What a coincidence. The kids I babysit scream when they want something too
On the first day back at UCLA for the start of winter quarter, I began my usual morning ritual. A stale croissant from Bruin Café, an embarrassing scramble to collect new books I just bought and already lost, and of course, a quick bath in the blood of innocents so I don’t get kicked out of the Republican party.
And because I am such a masochist, I pick up the Daily Bruin. Immediately, I turned to the Viewpoint page because sometimes you get lucky and Alex Pherson’s column appears. Instead, I see a picture of a naked lady and, well, the Daily Bruin’s cheap ploy for attention got my cheap attention.
The naked lay apparently “sold [her] clothes to pay tuition” (and also because panties and originality are, like, soooo 90’s). This very classy photo was sort-of, kind-of, almost tied into the column in that Daily Bruin contributor Nikki Jagerman briefly discussed the fee hike protests of last year.
What Jagerman lacks in relevance, she makes up for in accidental insightfulness. She summed up the 2009 demonstration perfectly with a single sentence: “Sticking it to the man is fun, so to the protests I say, go Bruins!”
Despite the local excitement and national news coverage—of which some seem so proud, I’ve yet to hear the attitude of the protests captured so succinctly; so brilliantly. Consider the atmosphere leading up to, during, an immediately following the protests. Think about what politically enthused students accomplished during last quarter. They took the school by storm, garnered national media attention, created a new sense of community, and – this is my favorite part—witnessed a 32% fee increase.
Congratulations, Bruins. You achieved effectively nothing other than the embarrassment of having a campus marred by rampant juveniles necessitating police protection for administrators.
Of course, I use the term “Bruin” unfairly. I only mean to refer to the Bruins protestors who care about talking about how much they care about education. The Bruins who care about their education were in class. You know, getting an education.
The Bruins who decided they could best serve their academic careers by storming out of class, leaving their notes in the dust in exchange for contrived picket slogans essentially wasted their time. No big surprise. One might say there were not going to take it anymore.
The “it” here is increased fees. Or budget cuts. In the average, overeducated mind, simultaneous demands for more programs and less overhead cost is not contradictory. Of course, the average, overeducated mind became average and overeducated by studying “Klingon” and taking “Who rules here? Fighting for Diversity and Reason at University of California” (yes, those are actual UCLA areas of study and enough to convince me a few cuts might be beneficial on many levels). Maybe UCLA students should consider taking a few math classes. A negative number (more spending) plus another negative number (lower tuition) is an even bigger negative number (the big red hole we’re digging for ourselves).
Every involved participant was armed to the teeth with the same three or four statistics, way too many emotions, and a bottle of tears shed by their favorite yet expendable women’s studies TA. Not one offered realistic solutions. They all felt deeply and passionately that UCLA is…wait…who’s university? Oh yeah, our university. They seem to forget that the university is, as the UCLA homepage indicates, “owned by the people of California.” Every person in the state bought and paid for the university and continues to do so each time tax season rolls around.
The more intellectual of the angry party will stop shouting irrelevant battle cries borrowed from Students First? and suggest calling local representatives for help. Indeed, this is a public university with public funding. If you oppose fee hikes and budget cuts, lobbying politicians for more money from Sacramento is probably the way to go.
People who – thanks to pathetic quasi-compassionate policies like CalWorks Child Care and CAPI – are burdened with the financial “obligations” the likes of which most of the United States has never seen. To merely demand more money from the state (or as the Governator suggested, and Gene Block hastily endorsed, mandating a chunk of the state’s budget automatically go to higher education) is reckless.
For one, to dedicate a constitutionally set percentage of the budget to education will only drive the entire value of our expenditures up. For a hypothetical scenario, imagine the state didn’t meet their quota. This causes meaningless funds will be tacked on just to adhere to a half-baked amendment.
I don’t believe that protestors are intentionally throwing the people of California into this impossible situation. Quite frankly, I don’t believe the protestors have the forethought required to realize that the money they are childishly demanding comes from actual human beings who earned it by the sweat of their brow and personal ingenuity. Or at least a 9 to 5.
Another, more recent, Daily Bruin piece revealed the chaotic, sloppy motivations behind some of the civil disobedience. Contributor Nicholas Greitzer discussed the Campbell Hall sit-in in his article “UCLA activism remains strong.” In this piece, he writes, “While the Campbell Hall sit-in originated because of fee hikes, it evolved into a fight against racism, as the protest honored the Black Panthers who had been shot to death in the hall in 1969.” What?
The fact that this “evolving” protest did not have a clear, defined cause proves that a cause is not the motivation of the protestors. As the aforementioned column suggests, “fun” was the real objective. Well, that, and some misguided attempt at relevancy. As USAC President Cynthia Flores noted, “To be a student and not a revolutionary is a contradiction.” She is no doubt referring to Che Guevara t-shirts and not real social and civil liberation.
Ultimately, I find myself embarrassed of my campus after the student protests that took place during November of last quarter and more recently this month. I’m sure those involved would argue otherwise but from the outside looking in, the protestors appeared to lack a mission or goal. Instead of offering viable solutions or a reasoned argument, I saw students disrupting the civil atmosphere of our campus for the sake of disobedience. At worst, it was aimless anarchy, at best, it was trendy.
Last year the unruly demonstration only demonstrated that the “True Bruin” is an attention whore and a child. Well done, all. Well done.
{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }
The line about “those of us who care about our education are in class getting an education” is a canard, and obviously comes from a place of privilege where the writer doesn’t have to understand privatization or what it means for PUBLIC education. It’s sad that people who are supposed to be educated are talking this way without understanding what they’re talking about. The information about how our education is being put in jeopardy is out there–it is your responsibility as a student (if you would call yourself that) to get the facts instead of making up your own bullshit reasons for not participating.
Still, your point that protesters aren’t bringing any kind of change is definitely valid. The protests at SoCal campuses have generally been organized by people who are working hard to maintain the status quo–ie, to make sure that nothing actually happens at the protests except for a pep rally. I’m sorry to say that this “highschoolization” reached its head at UCSD (where I go to school) on March 4th, where the protest was more like a concert, a place to buy a T-shirt for prosperity, get entertained and let off steam for several hours before going home and getting back to our daily routine as if we’re actually OK with what the system is doing to us. It makes me wonder whose interests the “protest” organizers are serving.
The effect is that all of the time we spend away from our classes and our textbooks is wasted, because those of us who try to actually force deep systemic changes through our actions, are first verbally harrassed, and then physically blocked or attacked, by “protest organizers”. It’s frustrating to get thousands of people in one place on campus and then do nothing with that energy except be part of a faceless crowd for an entertainment event. It’s especially frustrating to watch my GPA slide as I continue to make it out to every protest and rally, setting aside time for a movement that offers me nothing in return…. See more
The current movement’s “leaders” bring shame to the student body; George Winne is rolling in his grave, I’m sure. What brings shame to the UC organization is the privatization that jeopardizes our education in the first place.
By the way, for more information on Cynthia’s “revolution”, see here: http://occupyucla.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/post-occupation-the-final-hour/
Funny, I don’t remember seeing you there. How could you possibly know that “Not one offered realistic solutions,” or that we all had “the same three or four statistics?” If you did, I’m guessing that you would know that the UC system creates $16 of revenue for every $1 spent on it. Perhaps you’d know that the median taxpayer would only have to pay an average of $32 a year to restore funding levels from a decade ago, or that a 12% tax on oil extraction in California would generate $2 billion in revenue for our schools (see AB 656). To be honest, though, the embarrassing thing for me is that someone could be so close to these protests and profess to know so much about them, while knowing so little about the subject, and yet still call herself a “Bruin.” The Bruins who stayed in class that day know as well as anyone, besides yourself, that in order to learn something in lecture, one must make the effort and actually show up.
I chose this school because it was big enough, diverse enough, and eclectic enough to offer courses like “Who Rules Here,” which you know absolutely nothing about beyond the title’s entertainment value for a conservative newspaper. I assume that, by the size of the protest, and perhaps more tellingly by the size of enrollments for spring quarter humanities classes, that most students agree with me. Learning is a process that transcends math, note-taking in class, and reading the Bruin Standard, and the potential and opportunities for student learning are what make this school so amazing (even the “expendable” women’s studies TA). Maybe these students who skipped class that day (assuming that their professors even held it) learned something that could not be obtained from a math book: that large protests gain media attention, which creates sympathy, which translates into political action. They might have even realized that the objective back in November wasn’t to reverse the tax hikes, which was a foregone conclusion, but to let the world know what it meant for them to do so. Of course, since you weren’t there, I can’t expect you to know all of that.
I’ll close with one last statistic, or rather a number: out of state tuition for non-resident Californians is $34,000, which does not include room and board. Given your concern for the “sweat of the brow” that funds the public’s financial obligation to the school, and assuming that you’re an in-state student, should you (or everyone else) pay $34,000 to go here? And if you did have to pay as much to go here as you would a private school, then why would you go here? What makes UCLA preferable to USC, or Pepperdine, or Bob Jones? I don’t know what your reasons were, but UCLA wouldn’t be the institution it is today without the generous support it has received from the state of California. But if you feel that the public should not have to shoulder the burden, then please, spend your money elsewhere. Classes are filling up on account of the dearth of TAs and adjuncts, so we could use the extra room.
Matt Luckett, thank you for slapping this insolent upstart down and teaching her some manners.
The students and workers (your shoddy analysis totally erases the contributions of the many “actual human beings” working a “9 to 5,” including campus workers who are fighting terrible cuts and furloughs and struggling to feed their families) who participated in the March 4 actions deserve to be applauded. They are attempting to halt the death-spiral of one of the greatest public institutions in the country.
I am sick and tired of the meme that “student protesters are a bunch of privileged children with nothing better to do.” The most militant and committed students are the ones from the least-privileged backgrounds: many are first-generation college students, are working multiple jobs to stay in school, are transfers from community colleges, and are drowning in oceans of debt.
It is petulant articles like this one (which makes no attempt to seriously engage with the issues, even from an opposing viewpoint), not the protests, that are examples of idle whining. Clearly a lifetime of privileges has made you totally callous to the struggles these students and workers face.
Despicable.
-Eric
(UCLA staff)
“but UCLA wouldn’t be the institution it is today without the generous support it has received from the state of California.”
And the state of California is imploding. We’re one step away from getting a speculative/junk bond rating, we’re chasing business from our state with a magnificent regulatory straight jacket, and we’ve been called a greater default risk than Greece. And you want to spend MORE money? Really?
Oil and gas companies, after AB 656, which face the largest total tax burden in the Union (after you factor in our absurd corporate tax rate). That means less extraction in the future, since it ceases to be cost effective, which means a LOWER net present value for tax revenue. Higher taxes mean more people chased out of the state and a further crippling of the state’s economy (as if it wasn’t bad enough). You have cute arguments you seem to have pulled directly off the Daily Bruin’s editorial page, but they ultimately remain infeasible.
I wish we lived in a magical fairy land where more money could always be had and higher educationfree for everyone. Sadly, we don’t live there. We live in a place called reality, in which the laws of mathematics and economics apply.
Pull your head out of the clouds. Or out of your ass. Whichever is applicable, really.
Also, paragraph 3, sentence one should read “after AB 656, *would* face the largest total”
Pardon the typo.
Andrew, I’m sorry if you find my ideas “cute.” That’s the difference between us: I’m actively searching for ways to save our school and restore funding to previous levels, and you are name-calling. It’s pretty easy to go online and flame others for wanting a cheap, quality education, and it’s even easier to apply a rigid intellectual ideology and childish rhetoric to real problems, but what are you going to do about it? Are you willing to pay $34,000 a year to go here? Why not strip the school of all public funding? What do you propose I do to get my head out of my ass? Do you have any solutions?
As for AB 656, as far as I’m aware oil is a seller’s market. Thanks to our reliance on fossil fuels (a problem that university-sponsored research could alleviate, with the proper funding . . .), I don’t see us losing oil money any time soon. Where is Chevron going to get it’s non-California oil? The Middle East? Shale? Oil extraction is a one-time economic activity. Once it is gone, that’s it. No more oil. So it’s a good idea to skim some of that profit and reinvest it into an institution that generates far more wealth than it consumes. That way, we’re reinvesting in the economy and giving more Californians the opportunity to become scientists and businessmen, spurring economic growth though university investment and research, and creating an educated citizenry that would presumably be better able to distill your cogent, illuminating arguments in the Bruin Standard and then vote Republican. Do they teach “investment” in economics or mathematics?
If you’re really worried about rampant state spending and are not willing to fork over $34,000 in tuition each year, then maybe you should target state spending that does not represent an investment in the state’s economy, such as the obscenely-large amount of money we spend each year incarcerating non-violent drug offenders. Not all state-spending is a waste, and you would do well to remember that if you are claiming to understand economics.
“It’s pretty easy to go online and flame others for wanting a cheap, quality education”
And even easier to flame the original article.
“rigid intellectual ideology”
Mathematics are indeed quite rigid. No matter how much postmodern philosophy we try to apply, 2+2 still seems to equal 4. Damn.
“and childish rhetoric ”
I’ll give you that one, but I argue it’s more entertaining.
“what are you going to do about it?”
Vote for candidates that promote growth. Tax revenue will increase when we increase the tax base. That means creating jobs by creating a business friendly environment.
“What do you propose I do to get my head out of my ass?”
Can’t help with that one, but some lubrication would likely help.
“(a problem that university-sponsored research could alleviate, with the proper funding . . .)”
Or with private research.
“So it’s a good idea to skim some of that profit and reinvest it into an institution that generates far more wealth than it consumes.”
The problem here is that you’re putting the cart before the horse. A properly functioning education system can have a net benefit down the line, but it doesn’t change the fact that the state is still about to go bankrupt*now*. We need to make an investment, but you make an investment when you have capital to invest. We currently have no capital. That’s the whole problem.
I’d love to fund the UC’s better and such spending may very well generate a net benefit down the road. But we’ve had a well-funded, top quality UC system for decades and the state is still underwater. Clearly, then, simply investing in education is not enough to lead the state to solvency. We can have a high-quality, highly-educated workforce, but it won’t do us any good if they flee to other states to do business or if the constraints of regulation leave them without any work at all. Heck, look at the situation we have today: tons of talented, educated students graduating without jobs.
Thus, if we’re going to create long-term prosperity, we need a functional economy with a reasonable regulatory environment (the horse) before we can invest in education (buying the cart)
“creating an educated citizenry that would presumably be better able to distill your cogent, illuminating arguments in the Bruin Standard and then vote Republican”
I won’t lie, I liked that part.
“such as the obscenely-large amount of money we spend each year incarcerating non-violent drug offenders”
Agreed. Legalize and tax is a far better option. Well…tax it mildly, at least.
“Not all state-spending is a waste, and you would do well to remember that if you are claiming to understand economics.”
The state protects us from foreign invasion and from dometic threats, such as violent crime or fraud. Other than that, the state should leave us the heck alone.
Andrew, I’m sorry that you are not able to open your mind to other options besides cutting education. Cutting public education undermines one of this country’s sources of greatness. Without our public education, our professional work force will continually decline. Already, the effects can be seen. Only when 77% of high school students graduated in 2008, which is a percentage below the rates of most other developed countries. This can be directly linked to the lack of resources and funding to the schools. Lack of funds have forced us to pass laws such as the No Child Left Behind Act, an act that has plasticized our education into mere standardized testing in its attempt to reinvigorate education. America used to be seen as a shining beacon of education for the world, but this image has been marred by budget cuts. This image needs to be restored. Why cut education when there are so many other sources of wealth that we could very easily cut into. I don’t think I need to go into these, just read Andrew’s comments. He lays it out beautifully.
Regarding the actual article:
It is really unfair to categorize the protesters as whining children or pseudo-revolutionaries protesting just to have fun. Had Kelly Bowers actually been present she not only would have seen sincerely dedicated students, but also faculty members and campus workers. Were those professors and workers whining children too? Going as far back as the November protests, do you really think that getting tazed and hit with nightsticks was all for having cheap thrills? I think not. The people who were out there were REALLY concerned. There really are people who are getting effected by these fee hikes and budget cuts that privileged people like Bowers may not experience because they do not go out into the real world. Go out and talk to some real people, not your country-club cronies Bowers.
Correction, I meant MATT’s comments, not Andrew’s. MATT lays out alternatives beautifully, NOT Andrew.
I found it odd that you condemn those who chose to protest as well as those who call for more state funding without providing any alternative solution to the University’s current financial problems. It seems easy to criticize others without providing an alternative of your own.
Contrary to what is claimed in your article it would seem that students might be able to protest a fee hike of this magnitude while not neglecting their studies. It is not necessarily a choice between the two as you framed it. Furthermore, a 32% increase in tuition is a heavy burden for many hard working bruins, some of whom are not going to be able to continue their education as a result. Generalizing these protesters as simply having ‘fun’ while they are facing this hardship is cruel and uncalled for. It’s unfortunate that you seem to hold so much disdain for the majority of the students with whom you attend UCLA.
Thanks for the shout-out, Kelly, but where’s my photo credit? I took that “very classy photo.”
Fair enough. The picture can, indeed, be attributed to Nikki Jagerman. You can also read the reference column on the Daily Bruin webpage
http://www.dailybruin.com/articles/2010/1/4/iprotests-premieres-and-party-lifei/
*referenced
This is in response to Ms. Kelly Bowers,
I think that if you were actually at the protests back in September and November you would have seen the passion and emotion that went into fighting against these tuition increases. You would have also seen the cold hearted UC Regents as they looked down upon us as they continually took photos of us on their camera phones like we were some circus act. Although I won’t dispute that some students may have simply been present to gain attention or because that was just the thing to do, I have to argue that most of the students that I interacted with and came to know were students who actually care about these issues and are always actively involved in their campus, the overall community, and in some cases the ethnic minorities that they represent. Many of these students that I personally know work their butts off night and day, working hard in order to advance the number of underrepresented students that higher education fails to admit each year.
I would also argue that protesters are not necessarily “whining children”. Look at the Civil Rights Movement, which initially started out with peaceful protestors lining the streets just wanting equal rights for themselves and their community. Would you call Martin Luther King Jr., Stokely Carmichael, Huey Lewis and the Black Panthers “whining children”? These individuals fought for a cause and these protests are merely just one step among other steps of action geared toward fighting for a righteous cause of equal opportunity and access.
Which brings me to my other point: these tuition increases are not just an economical issue. This is about equal opportunity and access toward higher education, and fighting against a government that constantly and systematically oppresses minorities. Obviously someone such as yourself looking down from a privileged vantage point would find this a hard concept to grasp. I suggest that you continue your two years at UCLA and hope that you become more aware of the diversity issues at hand on our UC campuses and beyond.
It makes me very saddened to look around the UCLA campus and to see how the demographic makeup of the campus is simply unrepresentative of the demographics that makeup the surrounding community of Los Angeles. Being a city that contains a large Latino and Hispanic population, I would like to envision a campus that enables more access to such a marginalized population. You mentioned that the university is funded by the money brought in from citizens working hard from the “sweat of their brow”. When thinking of such a people working hard in this manner, I can only think of all of the Latino migrants who come into this country, who work for almost nothing by the “sweat of their brows”, and yet they are constantly denied access to these institutions of higher learning. Why?? If this access was based on the amount of work performed by the “sweat of their brow”, this institution should belong to these underrepresented minorities such as Latinos, African-Americans, Philipinos, and others who work so hard to provide a better life for their families. I know I came from one of them.
By denying access to underrepresented minorities such as Latinos, we are merely propelling and reinforcing these stereotypes that minorities are “ghetto, uneducated” and make us look like animals, which by the way this article did such a great job of portraying that by posting a picture of none other than Latino students protesting with a sign that read Spanish words, so “Well done to you!” the Bruin Standard single handedly made themselves look like racists too. I am embarrassed and ashamed on my part to see someone so insensitive and highly unaware of these diversity issues at hand. Your insensitivity and intolerance for diversity is exactly what many students on campus are up against, so I thank you for the inspiration to continue to fight in hopes that things could be better.
Elizabeth
We’re not denying access to anything. You want to get in this school, earn it. Don’t use that affirmative action crap to get into this school while the rest of us earn it on merit, talent, grades, and the combination of the above.
@ Daniel
Higher tuition rates place a disproportionate burden upon those with a lower socioeconomic status (even if they have the ‘merit, talent, [and] grades’). Socioeconomic status correlates with race. High tuition rates creates a de facto policy of discouraging racial minorities from attending UCLA. This is not about the admissions process. It is about the ability to attend universities in the UC system if you are fortunate enough to be accepted based upon your merit.
In fact, if what you are arguing, as I believe you are, is that students should be able to attend UCLA based upon merit alone (however you choose to define merit) then higher tuition rates actually make this a more difficult reality to achieve.
If you’re good enough MERIT wise, you should get scholarships, that’s not a problem either.
@Josh:
Absolutely. There are students who are good enough to get into UCLA and do attend UCLA….for only a limited amount of time. These same students, a majority of them minorities, often are unable to continue their attendance because of these tuition increases. There are students who did gain admission into UCLA but are scared that they won’t be able to pay for it.
@Daniel:
When you say, “we” who are you referring to? Who do you identify with? As for myself, I identify with being a first generation college student. This might not mean anything to you, but it means a lot for me and my ethnicities, who have been victims of colonization and oppression. I can speak for myself, that although I did have the merit and grades from high school, I knew nothing about applying to scholarships or even how to go about applying to college. This was simply not in my family’s culture because they did not know anything about applying to college themselves. Due to my lack of self confidence and little resources, I stayed at a CCC where most of my friends around me dropped out and stopped pursuing higher education. I do not know why or how, but I stayed on where I was able to gain admittance to UCLA. I believe that the minority student has to work even that much harder to push through all of the risk factors that are already up against them, something that you probably don’t understand. Just because they have scholarships and everything does not simply solve the problem of the lack of diversity on our campus. This education system caters to a middle class White society, a society and culture that these marginalized groups do not identify with. There is not just a simple cut and dry solution to the problem, I must admit, but I do believe that by admitting more students who are from these certain disadvantaged backgrounds can help diversify the educational playing field. By excluding these students of color from higher education, whether through tuition increases or by any other means, you are simply excluding their potential to contribute their own unique voice to the campus.