chancellor in Dockray 2013


cerda law forbade student organizations from engaging in politics; in 1968, Institutional Act No. 5 did away with the writ of habeus corpus; and Decree 477 a year later gave university and education authorities the right to expel students and professors involved in protests. A similar provision of “university asylum” restricted the access of policemen onto Greece’s campuses for 35 years. Like Brazil, this measure was adopted after the fall of a military regime that had violently crushed student uprisings and, like Brazil, this prohibition on police incursions into campuses collapsed in 2011. Greek politicians abolished the law in order to more effectively implement austerity measures imposed by European financial interests. Ten days after the raid at the University of Sao Paulo, the chancellor of the University of California, Davis ordered police to clear a handful of tents from a campus quadrangle. Because the peaceful demonstration was planned in solidarity with other actions on UC campuses drawing inspiration from the “occupy movement,” police force swiftly and forcefully dismantled the encampment. Students were pepper-­‐sprayed at close range by a well-­‐armored policeman wearing little concern. Such examples of the militarization of university campuses have become more common, especially in the context of growing social unrest. In California, they demonstrate the continued influence of Ronald Reagan, not simply for implementing neoliberal policies that have slashed public programs, produced a trillion dollars in US student loan debt and contracted the middle class; but also for campaigning in 1966 for governor of California on a promise to crack down on campus activists, making partnerships with conservative school officials and the FBI in order to “clean out left-­‐wing elements” from the University of California. Linda Katehi – that UC Davis chancellor – was also an author of a 2011 report that recommended terminating university asylum to the Greek government. The report noted that “the politicization of students… represents a beyond-­‐reasonable involvement in the political process,” continuing on to state that “Greek University campuses are not secure” because of “elements that seek political instability.”

Mobilization of books

After the Military Police operation in Sao Paulo, the rector appeared on television to accuse the students of preparing Molotov cocktails; independent media, on the other hand, described the students carrying left-­‐wing books. Even more recently at UC Riverside, a contingent faculty member holding a cardboard shield that was painted to look like the cover of Figures of the Thinkable, b


ealed as a vehicle for exporting American intellectual property enforcement. Protecting intellectual property is essential, politicians claim, to maintaining the American “way of life,” although today this has less to do with the moral base of the country than the economic base – workers and corporations. America, Obama said in reference to ACTA, would use the “full arsenal of tools available to crack down on practices that blatantly harm our businesses.” Universities, those institutions for the production of knowledge, are deeply embedded in struggles over intellectual property, and moreover deployed as instruments of national security. The National Security Higher Education Advisory Board, which includes (surprise) Linda Katehi, brings together select university presidents and chancellors with the FBI, CIA, and other agencies several times per year. Developed to address intellectual property at the level of cyber-­‐theft (preventing sensitive research from falling into the hands of terrorists) the congenial relationship between university administrations and the FBI raises the spectre of US government spying on student activists in the 1960’s and early 1970’s. Financialization of publishing To the side of such partnerships with the state, the forces of financialization have been absorbed into universities, again with the welcome of administrations. Towering US student loan debt is one very clear index; another, less apparent, but growing, is the highly controlled circulation of academic publishing, especially journals and textbooks. Although apparently marginal (or

 

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