded it, so I

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Speaker 3: can we can drop that in the show notes. I

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Speaker 3: can send that too.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, excellent, We'll make sure we do that.

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Speaker 1: And likewise, the p R that this publicly available, folks

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Speaker 1: could go see it as pras are publicly available. We

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Speaker 1: have like a lot of evidence that no one was

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Speaker 1: find that the assaulted. What is the university alleging that

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Speaker 1: was done? I guess that they claiming what do they

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Speaker 1: claim the student workers did?

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Speaker 3: Well? The closest thing that we can find, so in

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Speaker 3: a you know, in the documentation that each person was

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Speaker 3: given about the charges that they face, the closest thing

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Speaker 3: we can find to a description that seems to imply

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Speaker 3: assault was that someone claimed to have seen the chancellor.

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Speaker 3: The word they use was bumped, which doesn't even necessarily

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Speaker 3: imply intentionality in my mind. And really the way that

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Speaker 3: I read that sentence is that you know, possibly the

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Speaker 3: stage was a little crowded and someone might have bumped

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Speaker 3: into him. But I don't even recall ever seeing that happen.

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Speaker 3: I haven't talked to anyone who recalls seeing that happen,

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Speaker 3: anyone who was in our group or not. But other

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Speaker 3: than that, the rest of the report is really just

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Speaker 3: full of descriptions of how they they have I don't

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Speaker 3: even think they talked to anyone who said they were

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Speaker 3: scared of us. They just said people might have been

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Speaker 3: scared of us. It's very strange.

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Speaker 4: The report reads like propaganda from the class, or it's

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Speaker 4: cuestioning of the highest order. If some Champagne glasses were

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Speaker 4: builken the events of South Class one hundred thousand dollars

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Speaker 4: to set up with many different caterers and vendors. Somebody

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Speaker 4: flew all the way from Switzerland for the event and

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Speaker 4: actually made us from the report, you know, during the

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Speaker 4: event itself, because I was, as you know, a determinate

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Speaker 4: out of other magic students, and we actually were assaulted

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Speaker 4: by members of the crowd who would come up and

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Speaker 4: put their arms on their hands on our shoulders and

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Speaker 4: hor us. This is why people hate unions. And you know, hey,

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Speaker 4: I brought my my nine year old grandmother to this

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Speaker 4: and I have some you know, fifty million dollars ranch

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Speaker 4: and I'm being honored for this, but people pumping my trust,

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Speaker 4: people thumping other people's says, sticking fingers in our faces

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Speaker 4: and telling us, really that we ruined their special night.

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Speaker 4: And our response was, you know, I think that our

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Speaker 4: need to pay rent and feed ourselves is a little

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Speaker 4: bit more important than on your special night at the

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Speaker 4: the Art Museum by the ocean with the bosses of Champagne.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's not like it was even a like

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Speaker 1: all those happening was that people who had given them

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Speaker 1: money or who they want them to, who do they

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Speaker 1: want to get money from, were being made to feel special.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't as if you even interrupted like a like

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Speaker 1: a meeting or a function of the university. And unless

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Speaker 1: we consider the function of the university these days, seems

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Speaker 1: to be to get money and then distribute it to

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Speaker 1: people in positions of power in the university. So given

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Speaker 1: that right that this was an event, I guess which

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Speaker 1: reinforced the people who have authority in the university. It's

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Speaker 1: interesting to look what's not interesting, it's upsetting to look

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Speaker 1: at the nature of the process that these sixty seven

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Speaker 1: people are facing right, because it's not They're not being

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Speaker 1: accused in a court of doing a crime. They're being

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Speaker 1: accused by the university, in the university of breaking the

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Speaker 1: conduct rules of the university. So the university is like,

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Speaker 1: it's all parties apart from the defendant. Right, it's a judge,

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Speaker 1: it's a jury, it's a prosecuting lawyer and the executioner.

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Speaker 2: So can you yeah, go ahead, I'll.

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Speaker 4: Just say something about that. You know that this was

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Speaker 4: very much related on the part of the university to

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Speaker 4: charge us as as under the student conduct violation, because

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Speaker 4: if they're charging us as students, they're not charging us

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Speaker 4: as workers. If we have workers, we would have getting

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Speaker 4: representation in our meetings, it would be part of that

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Speaker 4: litigation process. But as students, the context of the labor

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Speaker 4: fight that is the result altare for the entire event

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Speaker 4: is relevant that it can be divorced from that and

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Speaker 4: treated under You know, the music coades that are meant

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Speaker 4: to charge undergraduates who are drinking in their terms or

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Speaker 4: are sexually harassing their peers in their classes is not

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Speaker 4: something that is in my view appropriate at all to

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Speaker 4: apply to a labor dispute, which is what this was.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, I think the only time I've been party

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Speaker 1: to these proceedings is when Anne the graduate did physically

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Speaker 1: assault someone who I was teaching with. But it's not

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Speaker 1: a normal procedure by any means, and certainly to use

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Speaker 1: against grad students are very clearly taking part in a

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Speaker 1: labor action. I think it's very telling that the university

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Speaker 1: is kind of using one system to circumvent the fair

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Speaker 1: bargaining and the unfair labor practices and all the things

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Speaker 1: that they seem really like, they seem almost like inexplicably

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Speaker 1: committed to not sticking to the contract, even though they

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Speaker 1: got a contract that was largely favorable to them and

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Speaker 1: not as much as people had wanted at the start

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Speaker 1: of the strike. So how does it work from here? Like,

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Speaker 1: what does this process look like?

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Speaker 3: Well, to start with, each of us has an individual

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Speaker 3: meeting with a representative of the university, and at that meeting,

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Speaker 3: we essentially have the response the option to either accept

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Speaker 3: responsibility for all the charges against us, or to say

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Speaker 3: that we do not accept that responsibility and want to

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Speaker 3: continue the process forward, at which point they will they

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Speaker 3: will schedule or attempt to schedule a conduct review Board meeting,

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Speaker 3: where I believe three representatives from who have been sort

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Speaker 3: of predetermined to serve on these conduct review boards will

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Speaker 3: judge the weight of the evidence in a preponderance of

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Speaker 3: the evidence standard, and at that point then the Office

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Speaker 3: of Student Conduct, if you are found responsible. I believe

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Speaker 3: that office is then what decides what the sanctions are

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Speaker 3: that you will face. So this is a bit of

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Speaker 3: an unprecedented process, at least for us we actually, I believe,

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Speaker 3: and I want to clarify some numbers. I think I

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Speaker 3: said sixty seven graduate students earlier, they were actually fifty

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Speaker 3: nine from this event who were charged, and that sixty

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Speaker 3: seven comes from a to who were charged for a

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Speaker 3: protest related to the university's attempt to fire workers for striking,

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Speaker 3: which is still ongoing. That protest took place in January,

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Speaker 3: and there that conduct process for those eight workers has

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Speaker 3: not yet resolved as we speak today on June twentieth,

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Speaker 3: So it's not clear how they are going to manage

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Speaker 3: the logistics of trying to charge six fifty nine workers

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Speaker 3: in a single case. It could, assuming they follow their

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Speaker 3: entire procedures by the book and don't dismiss any charges,

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Speaker 3: it could take more than a year to resolve the

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Speaker 3: situation Jesus.

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Speaker 1: And for people who have like they're either defending or

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Speaker 1: advancing to candidacy or these are all things you can

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Speaker 1: do within grad school people who aren't familiar where you

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Speaker 1: sort of level up your grad student status.

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Speaker 2: I guess are people able to do that?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, Luckily this does not restrict your academic advancement. It

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Speaker 3: can potentially if it goes from quarter to quarter, they

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Speaker 3: can potentially put I believe, holds on registration. But I

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Speaker 3: think that's only if you don't sort of carry out

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Speaker 3: your sanctions, assuming your sanction is not suspension. I could

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Speaker 3: be a time correct if I'm wrong on that. But

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Speaker 3: what still could be the case is that you could

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Speaker 3: you know, and could well be the case for me

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Speaker 3: that I defend before the conclusion of this process. But

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Speaker 3: it could still end up as something that would be

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Speaker 3: on a contact record that could be released in certain

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Speaker 3: employment situations. So even if you are able to escape

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Speaker 3: the process, so to speak, it is not necessarily not

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Speaker 3: going to follow you after that point.

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Speaker 4: By all indicators who already at their first meeting, masking

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Speaker 4: or exact responsibility of course states that no, we die

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Speaker 4: foundations against us, But it seems as if the the

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Speaker 4: of student conduct is quite over problems. By this, people

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Speaker 4: have been trying to schedule a meeting to have not

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Speaker 4: gotten responses from the office.

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Speaker 2: Uh.

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Speaker 4: The office then gets back to them a week or

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Speaker 4: two later with you know, only one or two options.

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Speaker 3: Uh.

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Speaker 4: The the really calculated evil of this is it means

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Speaker 4: charge is dropped on the very last day of the quarter,

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Speaker 4: which means that at least in the Arts and Humanities,

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Speaker 4: most of us are going out of town or are

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Speaker 4: conducting research or are on fellowships, so we're not around

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Speaker 4: to respond to these. And I think that that was

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Speaker 4: a decision that was purposefully made. But you know, to

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Speaker 4: to process this a hue number of students involved in

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Speaker 4: this is staggering, and I think that the office, a

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Speaker 4: lot of the offices are really struggling. The other thing

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Speaker 4: that I will say is we have it from the

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Speaker 4: informal channels that this is something that is being directed

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Speaker 4: from the very top, which is the same from the chancellor.

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Speaker 4: This is not something that infacial observers, you know, made

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Speaker 4: of something that the chancellor himself is directing.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense, give me a chance it

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Speaker 1: was there. It also like it's just put me in

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Speaker 1: mind of twenty ten, when I don't think either of

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Speaker 1: you were at UCSD, but for those of us who were,

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Speaker 1: and there's a film about it actually called Dear White People,

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Speaker 1: But there was a party where people wore black face,

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Speaker 1: and this happened I think through a fraternity that was

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Speaker 1: associated with the university, and getting the university to do

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Speaker 1: anything disciplinary about that required hundreds off not thousands of

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Speaker 1: people to go on strike, to march, to occupy the

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Speaker 1: Chancellor's complex, and to like physically demand action for weeks

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Speaker 1: and weeks if not months from the Chancellor's system, right like,

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Speaker 1: and still it was an extremely unsatisfactory process. The resolution

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Speaker 1: was with extremely unsatisfactory. But I guess that.

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Speaker 4: There's a contemporaneous incident happening right now. I don't know

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Speaker 4: all the details, but it appears to be an individual

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Speaker 4: was a video or videos himself progressing a screening with

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Speaker 4: his professor on it and making new comments and a

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Speaker 4: whole variety of really missosialistic, quldly behavior. Apparently this is

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Speaker 4: this is stored to restraining or that he's received. But

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Speaker 4: as as universe is concerned, this is still a case

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Speaker 4: that's that's moving through it and it doesn't appear to

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Speaker 4: have had any immediate sanctions. We've heard stories of sexual assaults,

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Speaker 4: as you said, of racist harassment that I really don't know,

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Speaker 4: actually reported the student last summer for very threatening behavior

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Speaker 4: and the very much square english in my flash.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's it's yeah. The only thing that sort

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Speaker 1: of they jump to defend is capital, I guess, or

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Speaker 1: in this case the sort of administrators of the university.

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Speaker 1: And so this this could potentially play out for months.

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Speaker 1: What's the and it seems like everyone has accepting responsibility

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Speaker 1: such a strange word, because like, what's what happened is

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Speaker 1: what's a question really not who's responsible for it?

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Speaker 2: So much?

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Speaker 1: Right, Like you can accept responsibility for doing what was

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Speaker 1: a protected First Amendment activity, but like you obviously can't

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Speaker 1: accept responsibility for assault.

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Speaker 2: If you didn't assault somebody. But given that no one.

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Speaker 4: If sixty seven students had assaulting transor of you would

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Speaker 4: think that.

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Speaker 3: National Yeah, that would have been yeah, that would have

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Speaker 3: been something I think, yeah, that's.

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Speaker 2: Like a beat down. But that didn't happen.

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Speaker 1: So what's the plan for defense, I guess is each case,

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Speaker 1: like an individual case, can they mount Can people mount

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Speaker 1: a joint defense like the j twenty one people did

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Speaker 1: in DC. Do we know yet, how does this work?

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Speaker 3: I'm not sure we entirely know yet. I think the

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Speaker 3: university can make the decision to consolidate cases that share evidence.

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Speaker 3: I don't believe they've made that determination yet. I think

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Speaker 3: what they are trying to do now, and this sort

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Speaker 3: of leads into another part that I think represents a

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Speaker 3: degree of sort of apathy, border on bordering on cruelty

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Speaker 3: of this process is that we've identified at least eighteen

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Speaker 3: graduate students who were either not physically present at all

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Speaker 3: or had merely registered for the event without even knowing

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Speaker 3: that this would take place, and those people have all

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Speaker 3: been charged with these ect same things that everyone who

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Speaker 3: was intentionally part of the protest has been. So we

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Speaker 3: think that we're ath the individual stage where they are

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Speaker 3: trying to kind of they know that they have They're

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Speaker 3: well aware that they caught a bunch of people that

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Speaker 3: had no involvement in this. But we think that we're

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Speaker 3: using really these individual meetings to figure out who those

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Speaker 3: people are to the best of their ability, and perhaps

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Speaker 3: further down the line, they may decide to try to

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Speaker 3: consolidate these cases to expedite the process, but it's hard

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Speaker 3: to say for sure. The again, this the important aspect

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Speaker 3: of this process is the fact that almost every element

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Speaker 3: of it, in every step and how that is carried out,

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Speaker 3: is entirely at the discretion of a handful of university administrators.

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Speaker 3: There's no real appeal outside of the system, there's no

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Speaker 3: real accountability outside of the system, so they can simply

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Speaker 3: implement these things, you know, as as they see fit.

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Speaker 2: I mean this. There was.

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Speaker 3: H when this eventually first broke There were some former

403
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Speaker 3: graduate students who run on an old radical uc Twitter

404
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Speaker 3: account who shared some write ups from cases of sit

405
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Speaker 3: ins that were charged under the same process, I believe

406
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Speaker 3: at Berkeley a couple of years ago, and in that

407
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Speaker 3: one the administrators at the Berkeley campus actually went as

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Speaker 3: far as to edit the code of conduct during the process.

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Speaker 1: Surely you're not responsible for like X post factor edits

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Speaker 1: of the code of conduct or were they.

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Speaker 3: They were, well, this was primarily in you know, in

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Speaker 3: all fairness, if they deserve any of this was that

413
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Speaker 3: particular incident was kind of a logistical thing. So it

414
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Speaker 3: was it was whether or not certain aspects of the

415
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Speaker 3: process could be waived or could be could be extended.

416
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Speaker 3: The deadline could be extended, and someone who didn't have

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Speaker 3: the authority to extend it did And when they were

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Speaker 3: called on that, they edited the code of conduct after

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Speaker 3: the fact to say that, okay, designee can extend the

420
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Speaker 3: deadline for you know, how this process proceeds. So it

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Speaker 3: wasn't that they invented a rule to charge someone under

422
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Speaker 3: but they did edit their own due processes.

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Speaker 1: They went at wat right, Yeah, so you you might

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Speaker 1: be up against the moving target, so to speak. Did

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Speaker 1: they identify everybody like did because I'm presuming people didn't

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Speaker 1: use their legal names to register or like, how were

427
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Speaker 1: they able to identify some of the people to clearly

428
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Speaker 1: the people who were just there as undergraduate alumni and

429
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Speaker 1: happened to be graduate students probably did use their real names.

430
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Speaker 2: But do you know how else said in five people, Well.

431
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Speaker 3: I think they did. You know some people did. I

432
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Speaker 3: assume that I was taught you with my real name

433
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Speaker 3: on the registration and that was simply because I, you know,

434
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Speaker 3: some some people decided to use different names. I decided,

435
00:27:06,640 --> 00:27:08,919
Speaker 3: after weighing the frozen cons that I decided that it

436
00:27:08,960 --> 00:27:11,280
Speaker 3: was you know, I figured that there might be it

437
00:27:11,320 --> 00:27:14,280
Speaker 3: might be a worse situation if that was, you know, unraveled,

438
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Speaker 3: and I didn't think that. Obviously, I had no plans

439
00:27:19,160 --> 00:27:21,359
Speaker 3: of assaulting someone, and I did not assault anyone, so

440
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Speaker 3: I had no reason to expect that perhaps I needed

441
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Speaker 3: to take that level of precaution with this kind of

442
00:27:26,600 --> 00:27:32,600
Speaker 3: a peaceful protest action. But we believe that they primarily

443
00:27:33,560 --> 00:27:39,040
Speaker 3: got the names of who did who who they'd decided

444
00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:42,080
Speaker 3: to charge from simply registration lists. But again the fact

445
00:27:42,160 --> 00:27:43,720
Speaker 3: and there was a sign in at this event where

446
00:27:43,760 --> 00:27:45,199
Speaker 3: you picked up a name tag, and you know, it

447
00:27:45,240 --> 00:27:46,679
Speaker 3: was kind of a gate. You couldn't really get in

448
00:27:47,119 --> 00:27:51,560
Speaker 3: without doing that. But they still gave charges to people

449
00:27:51,600 --> 00:27:53,840
Speaker 3: who actually, we know for a fact were not physically

450
00:27:53,840 --> 00:27:55,480
Speaker 3: present and have been able to prove that they were

451
00:27:55,480 --> 00:27:58,040
Speaker 3: not physically present. So it doesn't seem that they even

452
00:27:58,119 --> 00:28:01,400
Speaker 3: bothered to consult, at least initially, the actual signing list

453
00:28:01,440 --> 00:28:05,040
Speaker 3: of people who actually showed up and checked in, which

454
00:28:05,080 --> 00:28:09,959
Speaker 3: is also a bit strange. But yeah, it seems to

455
00:28:09,960 --> 00:28:14,000
Speaker 3: be a very haphazard process so far. There are people

456
00:28:14,080 --> 00:28:16,200
Speaker 3: who have been charged who weren't there. There are people

457
00:28:16,240 --> 00:28:19,480
Speaker 3: who were there who haven't, you know, necessarily but identified

458
00:28:20,040 --> 00:28:22,600
Speaker 3: at this point in time. So it's it's it's it's

459
00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:25,240
Speaker 3: a little bit of a mystery.

460
00:28:24,480 --> 00:28:27,719
Speaker 4: And we'd we'd love to find out too, because you know,

461
00:28:27,880 --> 00:28:31,320
Speaker 4: it's very for some for some reason we're able to

462
00:28:31,400 --> 00:28:37,800
Speaker 4: determine using union lists obviously would be a massive practice.

463
00:28:39,640 --> 00:28:42,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, and already it seems like an unfair labor practice

464
00:28:42,840 --> 00:28:45,960
Speaker 1: and a violation of like First Amendment rights and protected

465
00:28:46,000 --> 00:28:50,680
Speaker 1: First Amendment speech and Jesus it it's yeah, it just

466
00:28:50,680 --> 00:28:53,720
Speaker 1: seems that they're sort of half fasting this thing, which

467
00:28:53,760 --> 00:28:57,760
Speaker 1: could have devastating consequences for some people, and they they've

468
00:28:57,800 --> 00:29:02,200
Speaker 1: they've just kind of thrown a wide net and sort

469
00:29:02,200 --> 00:29:04,120
Speaker 1: of I guess trying to work out after the fact

470
00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:07,600
Speaker 1: what to do with this. Has it had like a

471
00:29:07,680 --> 00:29:12,040
Speaker 1: chilling effect on on campus organizing on protesting their ongoing

472
00:29:12,040 --> 00:29:13,200
Speaker 1: contract violations.

473
00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:18,640
Speaker 4: No, you can't stare us. We're sticking in the union.

474
00:29:19,120 --> 00:29:19,280
Speaker 2: You know.

475
00:29:19,360 --> 00:29:23,920
Speaker 4: Ironically, as as many of your listeners are probably aware

476
00:29:24,000 --> 00:29:26,800
Speaker 4: from listening to earlier episodes of your podcast, you know,

477
00:29:26,840 --> 00:29:29,440
Speaker 4: they have been a lot of tension on campus between

478
00:29:30,320 --> 00:29:33,280
Speaker 4: the ars an out of the Social Sciences and the

479
00:29:33,360 --> 00:29:36,360
Speaker 4: stam you know, getting back to the stripe and even

480
00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:41,000
Speaker 4: before and they have actually gotten are substantially worse in

481
00:29:41,040 --> 00:29:45,240
Speaker 4: the last couple of months based on the the vacancy

482
00:29:45,280 --> 00:29:50,160
Speaker 4: elections that are the people. This ironically seems to be

483
00:29:50,200 --> 00:29:53,440
Speaker 4: a huge miscolctivation on the part of the university because

484
00:29:54,520 --> 00:29:56,600
Speaker 4: a lot of those issues that they haven't gone away

485
00:29:56,960 --> 00:30:01,640
Speaker 4: have been absolutely subsumed in the you know, the injury

486
00:30:01,640 --> 00:30:06,200
Speaker 4: into one. It's an insured mentality. So there's a great

487
00:30:06,240 --> 00:30:09,080
Speaker 4: amount of solidarity. But going into the summer, I don't

488
00:30:09,120 --> 00:30:11,280
Speaker 4: think any work around campus really expected.

489
00:30:12,440 --> 00:30:14,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's excellent, that's great to hear.

490
00:30:14,560 --> 00:30:18,200
Speaker 1: So talking of solidarity, I guess what can people do

491
00:30:18,440 --> 00:30:20,600
Speaker 1: to help, Like it seems like do you have a

492
00:30:20,680 --> 00:30:22,520
Speaker 1: legal defense fund? And if you're even allowed to have

493
00:30:22,560 --> 00:30:25,080
Speaker 1: a lawyer? Is there something they can sign? Is there

494
00:30:25,120 --> 00:30:25,920
Speaker 1: someone they can write to.

495
00:30:28,600 --> 00:30:29,000
Speaker 2: Go ahead?

496
00:30:30,120 --> 00:30:33,960
Speaker 4: So there is a petition going around for a kind

497
00:30:33,960 --> 00:30:38,160
Speaker 4: of students faculty along nine community members. The address to

498
00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:44,080
Speaker 4: that is a bit dot l y slash lucy SD

499
00:30:44,680 --> 00:30:46,480
Speaker 4: drop the charges.

500
00:30:46,280 --> 00:30:49,560
Speaker 2: One word all the lowercase the case.

501
00:30:49,720 --> 00:30:53,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, anything else, like are you a would you plan

502
00:30:54,160 --> 00:30:57,080
Speaker 1: like marches and pigots and stuff as the process continues

503
00:30:57,120 --> 00:30:58,160
Speaker 1: that people could join.

504
00:30:59,680 --> 00:31:03,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely, and and if if you sign that petition.

505
00:31:03,160 --> 00:31:05,800
Speaker 3: That's one way where the petition sort of has the

506
00:31:06,160 --> 00:31:09,600
Speaker 3: dual goal of of sort of getting you know, demonstrating,

507
00:31:09,960 --> 00:31:12,600
Speaker 3: uh to the administration that there's a wide level of

508
00:31:12,600 --> 00:31:15,920
Speaker 3: awareness of this issue and concern over this issue, but

509
00:31:16,080 --> 00:31:18,080
Speaker 3: also to make sure that anyone who wants to be

510
00:31:18,160 --> 00:31:21,719
Speaker 3: involved in any way that they're able to support us,

511
00:31:21,840 --> 00:31:24,120
Speaker 3: will be able to be kept in the loops. So

512
00:31:24,280 --> 00:31:27,040
Speaker 3: if you use an email the address that you actually

513
00:31:27,080 --> 00:31:29,360
Speaker 3: read when you sign the petition, you will certainly hear

514
00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:34,000
Speaker 3: about any actions that we have. We are still very

515
00:31:34,080 --> 00:31:37,760
Speaker 3: much in the early planning stages. As as Tom alluded

516
00:31:37,800 --> 00:31:41,000
Speaker 3: to earlier, there is you know, a certain as there

517
00:31:41,040 --> 00:31:43,680
Speaker 3: appears to be a certain aspect of strategizing here where

518
00:31:44,200 --> 00:31:47,760
Speaker 3: the charges were given right at the point where campus

519
00:31:47,800 --> 00:31:51,840
Speaker 3: becomes the least populated potentially of any time throughout the

520
00:31:51,880 --> 00:31:56,040
Speaker 3: whole year except perhaps Christmas. But you know, there's still

521
00:31:56,040 --> 00:31:59,320
Speaker 3: plenty of graduate students here. They are all, you know,

522
00:31:59,520 --> 00:32:02,000
Speaker 3: just as shock as we are to see this unfolding.

523
00:32:02,880 --> 00:32:06,360
Speaker 3: So I think we can definitely plan for, you know,

524
00:32:06,480 --> 00:32:08,960
Speaker 3: some kind of actions to take place this summer.

525
00:32:10,120 --> 00:32:11,920
Speaker 2: Nice, Yeah, maybe.

526
00:32:11,760 --> 00:32:12,160
Speaker 4: We'll get some.

527
00:32:15,360 --> 00:32:18,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, it'd be good if alumni if if people are alumni,

528
00:32:18,640 --> 00:32:20,360
Speaker 1: like I know a decent number, if you see alumni

529
00:32:20,400 --> 00:32:22,480
Speaker 1: listen and they reached out when we talked about the strike,

530
00:32:22,560 --> 00:32:25,080
Speaker 1: that it would be great if those people could leverage

531
00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:29,240
Speaker 1: that status because they U see goes hard on alumni

532
00:32:29,400 --> 00:32:32,840
Speaker 1: for donations and they've stopped calling me now they know

533
00:32:32,960 --> 00:32:36,920
Speaker 1: I'm poor. But I think those those of you who

534
00:32:36,960 --> 00:32:38,720
Speaker 1: that you see is still calling for the nations, you know,

535
00:32:38,760 --> 00:32:40,320
Speaker 1: that would be a good time to raise this or

536
00:32:40,840 --> 00:32:42,960
Speaker 1: you know, you can email or whatever, an email the

537
00:32:43,000 --> 00:32:48,440
Speaker 1: alumni office. But yeah, it's this is obscene and ridiculous

538
00:32:48,480 --> 00:32:51,880
Speaker 1: and obviously like a continuation of union busting and their

539
00:32:51,920 --> 00:32:56,680
Speaker 1: fundamental refusal to acknowledge student workers as workers apparently and

540
00:32:57,080 --> 00:33:01,160
Speaker 1: only see people as students. And so, is there anything

541
00:33:01,200 --> 00:33:03,920
Speaker 1: else you want people to know about this, anything else

542
00:33:04,160 --> 00:33:06,680
Speaker 1: you'd like people to do to show solidarity before we

543
00:33:06,760 --> 00:33:07,200
Speaker 1: wrap up?

544
00:33:10,120 --> 00:33:11,400
Speaker 3: I think the big thing is just you know, sign

545
00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:13,000
Speaker 3: the petition that will help you, you know, kind of

546
00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:15,120
Speaker 3: stay in the loop, especially if you're kind of in

547
00:33:15,200 --> 00:33:19,880
Speaker 3: the local area and are able to mountain join us

548
00:33:20,000 --> 00:33:23,400
Speaker 3: in solidarity for any protests. Yeah. Again, if you're a

549
00:33:23,480 --> 00:33:27,360
Speaker 3: UC alum of any kind, certainly make your thoughts known

550
00:33:27,520 --> 00:33:32,000
Speaker 3: to u UCSD because apart from I would say that

551
00:33:32,120 --> 00:33:33,920
Speaker 3: the two people, the two groups of people who have

552
00:33:34,040 --> 00:33:36,920
Speaker 3: the most power to act in decent numbers in the situation,

553
00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:41,040
Speaker 3: our professors in alumni and and so that would be Yeah,

554
00:33:41,120 --> 00:33:45,040
Speaker 3: like what you said, that's a huge a huge would

555
00:33:45,080 --> 00:33:47,840
Speaker 3: be a huge point of support. Other than that, I

556
00:33:47,920 --> 00:33:50,560
Speaker 3: think just the way you know, I've I've been here

557
00:33:50,720 --> 00:33:56,040
Speaker 3: for almost six full years now, and you know I've

558
00:33:56,280 --> 00:33:58,760
Speaker 3: four of those were without a union. I'm a student researcher,

559
00:33:58,800 --> 00:34:00,360
Speaker 3: so our union is brand new, and you can go

560
00:34:00,400 --> 00:34:02,160
Speaker 3: back to the November episode to hear that whole story.

561
00:34:03,080 --> 00:34:06,920
Speaker 3: But my point is that, you know, before we had

562
00:34:07,000 --> 00:34:11,800
Speaker 3: this kind of network and this kind of collective organization

563
00:34:11,920 --> 00:34:14,759
Speaker 3: to protect our rights, a lot of you know, I've

564
00:34:14,800 --> 00:34:16,320
Speaker 3: seen a lot of friends who, through no fault of

565
00:34:16,360 --> 00:34:19,440
Speaker 3: their own, ended up in some kind of you know,

566
00:34:19,840 --> 00:34:23,279
Speaker 3: one sided process where it's them versus the bureaucracy, whether

567
00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:27,040
Speaker 3: that's you know, they're a bad relationship with their professor

568
00:34:27,400 --> 00:34:29,600
Speaker 3: or or you know, any number of things that might

569
00:34:29,640 --> 00:34:32,520
Speaker 3: have come up along the way, health issues leading to

570
00:34:32,640 --> 00:34:35,719
Speaker 3: lower you know, not not finishing work on time and

571
00:34:35,920 --> 00:34:37,800
Speaker 3: you know, getting on the bad side of advisors or

572
00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:40,759
Speaker 3: anything like that. You know, it is very easy in

573
00:34:40,840 --> 00:34:43,359
Speaker 3: the status quo of the way the large university works

574
00:34:43,440 --> 00:34:46,279
Speaker 3: to fall through the cracks and to have a bureaucracy

575
00:34:46,680 --> 00:34:49,759
Speaker 3: act in secrecy to just simply kind of remove you

576
00:34:49,960 --> 00:34:52,840
Speaker 3: without anyone really saying a word. So I think the

577
00:34:52,920 --> 00:34:55,880
Speaker 3: most important thing is to keep eyes on this, to

578
00:34:55,960 --> 00:34:59,440
Speaker 3: make sure the university knows that people are watching. That

579
00:34:59,760 --> 00:35:03,520
Speaker 3: they can try to bring this process against us, but

580
00:35:03,640 --> 00:35:06,360
Speaker 3: it is not going to be a pleasant experience because

581
00:35:06,880 --> 00:35:10,640
Speaker 3: you know, the public and the the the workers here

582
00:35:10,680 --> 00:35:12,759
Speaker 3: in the community here are going to be watching and

583
00:35:12,760 --> 00:35:15,279
Speaker 3: they're going to be supporting us. So I think just

584
00:35:15,480 --> 00:35:17,880
Speaker 3: just keep keep an eye on the situation if you can,

585
00:35:17,960 --> 00:35:21,000
Speaker 3: if it's something that that you're interested in and able

586
00:35:21,080 --> 00:35:23,279
Speaker 3: to do, and that that's really the biggest way I

587
00:35:23,320 --> 00:35:25,359
Speaker 3: think to support us.

588
00:35:26,560 --> 00:35:29,520
Speaker 4: I would also say that if you are a you

589
00:35:29,680 --> 00:35:33,840
Speaker 4: see men either Statewie or and you see San Diego.

590
00:35:34,640 --> 00:35:38,719
Speaker 4: The easiest way to prevent future alumni or events from

591
00:35:38,760 --> 00:35:40,640
Speaker 4: being disrupted if it's actually.

592
00:35:40,400 --> 00:35:44,720
Speaker 3: Out of the contract, Yes, that'd be a fantastic idea.

593
00:35:45,200 --> 00:35:47,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do know several.

594
00:35:47,840 --> 00:35:53,560
Speaker 1: Professors listen, So it's time to do something hopefully, Yeah,

595
00:35:53,600 --> 00:35:56,040
Speaker 1: they're hopefully they will do something in solidarity, but I

596
00:35:56,120 --> 00:35:58,799
Speaker 1: know a few of them listen and have reached out before. Well,

597
00:35:58,840 --> 00:36:01,040
Speaker 1: thank you very much. I'm sorry this is happening to you.

598
00:36:01,760 --> 00:36:06,840
Speaker 1: We will keep people updated as the long process continues.

599
00:36:07,000 --> 00:36:09,080
Speaker 1: But yeah, I hope, I hope you can enjoy your

600
00:36:09,120 --> 00:36:11,440
Speaker 1: summer without teaching a little bit without this hanging over you.

601
00:36:12,880 --> 00:36:15,920
Speaker 3: We'll try it. That's kind of my motivation is they

602
00:36:16,160 --> 00:36:17,600
Speaker 3: you know, they're using it as a little bit of

603
00:36:17,640 --> 00:36:20,520
Speaker 3: a psychological warfare in terms of live organizing. So I

604
00:36:20,600 --> 00:36:23,239
Speaker 3: will just simply choose not to let it bother me

605
00:36:23,280 --> 00:36:27,120
Speaker 3: at least as much as I can. Yeah, all right,

606
00:36:27,200 --> 00:36:30,080
Speaker 3: thank you very much, Thanks James, Thank you.

607
00:36:34,920 --> 00:36:37,240
Speaker 2: It could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.

608
00:36:37,520 --> 00:36:40,160
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website

609
00:36:40,200 --> 00:36:42,400
Speaker 2: cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the

610
00:36:42,480 --> 00:36:45,840
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

611
00:36:46,480 --> 00:36:48,560
Speaker 2: You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated

612
00:36:48,640 --> 00:36:52,680
Speaker 2: monthly at cool zonemedia dot com, slash sources. Thanks for listening,