AN OPEN LETTER TO UC SANTA CRUZ

"Four military recruiters hastily fled a job fair Tuesday morning at UC Santa Cruz after a raucous crowd of student protesters blocked an entrance to the building where the Army and National Guard had set up information tables," the San Francisco Chronicle reports:

Members of Students Against War, who organized the counter-recruiting protest, loudly chanted "Don't come back. Don't come back" as the recruiters left the hilltop campus, escorted by several university police officers.

"The situation had degraded to the point where there was a possibility of injury to either a student or law enforcement officer. We certainly didn't want that to happen,'' said Capt. Will Griffin, one of the Army recruiters. . . .

Universities that receive federal funds are required to allow military recruiters on campus. But campus officials had worried that Tuesday's protest would get out of hand as it had last April, when Students Against War protesters surrounded the table where military personnel sat, and hundreds of other demonstrators engaged in an angry protest outside. Some of the recruiters reported that their tires had been slashed and one employee at the career center was injured.

David Kliger, campus provost and executive vice chancellor, said the school was most concerned Tuesday about safety issues, but also wanted to preserve access to the recruiters for students who wanted to speak with them, while still allowing protesting students their right to free speech.

The Colorado-based Mountain States Legal Foundation is calling on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to invoke the Solomon Amendment and deny federal funding to UC Santa Cruz, which received $80 million of our money from Washington last year.

This sounds reasonable to me. Of course the Students Against War have a perfect right to speak their minds, but that right is not a license to engage in violence and intimidation. The threat of a loss of federal money could be a good spur to university officials to quit tolerating this sort of behavior.

After hearing about the incident I took the time to write Ms. Denice D. Denton at the
Office of Chancellor for UC Santa Cruz. The letter goes as follows:

Denice D. Denton
Office of Chancellor
200 Clark Kerr Hall
University of California
Santa Cruz, California 95064

Assistant to the Chancellor:
Jessica Fiske Bailey
Phone: (831) 459-2058
Email: jfbailey@ucsc.edu

As a proud UCLA Alumuni I was both shocked and horrified by the crass and hateful display of shown by some students at the University of California, Santa Cruz towards recruiters on your campus. To quote the Santa Cruz Sentinel:

Military recruiters packed up their displays and left a UC Santa Cruz job fair Tuesday after several protesters attempted to force themselves inside the fair while others blocked the entrance over the course of a tense hour-long standoff... the four recruiters from the Army and National Guard reversed an earlier decision to remain at the fair in a room separated from other job recruiters and protected by more than a dozen campus police.

Further reports mention how the Army recruiters were treated : "As recruiters drove off, a rock was allegedly thrown at their SUV. An officer began to persue the alleged rock-thrower, and a legal observer with a camera also took chase. Kot Hordinski, the legal observer, was then arrested for "obstruction." He was released after about fifteen minutes.

Students Against War organizers, and most participants agreed the action was a success. For the third time in a row, military recruiters were confronted by large protests. The goal of getting military recruiters off campus, was reached yet agian. Many are now left wondering if military recruiters will dare to return in the fall for the next UCSC Career Fair. "

This amounts to hateful speech and the very discrimination many in the past sacrificed and even died to ensure we all had removed from our nation. This kind of ignorance cannot continue in any of our UC campuses.

Fernando Caballero
UCLA Alumni Class of 1985

What are you waiting for Support our Troops and do SOMETHING!!!!