BY CATHLEEN GUTEKANST
BERKELEY, California - Students at the University of California Berkeley kicked off a week of planned rallies, demonstrations and teach-ins in defense of affirmative action with a sit-in at the Boalt Hall Law School October 13. Fifty- four demonstrators were arrested.

Most of the 200 protesters were Boalt Hall students, who noted that this year's first-year class of 270 students, the first to be admitted since the board of regents banned affirmative action programs in the University of California system, included only seven Latino students and no African- American or Native American students. One Black student and seven other Latino students were carried over in their enrollment after deferring enrollment last year.

Norma, a first-year law school student, explained that the Boalt Hall Coalition on Diversity had gone on a campaign to collect signatures on a letter to the administration, protesting the ban on affirmative action. She said that "194 students out of 270 signed the letter, more than 70 percent. Most of the students here support affirmative action. When we presented our letter to the admission committee, he said, `Well, how many of you would be willing to give up your place at the school?' "

The week of protest began with a symbolic action as an answer. More than 100 students who are Black, Latino, or Asian marched into two first-year law school classes, where white students stood up and gave their seats to the protesters.

Later in the day, students attempted to present their demands to the Boalt Hall Dean Herma Hill Kay. The demands included:

Removal of the text of the U.C. regents' anti- affirmative action policy from the school's admission packet.

Revision of admissions criteria to assist students from working-class families.

Provision of scholarships for minority students.

Hiring of more Black, Latino, Asian and women faculty members.

A policy statement by [Hill] Kay urging the U.C. regents to support race-targeted outreach programs.

José Palofox, a U.C. undergraduate and a photographer for La Voz, was one of those arrested. He explained that he had identified himself to police officers as a press photographer and was taking pictures at the time. "They just came up to me after a while and said `You're under arrest,'" he said. "I think it was because I was taking pictures of them using chokeholds and neck compression."

Palofox stated that he thought the protests against the ban on affirmative action in admissions were needed, but added, "It's broader than that. It's the attacks on immigrants, on indigenous people. They're trying to say that it's in our interests to send Huey helicopters to kill indigenous people. What kind of society do we want to see here? One that puts profits before people? I don't think so."

"This week of activities and teach-ins we're putting on at the Third World College is just the beginning," said Mirella Rangel, a member of the Students of Color Solidarity Council (SCSC), a coalition of student organizations that are demanding that the administration implement affirmative action. Classes given in the Third World College Teach-In include such topics as: Social Movements in the United States; the IMF, the World Bank, and Structural Adjustment; Political Prisoners; and the Oppression of Women. Rangel continued, "We're saying if the school is not going to teach us these things, we're going to do it ourselves. This is a mobilizing as well as an educational program."

Cathleen Gutekanst is a member of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union Local 1-5 in Richmond, California.  
 
 
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