The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.60/No.43           December 2, 1996 
 
 
California Students Protest Attack On Affirmative Action  

BY OMARI MUSA

SAN FRANCISCO - Thousands of students in California have staged demonstrations, marches, and building occupations since the passage of the misnamed California Civil Rights Initiative, known as Proposition 209. This ballot measure calls for eliminating affirmative action in state and local employment, education, and contracting. It passed by a margin of 54 to 46 percent.

Chanting, "ho, ho, hey, hey, affirmative action is here to stay," hundreds of students walked off the San Francisco State University campus November 6, the day after the vote. After urging students in ethnic and women's studies classes to join them, the protesters marched two miles through the streets around campus.

Students at the University of California at Berkeley also staged a series of protests beginning with a demonstration November 6. Students Against Proposition 209 and MEChA (the Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan) occupied the Campanile and some chained themselves to the building. Around 4 a.m. campus cops stormed the building, beating and arresting 23 protesters.

"Cops in riot gear came with no warning and picked us up," said Rashid Ibrahim, one of the students who was there.

Later that morning, 200 students rallied and marched through the campus. They stopped at the main lecture hall in Wheeler Hall and urged students to "walk out." Elewyn John, a first year student who is Black, told the Militant, "Affirmative action shouldn't be abolished. There are still many gains to be made. There will be less diversity among the student population."

The students moved on to California Hall and demanded a meeting with the university Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien. They were met by a line of cops who refused to allow them in.

A delegation went to meet with the Chancellor to demand a town hall meeting where opposition to Proposition 209 could be discussed and ways the university could continue to have affirmative action programs.

The "town hall" meeting took place November 14 and was attended by more than 300 students. After initial presentations by leaders of MEChA, Students Against Prop. 209, and Tien, Jennie Luna of the MEChA gave a statement. "In 1969 students demanded a Third World College and ethnic studies department here at Berkeley to be run by the underrepresented. These issues are still a reality," she said. Luna noted that "third world students are still very few."

At its July, 1995 meeting the University of California Board of Regents voted to end all affirmative action programs where race and sex were criteria for admissions. Protests in Santa Cruz, Los Angeles
As it became clear that Proposition 209 would pass, hundreds of students at the University of California Santa Cruz shut down the student services building and demanded that proposition 209 be officially rejected by the university. Student activists stayed up all night planning a building occupation for the next day.

The demonstration began around 8 a.m. as a group of less than 50 students blocked the entry ways to the Hahn Student Services building in the center of the Santa Cruz campus. As word spread of the takeover, the demonstration grew to at least 400 students. Many of the building's employees also joined the students. Students, officials, police and people donating food came and went as the day wore on.

An agreement was reached between the demonstrators and university officials ending the protest between 9 and 10 p.m. that night.

Nearly 100 demonstrators, many of them organized by Chicano students at the University of California at Irvine, assembled on the steps of City Hall in Los Angeles on November 8 to protest the passage of Proposition 209. "This is a message for all those who promoted 209," declared Isabel Silas, a Black student activist from Pitzer College in Claremont. She told the crowd, "we are not going to go away. We are going to fight."

On November 7, Asian students at the University of California at Los Angeles held a special meeting to discuss the implications of the passage of the anti-affirmative action ballot measure.

From November 8-10, upwards of 1,500 Chicano students gathered at California State University at Northridge, near Los Angeles, at the annual statewide convention of MEChA chapters. A central topic of discussion was how to maintain Chicano enrollment in the face of attempts to implement Proposition 209, as well as organizing continuing campus protests.

On November 11, after a six-hour occupation of the administration building at the University of California at Riverside, police arrested 20 students, most of them members of MEChA, during a protest demanding university officials honor previous affirmative action commitments. Up to 150 students, from various student organizations, had gathered outside the building to support the demonstrators.

In San Diego, November 4, supporters of the Raza Rights Coalition staged a protest in Chicano Park against the scheduled appearance of Henry Cisneros and Federico Pena. Cisneros is secretary of housing and Pena , secretary of transportation in the Clinton administration.

Attacks of affirmative action has already been felt in California's medical schools. A report issued at the annual meeting of the Association of American Medical Colleges recently held in San Francisco showed a 19 per cent drop in minority enrollment. The report noted that the national decline of minority student enrollment at medical schools is "only 5 percent."

Omari Musa is a member of Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Local 1-326. Jim Altenberg in San Francisco, Jacob Perasso in Santa Cruz, and Jon Hillson in Los Angeles contributed to this article.  
 
 
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