Seventy-seven years of editorial freedom Edited and managed by students of the University of Michigan under authority of Board in Control of Student Publications 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mich. News Phone: 764-0552 Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily exp ress the individual opinions of staff writers or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints. What happened at Berk eley? WEDNESDAY, JULY 10, 1968 NIGHT EDITOR: MARCIA ABRAMSON k The interim danger of' interim, rules Ever since the Free Speech Movement of 1964 rocked the Berkeley campus of the University of California and marked the beginning of the era of new student militancy, that campus has been the focal point of the further radicalization of America's university population. Ten days ago, Berkeley erupted again, this time into a violent, destructive melee between police and the most radical of the students and non-students who populate the city. On this page, The Daily offers some information from "in- side" Berkeley, in an attempt to clarify both the events of that weekend, and the motivations of the people involved. Arlene Bergman is a writer for the Movement newspaper in the Bay area, and an active member of, Berkeley's radical left. Her article is an explanation, from the inside, of the motiva- tions. of the Berkeley radicals who precipitated last week's activity. Eldridge Cleaver, Black Panther Party Minister of Infor- mation and author of "Soul on Ice" (and recently released from, Jail, where he had been kept while accused of parole violation)' delivered the speech transcribed here to 3000 Berkeley listeners on the third night of trouble. Susie Schmidt, acting editor of the College Press Service and former editor of the University of Colorado Daily, reports on the progression of events and their causes during the Berkeley rioting. Miss Bergman's story and Mr. Cleaver's speech came to The Daily via Liberation News Service - Student Communications Network; Miss Schmidt's article was provided by College Press Service. - Ed. By SUSIE SCHMIDT BERKELEY - Less than two weeks after the beginning of the University of California's sum- mer session, its students are em- broiled in a new movement, one aiming toward a "Free City." They want control of "their" city and "their" streets near tloe university campus, and they want the right to congregate there free of police control. That purpose has placed them in direct con- frontation with the city's politi- cal and military powers, whose primary aim is keeping large con- gregations of students off the streets. For two nights, groups of sev- eral thousand students fought po- lice in an attempt to "liberate" the mile-square section of the city where most of them-live. Police weapons were clubs, tear gas, and a 7 p.m. curfew over the "student" half of Berkeley. The students' weapons have been large numbers and a determination not to be bullied, which has only been fed by two nights of battle. W HA T I S HAPPENING in Berkeley is a clue to the mood of the young and disaffiliated across the country, and it is in some THE ADMINISTRATION and; the fac- ulties of the schools and colleges, through their mishandling of the delicate problem of interim rules, are pushing the University down a pointless road toward possible strife. We do not disparage the motives of the men involved; we do not think they are acting in bad faith. But we do take vehe- ment exception to what they are doing and their reasons for doing It. To soothe the Regents' impatience with delays in implementing the proposals for a tripartite University Council (which, when established Would' make rules on disruptive student conduct), President Fleming asked the deans of the schools and colleges to assure him that their units either had or would devise interim rules. Now the deans have reported back to Fleming; almost all of the schools and colleges have merely adopted the rules passed last October by Student Govern- ment Council as their own. FLEMING FEELS interim rules are nec- essary, and he objects to the existing SGC rules on legal and philosophical! grounds. If an incident were to occur be- fore the implementation of the Univer- sity Council, he reasons, the University would be criticized for not having clari- fied its rules - especially in the light of disruptive student incidents at other campuses this summer. Furthermore, since SGC never had/ a Regental mandate to pass rules, a stu- dent penalized by Joint Judiciary Coun- cil under SGC rules could challenge the penalty in civil courts and win, accord-, ing to Fleming. And he doesn't agree that students alone should make rules on dis- ruptive student conduct; such conduct, he feels, strikes at the basic tenet of the Univrsity - freedom of speech and free interchange of ideas - and thus affects ilt members of the "University commun- ity." THERE IS MUCH that is wrong with all of this. Although most of the faculty rules were merely lifted from the SGC code, students did not in any way make the rules, the use of SGC rules is merely a paternalistic faculty gift. That this distinction is important be- comes evident by examining the code of Second class postage paid at Ann Arbor, Michigan, 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Michigan. 48104. DaIly except Sunday and Monday during regular summer session. one of the colleges which did not use SGC's regulations. The first draft of the rules being considered by the graduate school includes' a number of provisions which have nothing to do with "disrup- tive student conduct," including a rule against the use of narcotics on University property (see letter on this page). If nothing else, these rules constitute a serious danger of double jeopardy, when coupled with existing civil statutes. Worse, the interim procedures mean interim faculty adjudication, in direct violation of University' policy for the past few years that students should be tried by their peers. Student representation on faculty boards which will try student cases ranges, depending on the college, from little to nothing. ,TILL WORSE, the rationale behind these moves is extremely tenuous. This is a quiet campus, and the only visible threat to the peace is the insist- ence of the administration and faculty of passing needless rules to govern non- existent incidents. SGC has passed rules; if they are of shaky legality, the Regents can as easily ratify SGC's legislative authority as allow the faculty to make' rules. If disruptive student conduct is a problem which affects the entire Univer- sity community, how does it in any way follow that rule-making authority should be in effect taken away from one group in the community (the students) and handed over to another (the faculty)? And if President Fleming is soconcerned with conduct which strikes at the free interchange of ideas, what about classi- fied research, where other scholars in the community are denied the knowledge gained through another's research be- cause of government contract restric- tions? Even if all the recent maneuverings of Fleming, the deans, and the various col- leges' faculty executive committees were of a worthy, commendable nature, they seem unnecessary at this moment; the disruption that is hoped to be avoided by having such rules will possibly come only, if the administration and the faculty in- sist on foisting them upon a convenient- ly muffled student body. But if the rules and events are not so commendabl% and worthy - as indeed they are not - they are not only unnecessary, they are fully reprehensible. --URBAN LEHNER -DANIEL OKRENT Co-Editors A black man's fury and anger By ELDRIDGE CLEAVER BERKELEY-All power to the people! Black power to black people! I can't tell you that when I heard about what was going on over here in Berkeley I sat down cried; I didn't cry. It was sad. I heard they were cracking heads over here, that they were shooting tear gas at people, and that they even imposed a curfew. I said, "Get out of my house, man. You're lying." But it was true! Do you believe it yet? Well, you better believe it, because this sh-t is just getting started. That's right. That's right. That's right. They will shoot you. They will beat you to death with those sticks. They will put you in prison, where you can't make no bail. A LITTLE history tells us that in Germany when Hitler got that power, he killed .a whole lot of people. We can't do that over here, can we? Lyndon Johnson wouldn't do it, he wouldn't allow it. This man has taken the oath of office. The man is bound by the Con- stitution. He is bound by the will of the people, so he wouldn't do nothing like that. But what we better begin to un- derstand 'is that those pigs out there, they can't think well enough, to listen to what they hear. They can't think like that. The only thing that they can do is to whip what head they're told to whip. They'll whip any head they're told to whip, and they were told to start whipping these white heads in Berkeley because this sh-t's getting out of hand. Too many people going around doing what they want to do. You're slapping and clapping and smiling, but you're getting yourselves ready to get killed. Because these pigs are serious. They're carrying out ord- ers made by men on the highest level in this country. THEY'RE SERIOUS about it and you're still smiling about it, but I understand why you're smiling. You're smiling because you have confronted these pigs and they have been exposed for what they are, the enemies of the people. That's what they are, the enemies of the people, the enemies of the people. The man is a public servant. We're dealing with public servants who have gotten so arrogant they think they own this country. They think they own this country. They think they own the people in it. They think they own you. You think they just believe they own these black people. No, they ,whip-' ped you last night just like they think they own you, the night be- fore, or whenever that was. They whip you like you belong to them. You were their property. They had a right to do that. That's what they're saying. They're telling everybody that we're doing this in Berkeley so you know what they'll do everywhere else. That's what they're saying, you see, but there are more people in this country than there are pigs. That's right. That's right. AND ALL THOSE people (the city council) that they had up here on the stage deliberating the situation, they're crazy or some- thing, because what is there to deliberate? We know that those pigs were wrong for doing that. Who told them to do that? And what are they going to do about it? They're going to let you come back on the streets tonight, if you be good. But what are they doing? This is your city council. You placed them in office to admin- ister your laws for your benefit and for your welfare, not to line their pockets, not to get fat, not to send their pigs down here to whip your heads. That's not where it's at. That's not it. So you, you're going to have to stand up and tell these people that you don't belong to them but they belong to you. As long as they're drawing their salary from your paycheck, or from your ma- ma's, or your papa's, or from any- body else's in this country. And there are certain things that we just can't have. We can't have decisions made on who knows where to close the streets down. We can't have someone telling us when we can come out and walk up and down the streets. We can't have someone deciding that the ideas that are floating around this university community should not be discussed. They deprive you of your rights. They deprive you of your right to assemble and discuss your griev- ances. They have gone to the root of what this sh-t is all about.. .. SO YOU EITHER have to sub- mit to a government that is func- tioning without a constitution or do what your ancestors did and get a government and a consti- tution of the people, for the peo- ple and by the people,not by the pigs. Not by the pigs. No, no, no, . . . We can't have a government by the pigs. We can't have that, because we know how foul they are. We all know that. I have had occasion to live un- der a government of the pigs, by the pigs and for the pigs. I am speaking of the California ie- partment of Correction: Kid- napers! They kidnaped me! They spirited me away and hid me in a cell and told me that they had a right to do all of that and I didn't have a right to say anything about it. They said just shut up and you'll get out of here soon. But this judge, this judge-who may be the only judge left in this country who knows anything about the Constitution said: Wait a minute pigs. That's what he told them. That's what he told them you see. HE TOLD THEM they were foul-'I'm paraphrasing here-and that they were holding me for a political purpose and "cut him loose forthwith." That's what he told them. He told that one day. The last word there was "forth- with." They interpreted that to mean like, "tomorrow." Pigs to the bitter end! But that's not enough. That wasn't really the end. I thought that was the end. Today they called me down to my parole of- ficer's office. I have a new parole officer. The other one they sent to Stockton. The new one called me down and gave me a letter addressed to me from Mr. Kerr, the chairman of the Adult Au- thority, and to my surprise, the letter told me to report Monday, 3 o'clock, to San Quentin State Prison for a hearing on charges of 'parole revocation. That hap- pened this afternoon, you see. I can't relate to that; I can't relate to Mr. Kerr at his penitentiary. No, I cannot relate to that because the man is wrong, and I have done nothing more than what I am doing here now-talking sh-t to people that they don't want to hear, That's the only way it can be. It's gotta be that way. It's gotta be that way, because they can do it to me. They've done it. They're doing it to a lot of people right now, thousands of people, and they can do that because those prisoners are hidden away and because people don't care about what's going on there. THEY CAN DO it to you. So what we gotta do in this country is to dispel all these lies they have around that people are impotent, that the people can no longer control their destiny, that the two party system, the Repub- sense analogous to the city ghet- tos; what is happening here is an example of an indigenous com- munity trying to assert itself in the face of legal and political pressure. The initial confrontation start- ed out looking and sounding like a picnic. The usual Friday-night things were happening on Tele- graph Ave., Berkeley's social cen- ter, and the usual Friday-night people, looking for action, were congregating and heading there from side streets in every direc- tion. Many of them thought they might stop for a while 'at the corner of Telegraph and Haste, where a planned demonstration of solidarity with the striking stu- dents and workers of France was being staged by 'nine local radi- cal groups, including the Trotsky- ite Young Socialist Alliance (YSA) and the California Peace and Freedom Party. It was still light. FROM A loudpeaker on the rooftop came the voice of Berke- ley police chief William Beale tell- ing the crowd the demonstration had been declared an "unlawful assembly" and commanding them to disperse. That announcement brought to the surface the emo- tions that were pushing the stu- dent crowd 'toward its .own mo- ment of decision to confront the police. A man they couldn't even see was telling them that the rally they had worked so hard to keep legal was "unlawful," seemingly only because there were too many students in one place., 's our street," they shouted back to the microphone. When it ordered them to disperse "in the name of the people," they cried "We are the people!" with; a des-" peration in their voices that some- how told what the whole thing was about. From that point the fight was inevitable; the police had come itching for it and the crowd, if it hadn't, felt bullied into a corner from which it could not peacefully walk away. The only remaining questions were timing and tactics. T H E Y S A organizers went through the motions of moving the crowd back to the .sidewalks from which it had been inching' forward, and of asking the chief if the rally could continue peace- fully without the police. Beale went through the motions of con- sidering the proposal before re- jecting it. The gold helmets lined up at the north end of the block in four deep rows, ready to walk south, Half the crowd yelled not to give way, to resist and fight back; the other half turned and walked or ran away from the invading forces. After a long face-to-face moment the cops advanced; the crowd was swept into the next block or into stores along the street. At the end of the block most of the students circled around through alleys and side streets to regroup behind the police. The cops obligingly reversed their direction and put on gas masks, preparing to march back up the street and push the dem- onstrators up toward the campus. The first canisters of tear gas were thrown onto the street. The crowd fled to the next corner, and so it went for an hour-an attack of gas would force the crowd to disperse momentarily, only to re- group at the next intersection, AFTER TWO more frontal at- tacks the students began setting fires in sidewalk trash cans and throwing rocks at passing "pigs" (police cars). After the initial shock of the gas and the strength of the police contingent wore off, the crowd took on spme of its ni- tial carnival-like mood again. They were playing a game called "fight the cops" - a serious game only to the extent of their frus- tration at being pushed ;around by hundreds of cops with tear gas The crowd became almost light- hearted as they ran from corner to corner, away from the choking cloud of gas. They stopped to help. one another, to offer Kleenex or wet handkerchiefs. Those who were "old-timers" to tear gas shouted instructions to neophytes; small groups' scouted , for water fountains and pointed others to- ward them. About midnight the confronta- tion moved onto the campus, and the students scattered in saller and 1smaller groups, some setting small fires in their wake. Tar gas floated in clouds over Sproul Hall Plaza, the scene of countless stu- dent harangues , and demonstra- tions. At 1 a.m. the police tactic of "divide and scatter" had suc- ceeded in fragmenting the crowd. But the nekt night the students were' back - this time blocking off Telegraph Ave. and turning It into a community park. A band played, people danced, joints w 'e passed down the -street. Peoe stood in groups talking, laughing, and drinking beer. Signs chalked on the street quoted Che Guevara, and Mao Tse-Tung, and pro- claimed Telegraph a "liberated. area." Barricades' at the ends of Telegraph and on each side street were erected, torn down and erected again as the core of ac- tivists argued about whether the cops would come and what to do when they did. THEY CAME; this time they ran faster and from more direc- tions and used their clubs as well as their tear-gas cannisters. This time the crowd broke windows aiid set bigger fires, but- the end was the same - chaos, confusion, and eventual breaking of ranks into groups too small to accomplish anything. The next morning the police im- posed a curfew and the students solidified their raison d'etre into a set of demands on the city coun- cil. They want to be able to stop auto traffic on Telegraph so the street can be used for whatever purpose the community decides it should be used, free of police oc- cupation. They want the Berkeley police to be split into forces cor- responding to the different indi- genous communities in the city, to' be placed under the communities' control. They also vow to defy the police curfew. What is happening in Berkeley may signal a new tone in student uprisings in this country. The stu- dents were not revolting against the university (they- were in fact careful not to damage any of "their" buildings, looking at the campus as something like a cita- 'del to be defended against inva- sion by the police), or against CIA recruiters or. the war in Viet- nam.. They were fighting back against forces by which they feel repressed, fighting for the right to control and make decisions about the community they make up in Berkeley. THERE WERE here, as in most confrontations of this kind, the questions of how much violence could have been, avoided had the cops stayed home, and of ho. much either side wanted to avoid violence. The answer to the first' was fairly obvious to most observ- ers: had the police decided not to make an issue of the crowds in the streets of Berkeley, the first night would most likely have pro- duced a rather dull demonstration and the next would have been nothing more than p groovy street dance. k I* 1' 4. Letters: A response to tentative rules 4. The following is a letter sent by several members and officers of Graduate Assembly to Dean Stephen Spurr of the Graduate School, in response to Dean Spurr's request for their com-' ment on the school's proposed interim conduct rules.-Ed. Dear Dean Spurr: IN REPLY to your request, this letter is an expression of our views concerning the document on graduate student conduct to be voted upon by the Executive Board of the Graduate School. We would like to make the following com- ments concerning it. First, and this is from a proce- dural standpoint, we were quite surprised to realize that only one aspect of the document, and a relatively minor one at that, was ever brought to the attention of- any member of the Graduate As- sembly. All. other parts of the' document have only now come be- fore us and with the additional burden that we comment upon them within a matter of days. Since hurried legislation is very often poor legislation we could never accept such a document, re- gardless of its merits, until we had some time, certainly more than a few days, to suggest what we felt were appropriate changes. Second, concerning the substan- tive aspects of the document, there' are a number of points with which we strongly disagree: 1. ON THE second page of the document, the following statement ment or program. The student will always have the right to being presented with the evi- dence against him, to a formal or informal hearing, to being able to present evidence in his own behalf, and the right of appeal of the Executive Board. Our position as individuals and the position of the Graduate As- sembly as a whole with regard to this has really been quite simple -No group (or individual within a group) in the graduate' school, regardless of prestige or size, which does not consist wholly of students, has the right or privi- lege to discipline any student for words or action or failure of ac- tion of a non-academic nature. We consider academic behavior to be behavior of intellectual compe- tence only, i.e., mastery of the curriculum specifications of the departments or schools. All other behavior is non-academic. As to who shall discipline stu- dents for non-academic behavior should such behavior seriously and negatively affect other "elements of the University community," the answer is, as we have already stat- ed, other students. 2. THUS FAR, we have said no- thing about who shall legislate the rules. In yor document, the following is stated with regard to this issue: All elements of the Univer- sity, community are affected by the behavior of individuals, re- gardless of status, when acting :ift _i . f--'l. m mm n~ T a use of University documents, re- cords, or identification; 3. Obstruction or disruption of teaching, research, administra- tion, disciplinary procedures, or other University activities, in- cluding its public service func- tions, or of other authorized ac- tivities on University premises; 4. Physical abuse of any per- son on University-owned or -controlled property or at Uni- versity-spon'sored or -supervised functions or conduct which threatens or endangers the health or safety of any such person; 5. Theft of or damage to prop- erty of the University or of a member of 'the University com- munity or campus visitor; 6. Unauthorized entry to or use of University facilities; 7. Violation of University pol- icies or of campus regulations including campus regulations concerning the registration of student organizations, the use of University facilities, or the time, place, and manner of pub- lic expression; 8. Use, possession, or distribu- tion of narcotic or dangerous drugs on University-owned or -controlled property or at Uni- versity-sponsored or -supervised functions except as expressly permitted by law; 9. Violation of rules governing residence in University-owned or -controlled property; 10. Disorderly conduct or lewd, indecent, or obscene conduct or Inasmuch as 10 of the 12 stan- dards listed are non-academic (the two which we consider to be academic are the first and last), we, of course, cannot accept the Graduate School's right to dis- cipline according to them. But more importantly, we cannot ac- cept the Graduate School's right to even make these rules. Again, we invoke a basic tenet of demo- cratic life, namely that rules, or laws, or "standards" designed to provide for the minimal function- ing of a community, shall be made and approved by those affected by them. Therefore, such rules which apply solely to students ought to be made solely by students and such rules which apply to broader segments of the University com- munity ought to be made by a composition of those segments. This procedure appears in the newly proposed Regents By-law prescribing for the formation of a University Council. 3. ONE LAST POINT. It is ra- ther clear that this document which we have been asked to com- ment upon, though interim in na- ture, is now being rushed to ac- ceptance because of the Regental demand for law and order in the -wake of campus disruptions all across the country. We are not at all surprised since such a demand is the typical response of the powers-that-be in such situations. Nonetheless, we do not intend to bend in the face of such authori- tarian tactics and pressures. All we can say to you by way of pos- nihl irwi t "+% # n. a i Radical confessions By ARLENE E. BERGMAN BERKELEY (LNS-SCN)-Sun- day night (June 30),, there was a man playing a guitar, ,walking up University Ave. He was singing "The Times, They Are A-Chang- ing'.' Behind him there was a throng of several hundred people. By the time they turned the cor- ner nearly every window on the block was broken. In 24 hours, other people were petitioning the city council for a permit to have a mass meeting on Telegraph Avenue July 4. People have fought hard in the streets. All the rules of previous demonstrations have been broken. The cops used gas on a massive scale. We retaliated, for the first time, by stoning windows. They deployed goon squads in unmarked cars. We set barricades on fire and someone even had the balls, to set a cop on fire. They pro- claimed a curfew and established, martial law in Berkeley, When we broke the rules of the demonstration game, we were as- serting our right to control our own community. We were chal- lenging the establishment's defi-, nition of "law and order." We were taking what we know is ours. means that the cops are disarmned and all non-Berkeley forces are withdrawn from the area. This. means that the city of Berkeley abolishes its draft board or ap- points a draft board that refuses to comply with the Selective Service System. THIS MEANS that the trus- tees' power over the university be delegated to a democratically elected board of students, facul- ty and community people. This means that the city council meet- ings be open to discuss these is- sues and other community needs, and to plan a new participatory form of city government. TRADITIONALLY we have had massive confrontations with the cops. But people learned a lot these past few days. Sometimes the most effective actions can't be publicized at mass meetings. Most of the time, going en masse into a phalanx of cops pis suicide. Probably our biggest tactical ad- vantage last weekend was our ability to break into small groups that could move where the cops could not. Each group was diver- sionary. Cops had just too much territory to cover. Some will say that unless we Al