Illustration by Louise Leong

The Best 376 Colleges. The Ultimate Guide to College. America’s Best Colleges. Titles like these jump off the neon covers of books thick enough to serve as doorstops. These are the college guides that sit in high school career centers, enticing you with the promise of helping find “the right school for you.”

But according to many of these texts, the so-called “right school” is based on a composite list of the all-around best universities in the country, rankings which vary in thoroughness and are often presented to the reader with little insight into their determination. Now, some people — including administrators at well-known universities — are calling college rankings into question, and rightfully so.

The most recent criticism comes in light of a doctoring scandal at Claremont McKenna, a private liberal arts college in Southern California. Last week, a senior administrator resigned after it was revealed the admissions office had been exaggerating the SAT scores of freshman classes. The college is ranked ninth in the U.S. News & World Report’s most recent compilation of liberal arts schools, but U.S. News said they will be reevaluating where Claremont McKenna is positioned on the list.

Critique of the legitimacy and purpose of college rankings is nothing new. In 2007, the Annapolis Group, an organization of liberal arts colleges, met and denounced the “reputational” portion of U.S News’ annual report, which asks individual college presidents to grade the other institutions in their category on a scale of one to five.

It would be justified (if not long overdue) for other colleges to follow suit in rejecting the notion of rankings. Besides the reputation portion of the report, which comprises nearly a quarter of the formula used to determine an institution’s rank, other factors include financial resources, alumni giving, and retention rates, among several others.

It may seem like a thorough evaluation, but there are obvious holes in U.S News’ system. It takes into too much consideration the individual opinion of top collegiate officials, who could abuse the system by either intentionally downgrading a fellow university out of personal bias or because they know little about them. It integrates alumni donations, which could vary greatly depending on the size, location and socioeconomic stature of its graduating classes. It looks at how accomplished a college freshman was as a high school senior, a variable again at least partly determined by a student’s or school’s economic accessibility to resources like prep classes and study guides. As Malcolm Gladwell notes in a 2011 New Yorker article, “Who comes out on top, in any ranking system, is really about who is doing the ranking.”

It is undeniable certain universities have better academic reputations than others. But just because a thinktank crunched some numbers and determined one school is “better” than another doesn’t make it the right choice. Prospective students should eschew college rankings and make their decision based on the factors that matter to them most, whether they be location and athletics or clubs and class sizes. Age is seen as just a number — so is a college’s ranking.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Rank Is Just a Number

Illustrated by Leigh Douglas

On Tuesday, Jan. 7, it was announced that the California federal appeals court found Prop 8 — the notoriously controversial ban on gay marriage — unconstitutional and discriminatory toward a minority set of people.

While this ruling is historic, the battle for marriage equality is anything but over. As far as California is concerned, opponents to the recent court ruling can appeal in the Ninth Circuit or go straight to the Supreme Court — and it is likely they will.

As for now, the stay on gay marriages in California will stand, as litigation continues.

Like California, many states are addressing the issue, and currently Washington state has introduced legislation to legalize gay marriage. If passed, our neighbors to the north will be only the seventh state in the nation to give LGBT couples equal marriage rights.

While the Washington legislation has already passed in the state senate, it now heads to the House and many are eagerly waiting to hear the legislature’s decision. Many are hopeful the legislation will pass — we here at City on a Hill are hopeful — but even if it does, it will not be the end of the struggle.

Even as the bill floats through the House, even as representatives read over it and argue legal nuances, even before it has been brought into law, opponents to the legislation are preparing to counter the bill. If the legislation passes, it’s expected that a referendum will be placed on the ballot, and decisions about the basic rights and happiness of many people will be made by the public.

But this is where people can make a difference, and for this reason it’s important to vote, it’s important to stay informed and it’s important to let the government know it is unacceptable to deny people the right to marry based on sexual orientation.

In 2008, when Prop 8 was on the ballot and won by a margin at just barely over 52 percent, it was a referendum to a court ruling. Prop 8 was a conservative response to a California Supreme Court decision stating that marriage was a constitutional right regardless of sexual orientation.

Gay marriage and LGBT rights are a contentious issue to say the least, and in states like California and Washington, they are divisive — communities are split down the center, and the difference between supporting and not supporting something like Prop 8 is marginal. The only way to ensure our voices and our support for gay marriage are heard and understood by our government and by our representatives is to take action — to vote, to educate and to advocate.

Marriage equality has been and continues to be a grueling series of legislative battles and court cases, but it’s worth it — it’s worth it because these are men and women and their families being denied equal rights in the eyes of the law. This is bigger than religion — this is an issue of civil rights and human dignity.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Voting with Purpose

There can be a lot of reasons why it didn’t work — it was the wrong person, the wrong time, there was just no chemistry, or worst of all, the one you want is unaffected by the fire you’re so sure is setting you both aflame.

But the biggest love buzz-kill of them all is time.

Fast-forward from my messy and not-so-private break-up: The person I had been pining for texts me to announce he’s taken on yet another academic commitment — a time-consuming endeavor that will slowly eat away free time and patience.

I realized what was missing was time — we had buried ourselves in responsibilities and there was no time for an “us.” I was reminded why I just can’t make things work: There just isn’t enough time for me to do what I feel I need to and what I want to do. Desire is pushed to the side for school, work and part-time internships. My little free time is left to catch up on sleep, or best of all, sit around with friends, beer in hand.

Now that my messy could-have-been has become a definitely-not, I’m realizing what I need is emotional balance. Some kind of Zen I haven’t yet found.

Relationships require work. They’re exhausting, emotionally draining and laborious, and many students can’t fit them in between strings of part-time employment and mountains of assigned reading.

This is the conundrum of our modern, fast-paced world. We demand so much of ourselves. We spend our days typing away on smartphones and laptops, hopping from commuter train to commuter train, but in the midst of trying to outdo ourselves and our peers, we forget we could use a little affection. We forget how nice it can be to just hold someone’s hand.

Our generation has been accused by the media of being non-committal, over-stimulated and over-sexed. Magazines have run stories about the growing number of women seeking out casual relationships and the “it’s all good” attitude many young people have toward sex and anonymous hook-ups. Pew Research Group has found the number of people seeking a life partner has declined significantly. In 2006, Pew found that 55 percent of single Americans were not in a committed relationship, nor were they looking for one. But numbers can only give us so much insight. They can’t explain why people are moving away from the long-term.

It doesn’t mean people have abandoned love, or the desire to be loved by someone. Rather, we’ve come to realize as our lives become increasingly busy and more is demanded of us, we can’t give a relationship what we or our partners deserve.

We’re not dismissing love, but love doesn’t fit into our Google calendars — it comes second to what is essential to our survival in a competitive world.

Walking away from my sinking relationship, I’m also walking away from a part of me I realize I’ve needed to abandon for some time now: I can’t demand it all, I can’t expect everything, and it’s really okay that I’ve not yet mastered juggling midterms and rent payments.

Maybe I never will. Maybe I will float around until someone demands I once again reevaluate my priorities and slow down my pace — but for now, I’m OK with being a student and a full-time adult. My life isn’t really structured to fit someone else in when I can barely take care of myself.

I haven’t come close to finding balance yet, and that’s OK. For now, I can remember to not only take time for myself, but time for the people who have proven they’re worthy of my affection.

We shouldn’t be looking over textbooks at 3 a.m. — we should be sleepy-eyed, whispering in the dark to the people who matter most to us. It’s all about balance, wherever we can find it.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Looking for Balance

Illustration by Christine Hipp

Valentine’s Day is coming up, meaning plenty of roses and kisses for all us single people to pretend we don’t notice.

But while a good old-fashioned box of See’s and an awkward first grope will be in the cards for many come Feb. 14, there exist some smaller, everyday means of showing affection — all made possible by the same computers and smartphones so often charged with robbing us of our ability to create new forms of intimacy.

Ignore the obvious ones like online dating or “liking” someone’s Facebook status — there are some a tad less blatant than that, and a little more personal. Revealing the person behind the online profile can be more intimate than any make-out session (do people actually use the term “make-out session,” or is that just something I read once in Seventeen?).

The modern-day Holy Trinity of Netflix, Gmail and smartphones is a good place to start.

More than movies

“It’s what you like, not what you are like, that counts,” writes prolific critic and novelist Nick Hornby in “High Fidelity.”

Bearing that in mind, there are few symbols of trust better than letting a significant other (be they platonic or romantic) use your Netflix account on his or her computer. It means you don’t care if they know you’re currently at an enthralling part in “Gossip Girl” and gave up on “Breaking Bad” midway through the second season. It means you wouldn’t mind seeing their own tastes reflected in whatever the Netflix robots recommend to you. It even comes down to something purely monetary, because it means you want them enjoying what you’re paying for.

Let’s face it: Friends and lovers can get by on chemistry and consideration for only so long. After the honeymoon phase has come and gone, if you aren’t Netflix-compatible, then it’s best to stop wasting your damn time.

Like email, only more annoying

Intimacy can also be built on Gchat, Gmail’s instant messaging service. Imagine yourself in an office or library, trying to finish an important essay. You check your email because you sent yourself some useful links, and all of a sudden a text box pops up at the bottom right corner of your screen.

“ugh, worst party ever last nite! are you busy? wanna get burritos???”

Whether or not you respond depends entirely on how much you like the person, or at least on how much you like burritos. Think about it — chances are, there are only a handful of friends you’d bother when they could ostensibly be replying to some crucial email, and whom you’d let do the same to you. Facebook is where people go to goof off and procrastinate, but talking to someone when they’re logged into email implies a higher comfort level.

Texting without the text

One of the most gratifying feelings of all is when you know you’re close enough with a friend or a more-than-friend that you can be nonsensical around the person. The pretense of logic is no longer needed, and you can relax into your subconscious. Emoticons are that feeling on a screen. Whether through texting or on the Internet, there’s no doubt that “:0” or “=P” aren’t the sort of things you just give out to any old creep. And if you do, shame on you, you emotional slut.

At the risk of getting into elitist territory, smartphones have the best emoticons. There are downloadable apps with hundreds of different intricate and ridiculous symbols you can send to people, turning many into Dadaists. What does a picture of Santa Claus next to a picture of a bomb mean? Probably nothing, except that you don’t mind someone else knowing what a freak you are.

And when you get down to it, isn’t that what Valentine’s Day is all about? What’s weirder than spontaneously turning into a lovesick fool because of what the calendar says? The joy of having loved ones isn’t in the exclusivity, but in the confirmation that you aren’t alone, no matter how strange. Anything that reminds us of that — technology included — is worth celebrating.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Be Mine, Online

This is National Signing Day, when athletes make an early agreement to attend a school of their choice — a day that UC Santa Cruz has never taken part in.

UCSC is alone in this practice, as it is the only UC with no early admission policy for athletes. Whereas other schools allow athletes to commit early and arrive at school before their freshmen peers, UCSC will not even submit early evaluations toward incoming athletes. Even if you’ve been recruited and have made a commitment to UCSC, you still have no idea whether you can actually attend the university.

It’s clear those who make admissions decisions value talent in our students. We should recognize talented people have special needs with regard to admission.

These students cannot wait to make these decisions when they are actively being recruited by other universities. Our athletes receive considerable attention from diverse schools like the University of Chicago, Harvard and UC San Diego. For UCSC to build winning programs with the best student athletes available, simply making these prospective students wait until the normal admission date greatly affects their ability and desire to join the Banana Slugs.

And worse, should these students elect to pass on a scholarship from another school to instead to plan on attending UCSC and not get in, their parents often have to pay to get their child on a new team, frantically searching for any junior college or college with an open roster spot for the next year. It’s simply unfair to the athletes and their parents. And it shouldn’t happen, as UCSC has already spent money to find these athletes.

Around 80 percent of Division III schools are small private schools. These schools have an average population of 2,500, with 20 to 60 percent of the student body playing one sport or another. It’s with these universities that our coaches compete for athletes. These small schools are allowed to admit students in November, or give out full-ride scholarships for their athletes, while UCSC continues to beat around the bush.

This only adds to each coach’s workload. By forcing our coaches to continue recruiting long after their peers, the university makes each coach put in additional working hours, which could be spent winning games and making progress with their players.

Though many administrators believe an early admissions policy will begin a flood of proposals to give other groups the same consideration, it’s worth noting that many other universities already successfully employ this policy.

It’s simple for UCSC to issue early reports to athletes. With a basic early evaluation, we can keep athletes our coaches recruit, and reassure their parents. Many schools, even Division III, have one person on staff dedicated solely to athlete admissions. UCSC seems to be behind the trend.

UCSC’s move towards a holistic review admissions policy will be positive in assessing context in which a student succeeds. But this move is not enough for our athletes. The faculty needs to be amenable to proposals regarding early evaluations of athletes.

Many of our athletes feel UCSC is not a sports school, but our athletes continue to perform excellently. If we intend to continue our recent run of NCAA success, then we must become like every other Division III school or UC. Let’s have National Signing Day next year at UCSC.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at UCSC Needs National Signing Day

Illustration by Jamie Morton.

Twitter announced last week in its blog post, “Tweets still must flow,” that it will begin censoring its users’ tweets on a country-by-country basis, which in a way is contradictory.

The announcement means that, at the request of United States law enforcement officials, the company will delete any post from the eyes of viewers in a specific country, leaving those posts available to other countries.

Before this controversial move, content on Twitter could still be censored, but the censored information or tweets would be erased completely and disappear worldwide.

Some may see the step to censor individual countries from others as a liberating one because it doesn’t completely erase the censored tweets, but that would be misguided.Twitter will be setting a bad precedent if it continues, as an extension of the U.S. government or otherwise, to censor information. Twitter is a tool that has brought about revolutions, but it is becoming more and more subject to the hand of government rather than serving as a platform for freedom of speech.

For an American-based company, freedom of speech should always apply, even if the majority of users are outside the United States.

Some say the Internet cannot and should not be entirely free and open, and applaud Twitter’s announcement. This opinion comes most forcefully from the countries of Thailand and China, which both censor their citizens. China’s state-run newspaper, Global Times, published an editorial in the wake of Twitter’s announcement written by Xu Ming that states, “It is impossible to have boundless freedom, even on the Internet and even in countries that make freedom their main selling point.”

This is not true for Twitter. If the company wants to survive, grow and remain accessible to all people across the world, it needs to step back from censorship.

But it is true Twitter wants to look out for its financial standing. This is evident in the case of J.P. Morgan. Twitter failed to mark J.P Morgan’s Twitter feed as trending when it was being targeted by Occupy Wall Street last year, and in so doing, effectively cut other Twitter users off from important information. The explanation: J.P. Morgan is a major shareholder in Twitter.

As a newspaper that uses Twitter, we can say that censorship in any form inhibits our business and our freedom, as well as that of our readers. Neither Twitter nor the United States government has any business hindering freedom of information.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Twitter Announces Censorship Plan

Illustration by Christine Hipp

Between the 32 percent fee hike in 2009 and the annual ritual of slashing curricula, there’s been plenty for UC students to be upset about. What does it mean when every UC Board of Regents meeting for the last decade has been met with the hoarse cries of an ignored student body?

The Occupy movement that swept the the nation last fall was a similar catalyst for mobilization. An uproarious — and more importantly, awakened — student body discovered just how far the UC administration was willing to go to keep its status quo in check. Helping hands were cuffed, defiant faces were pepper-sprayed, and a number of students were hospitalized. The administration’s message was clear: Where there’s a will, there won’t be any way but theirs.

But the attempts of the UC to regulate students who would defy them are patently inane. We cannot be rounded up and pushed along like rats in a maze.

The most recent effort to suppress student voice manifested itself at the UC Riverside campus in December. In response to student protests, the dean of UCR handed down guidelines for demonstration. This slap to the collective student face was met with outrage.  Overlooking clear violations of First Amendment rights, the protocol was demeaning to students, and treated them like children.

To be in compliance with those guidelines, UCR student demonstrators would need faculty chaperones, they could not carry stick-borne signs, and designated protesting areas were strictly enforced. While the UCR dean was swift in removing these guidelines in response to public outcry, the post in its original form is still available for view on a Say No to UCR Protest Guidelines online petition.

The dean’s response has been to form a task force on assembly guidelines. Yet the task force, composed mostly of administration officials, has proven to be a less-than-welcome response. In their first meeting, task force member Stephen Lee’s comments belittled student protesters.

“In a sense, administrators closely resemble the role of parents while students closely resemble the role of children,” Lee said.

UCR is not alone. UCLA, UC Berkeley and other UC campuses have similar policies in place barring students from disrupting the day-to-day affairs of their respective campuses. While one UC Davis fact sheet on protests refers to such activity as “the lifeblood of a successful university community,” the strict enforcement of UC policies has made it clear that business-as-usual comes first.

UC students are not children. They are old enough to choose to bury themselves in student loan debt, and they are old enough to express their opinions without hand-holding guidelines. In fact, there is one childhood lesson administrators themselves could stand to learn: Treat others as you wish to be treated. In the future, administrators should show students the same respect they demand of us.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at We, the Students

Illustration by Amanda Alten

As students and their families struggle to pay ever-increasing tuition costs, UC executives watch their wallets bloat. While university executives are granting themselves and their peers larger paychecks, students are pouring money into a system that cannot even guarantee them access to classes, professors and teaching assistants.

But a new piece of legislation, authored by California State Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco), aims to address such financial irresponsibility by restricting UC and CSU executives from receiving pay increases in years of tuition hikes or state budget cuts.

Such legislation could not have come at a more appropriate time — 12 UC administrators and attorneys received salary increases in December, ranging from 6.4 percent to 23 percent — but it is only a glimmer of hope.

While CSU executives would legally be bound by the bill if it passed, the UC would not be forced to comply, according to reports from The Daily Californian, UC Berkeley’s student-run paper. The UC is outside the control of the state legislator, so the bill serves as more of a suggestion than a rule.

Respecting the UC’s autonomy — because this isn’t a question of whether or not the UC should be autonomous, though Yee has previously attempted to bring the system under the state legislature — it is nonetheless important that the UC follow the guidelines laid out by the bill if it is passed into law.

This is a question of fairness: Is it fair that students watch the accessibility and diversity of their education dwindle while executives grant themselves unnecessary (and arguably undeserved) compensation?

December’s salary increases have been justified by the regents.

“UC President Mark G. Yudof and other UC leaders defended the raises, saying even during an economic crisis the 10-campus university system with 180,000 employees needs to retain and recruit top staff and faculty,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

But such an argument seems arbitrary when students do not even have access to such “top staff and faculty” because they cannot enroll in their already overcrowded classes. Furthermore, when UC representatives necessitate pay increases to continue recruiting such grade-A faculty and staff, they indirectly spin such decisions as ones made for the good of the student body.

It is hard to understand how executives’ already engorged pay will benefit the students, many of whom work multiple jobs just to scrape by while attending university.

If Leland’s bill passes, executives at the UC should adhere to its guidelines and prioritize students — and prioritize them in a way that doesn’t manifest itself in growing six-figure salaries.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Do the Right Thing: Considering Budget Realities

Illustration by Jamie Morton

In this issue’s column, I really wanted to try and write a piece critical of UC student activism— and then the regents went and did something stupid again.

It’s gotten to the point where you can set your calendars by campus protests — there are always a big showings in September, November and March. Recent campus graffiti (the “FUCK TUITION” on the side of McHenry Library and “OCCUPY MY SCHOOL” on the side of the freshly painted Digital Arts Research Center (DARC) seems to be regressing the movement almost to a state of self-parody. Spray paint against a wall, see what sticks.

Activism on campus never felt more like a well-executed play without a climax than during the Hahn Student Services occupation in November. Early in the day, students listened to the teleconferenced regents’ meeting on a laptop. Applause broke out periodically during the public comment portion, but as soon as the regents started speaking, someone snapped the laptop shut — a gesture full of great theatricality, but a disappointment to anyone hoping to learn something about the UC’s future.

How surely history repeats itself. In her 1979 book “The White Album,” essayist Joan Didion writes about her impressions of student activism at San Francisco State University in the 1960s:

“As I walked across the campus that day and on later days the entire San Francisco State dilemma — the gradual politicization, the ‘issues’ here and there, the obligatory ‘Fifteen Demands,’ the continual arousal of the police and the outraged citizenry — seemed increasingly off-key, an instance of the enfants terribles and the Board of Trustees unconsciously collaborating on a wishful fantasy (Revolution on Campus) and playing it out for the six o’clock news.”

That “unconscious collaboration” Didion writes of has been palpable in the UC system for quite a while now. The regents have scheduled and canceled and rescheduled meetings and visits, playing the part of tone-deaf
bureaucrats. Students responded in kind. As appalling as the now-infamous footage of a campus police officer pepper-spraying UC Davis students last year is, it ultimately proved to be a favor to the student activist movement, fueling its fire and lending it many new supporters, at least temporarily. At the end of the day, none of this amounted to much. Until now.

In a cringe-worthy twist, the regents are organizing their own rally. The May regents’ meeting will be held in Sacramento, with one full day dedicated to rallying at the Capitol in an attempt to pressure the California government into giving the UC more money. Never mind that the growth in tuition does not at all mirror the decline in public funding, nor that there are over 3,000 people in the UC system who make over $200,000, nor that the UC chooses to keep spending money on construction projects over education — UC president Yudof and his cohorts are mad as hell, and apparently they’re not going to take it anymore.

The UC student regents are already trying to involve students in this rally, and it will be interesting, to say the least, to see who shows up. What’s even more interesting at this point is the farcical nature the UC’s decline has taken on. The May rally is a brilliant piece of political theater — deflect, deflect, deflect — but it also symbolizes a sort of throwing in the towel on the regents’ part. Anything they do is going to infuriate the student body at this point, so why not go out on a limb and try to redirect our wrath?

Which brings us back to “FUCK TUITION.” As much as I want to reprimand our more activism-inclined peers for their sloppiness, I cannot in good faith write a piece putting them in the same category as the regents.The UC student movement is flawed and often too predictable, but they have something the regents do not — the best interest of the students at heart. I hope there’s a huge turnout out in Sacramento in May, and that they’re all carrying signs that say “FUCK THE REGENTS.”

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at A Rally of Their Own

UC President Mark Yudof recently announced the UC’s plan to ban the use of tobacco products on all 10 UC campuses over the next two years, and although we recognize the obvious benefits of such a decision, it is ultimately neither feasible nor fair.

The second part of Yudof’s plan — to also ban the sale and advertisement of tobacco products on campus — deserves praise and should be enacted. UC Santa Cruz already implements this policy, as do several other UC campuses, and it makes sense that the university actively discourages students from smoking. But trying to prevent legal adults from using legal substances is going too far.

It would be a wonderful thing if everyone chose not to smoke on campus. The Santa Cruz air would be even more crisp, health risks would go down, and cigarette butts wouldn’t litter the forest and sidewalks. But we don’t live in an ideal world, and the fact is that for the foreseeable future, some portion of the student body and faculty are going to smoke cigarettes. To assume that they will not smoke on campus — where they’re not only attending classes, but also socializing, working out, eating and often living — is a bit too hopeful. Making this a reality would be especially difficult in Santa Cruz, where the terrain makes it impossible to simply step off campus for a quick smoke in between classes.

To gauge the potential efficacy of a smoking ban on campus, just take a moment to consider how often people engage in using other illicit substances on campus and aren’t caught. Would banning cigarettes really make people stop using them — or would it only cause them to light up inside a dorm room or bathroom, where it would be more hazardous?

A better strategy the university could use would be to better mark and regulate smoking and no-smoking zones on campus. They exist now, but few consequences meet those who bend the rules beyond being told to put out the cigarette. Since TAPS has recently beefed up its parking surveillance, perhaps tickets could also be given for those who don’t comply with smoking rules. Under Assembly Bill 795, signed by by Gov. Brown in November 2011, the UC has the right to to enforce state, local and system-wide smoking and tobacco laws, regulations and policies by issuing fines. Enforcing regulations would achieve the same goal of cutting down the risk of secondhand smoke, but in a more cooperative way.

College students are notorious for two things — experimenting and bending the rules. As the Los Angeles Times pointed out, binge drinking is still a huge problem on college campuses. Only 8 percent of UC students smoke cigarettes, but some studies cite as many as half of all college students as binge drinkers. Keeping that in mind, perhaps it would be best for Yudof to more wisely pick his battles.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at The Ash in Yudof’s Plan

Illustration by Christine Hipp

2012 is still a newborn baby. The beginning of January is the perfect opportunity to embrace the present, and the way to do it just might be appreciating the past.

It’s hard to say whether the patrons of Santa Cruz’s movie theaters were searching for the future or yearning for the past over the winter holidays. They came out to see the latest in film technology, but the movies told a different story. The Del Mar and Nickelodeon theaters just made the inevitable switch from film projectors to digital, a move that will soon be necessary for all theaters that want to keep showing new releases. The picture quality on the new projectors is crystal-clear, but some of the stories they’re showing are a bit hazy with memory. Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo” is a tribute to pioneer filmmaker Georges Melies, while “The Artist” imitates and takes a fictional look back on the silent film era.

What these films suggest, at a glance, is the film industry’s creativity failing to keep up with its technology. That Scorsese’s first 3D film is about the “good old days” of cinema could be interpreted as stubborn defiance, and “The Artist,” an exact replication of 1930s-era silent film, seems downright gimmicky.

To some extent, that reading is correct. The appeal for both “Hugo” and “The Artist” definitely has to do with taking advantage of the erroneous axiom that older is better. The current fashion in popular culture is to be anything but current, so aligning with Hollywood’s Golden Age was a smart move for these pictures, measured both in ticket sales and award nominations. I even heard “Hugo” described as “3D for people who appreciate good movies,” as if “3D” and “good” were two previously separate entities.

But it’s difficult to yearn for the past when the past is all around us. In addition to these movies, there are multiple blogs on Tumblr related to nostalgia, with the 1990s being the newest and most popular decade to be inducted into the hall of memories. To that end, “Titanic” will enjoy another theatrical release later this year, but this time we’ll get to see the iceberg in 3D. iPhone apps exist that will turn photos into instantly-faded Polaroid-esque memories.

What’s ironic is the more technological advancements we make, the more we take advantage of them as tools of nostalgia, and perhaps this defines our time more than anything else — the ability to appreciate present comforts and past novelties simultaneously. There’s nothing old-fashioned about donning a pair of two-toned space specs to sit in a dark room and watch digital illusions jump out at you, even if you are watching a movie about the dawn of the film age.

“Hugo” and “The Artist” seem to inherently understand this, and that is why they’re both thoroughly modern films. Mentioned in “Hugo” is the old tale of the audience who, while watching one of the first-ever movies of a train riding down a track, became frightened that the train was real and about to crash into the building. Later in the movie, Scorsese makes great use of 3D in a train scene of his own. The message is clear: the audience is taking part in the next frontier of cinema. 3D probably won’t ever be used for every single film, and there’s plenty of 3D drivel out right now. But used artfully as it is in “Hugo,” it’s revolutionary.

“The Artist” has a similar revealing moment at the end. A silent movie actor who has spent the entire film pushing back against the success of talkies finally gives in and stars in one, and in the final minute of the film, sound comes on, and you can hear the actors’ voices for the first time. It’s a brilliant way to honor the past and appreciate the present.

Our time may be forever remembered as a rut of nostalgia. But I prefer to think of it as the time when technology became so advanced and so pervasive that people don’t have to choose among the present, past and future. We’re in our own Golden Age.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Remembering to Stay Current

Illustration by Christine Hipp

 Editor’s Note: This editorial opinion originally ran in the print and online editions of City on a Hill Press under the headline “Rain Dance Required.” Upon further reflection, the City on a Hill Press editorial board has decided the original title was not appropriate to the piece, and could potentially be offensive to our readers. City on a Hill Press apologizes for this oversight, and would be happy to hear and publish readers’ thoughts or concerns, which can be sent to letters@cityonahillpress.com.

Despite the appeal of the mid-winter summer, where Santa Cruzans can play beach volleyball in bathing suits and make Panther Beach an off-season destination as well, Californians should think about the implications of the absence of rain.

The unseasonably lovely weather and drought go hand in hand. In an area like Santa Cruz, which relies almost entirely on reservoirs, lack of rainfall means lack of replenishment for our water source.

In years like this one, when precipitation levels are not where they need to be this late in the season, rainfall will catch up over a shorter period of time. While this looks good on paper — because yearly rainfall averages are almost reached — it does not mean that drought woes are mitigated. When rainfall occurs in violent spurts, the reservoirs and watersheds that need replenishing cannot retain the water, leaving those who depend on them still in threat of drought.

The dry year is not exclusively a concern for the Santa Cruz area; the lack of rain is plaguing the entire state. According to the U.S. drought monitor, numerous regions of California are experiencing D0 (abnormally dry) conditions and the dryness is greatly impacting areas vital to water provision.

“California’s key watershed and agricultural areas received little or no precipitation,” the report stated.

Despite this fact, the report assured that reservoir storage is not yet a concern for California, because there is still more winter to come and the reservoirs and snow melt have a chance yet to build back up.

D0 and D1 (moderate drought) conditions characterize regions in California and similarly, locations such as Salinas and Fresno set December records for dryness.

“Not a single drop of precipitation fell in Eureka, Nevada, and Fresno during December for the first time since 1989,” the U.S. Drought Monitor reported. “Reno experienced its first completely dry December since 1883.”

In their first survey of the season, which occurred at the beginning of January, the Department of Water Resources reported “snowpack water content throughout the Sierra at 19 percent of the average for early January,” as reported in a San Francisco Chronicle article.

One-third of California’s water supply is provided through snowfall.

Apparently water managers are not panicking yet, as department director Mark Cowin stated that “most the winter is ahead of us.”

Maybe inciting panic in California is not the best idea, but state residents should be aware of the actual implications of dry years like this.

When the department puts ear muffs on Californians, sparing them from the harsh realities that tough dry years leave us with, it keeps state residents blissfully wasteful and dangerously ignorant to facts that dramatically impact our lives.

The impacts on water provision could unequivocally would be better mitigated with better water conservation throughout the state, and that needs to begin with a more honest rendition of the state of California water supply.

Santa Cruz city residents use 66 gallons of water per person per day. Compared to the 150 gallons used per person per day statewide, it’s the lowest per capita use in California. If the entire state could make changes to get closer to that figure, we would be insuring a more sustainable future in the face of widespread drought.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at A “Rain Check” for Winter Weather in Santa Cruz

Illustration by Louise Leong.

Student-driven education is a laudable effort. It’s one of the most encouraging aspects of university life. When a group of ambitious individuals decide to act on their shared backgrounds and interests, like in the case of the Filipino Student Association’s (FSA) Pilipino Historical Dialogues (PHD) 5-unit program, the university’s ability to gather bright and engaged people in one place shines through.

But the burden of something as comprehensive and necessary as ethnic studies and its related programs shouldn’t be relegated to students alone. The university should embrace the idea of meeting students halfway, and with regard to ethnic studies, UC Santa Cruz can do more.

The PHD program has been operated by elected student leaders from the FSA for roughly 10 years, and remains one of the few ethnic studies courses available to students at UCSC at this time. Ethnic studies at UCSC has a long and embattled history, and — much to the chagrin of students — it has amounted to more losses than victories. While areas of concentration like Jewish studies, Latin American and Latino studies. and the more recent Sikh and Punjabi studies programs are steps in the right direction, the fact remains that UCSC has not provided a comprehensive set of ethnic studies options for its students despite strident demands from the student body.

To be clear: the PHD program does an admirable job of providing a fertile environment for those who know about the 5-unit independent study course. The problem is one of scale. Students can only support so many of their brethren, and that’s where the university needs to step in. Only they can answer the very real need for a large-scale program that would teach students about ethnicity as a very tangible and delicate subject, while fulfilling their responsibility to students as educators. Graffiti bearing hateful messages on the UCSC campus has become almost commonplace, and it’s that sort of routine hatred and banality that ethnic studies would help address. That’s not to say it’s a panacea in any sense, but the fact remains that UC Santa Cruz is one of the only campuses in the UC system that doesn’t have an ethnic studies major.

The ethnic studies major has a long history, which is why it’s strange a socially progressive campus like UCSC would have to fight so hard for it to come to fruition. It’s clear that the UC has money problems. It’s disheartening that community studies and American studies majors are scrambling to get what they came for before the lights in their classrooms go dark. Still, ethnic studies is something that lets people understand each other and see them as something more than a preconception — that doesn’t seem like an optional program for a progressive university. The university is taking steps to further ethnic studies at UCSC, but they need to do more. Perhaps student-led classes could even be part of the major or program. It just can’t be the only part.

In 1981, the Third World and Native American Student Coalition (TWANAS) staged a hunger strike in protest of the university’s lack of an ethnic studies major. It’s a stretch to think they did that just to have an easier elective option. In a world where multiculturalism is the norm, ethnic studies approaches something of a moral responsibility. It’s not a responsibility that students ought to have to bear alone.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Time To Study Ethnic Studies

Dear Friends at the UCSC Alumni Association and at UC:

Recently you have called me to renew my contributions to UCSC.

I cannot in good conscience contribute to any University of California charity while the present situation continues.

I am a proud graduate of the University of California. Today some of my close friends are professors at various campuses; others are staff members at UCSC.

Today I am absolutely shaken, shocked and ashamed of the University. If I were a student today, it would have been me they were pepper spraying.

When I was at UC there were protests over the apartheid regime in South Africa, among other issues.  Students erected encampments to show the bantustans forced on the black population by that racist government. Would campus adminstrations have used pepper spray to break up these encampments? I would have been unthinkable.

To use pepper spray, which is outlawed by international conventions for use in warfare, on citizens nonviolently expressing their rights to dissent is despicable. Such police state tactics have no place in a democracy.

Those responsible for outrageous police brutality, up to and including the chancellors, should be dismissed.

Most sincerely yours,
Jeremy Grainger
Cowell College, UCSC, 1980
BA Women’s Studies 1980

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Letter to the Editor: Police Brutality Has No Place at UC

Illustration by Louise Leong.

Those involved with or sympathetic to the Occupy Wall Street cause might think that Black Friday represents everything they loathe — greed, mindless consumerism and corporate monopolies. But for Black Friday shoppers, the sales mean something entirely different. They mean equal footing.

It was a comparison begging to be drawn, a contradiction pleading to be exposed. This year’s Black Friday drew mobs, riots and even pepper-spraying — much of what the Occupy movement has come to be known for in popular media. And yet these two groups were fighting for such seemingly different causes and with different tactics. What Occupy wants, in a nutshell, is a political and financial overhaul in this country, as well as the right to protest peacefully in public space. All Black Friday shoppers wanted was a new Xbox. Black Friday shoppers broke out the pepper spray, while Occupy demonstraters had pepper spray used against them.

But even if they’re fighting for vastly different things, their fervor comes from the same place: the desire for justice.

The myth of the American Dream has been dead for a while. When the stock market crashed in 2008, its downward momentum managed to hammer the nails into that coffin. For many Americans, it doesn’t matter how hard they work, or how committed they are to finding a job — there’s still a chance they won’t be able to provide for themselves or their families. There’s still a chance their kids won’t get the top item on their Christmas lists. And it’s all because of the selfishness and irresponsibility of people at the top.

But on Black Friday, or as I like to call it, Occupy Sales Rack, there is an odd sense of fairness. Insane deals don’t go to people because of what families they were born into or what schools accepted them, but because of how hard they are willing to work, even if it means camping out three days before Thanksgiving or creating a 24-hour itinerary of different stores to hit up. Not everyone succeeds, but everyone has the chance to.

That sounds awfully similar to the type of society the United States erroneously prides itself in being, as well as to the demands Occupy Wall Street protesters make. Black Friday may financially support Wall Street, but ideologically, it has a little more of a progressive bent.

And not to be ignored are the deeper implications of deal-hunting. The excitement of buying something on sale is essentially the thrill of knowing that there is justice, because a discount tag is nothing more than the store admitting an item is worth less than they originally tried to pass it off as. Trying to cheat someone out of a few extra dollars isn’t going to work — at least not this time.

That is the joyful mania of Black Friday, the satisfaction that comes with cheating corporations out of a few bucks. It’s also the reason shows like “Extreme Couponing” exist — it’s alluringly subversive to watch a shopper somehow manage to not pay for $200 worth of groceries, and sometimes even get cash back.

There’s one thing almost all Americans can agree on these days, and it’s that something in the system doesn’t quite add up. From the Tea Party to Occupy, and for everyone somewhere in between left scratching their heads, discontentment is the new consensus. And everyone has their own form of resistance.

The main difference between Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Sales Rack is the former works outside of the corrupted system, while the latter works within it — indisputably supporting it in the process.

But that doesn’t mean it’s wise for protesters to scoff at or belittle deal-seekers. Because for all their faults, Occupy Sales Rack is just a group of people doing what they can to better their lives and find justice amid a sea of contradictions. Which sounds a lot like how one might describe Occupy Wall Street.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Shopping It to the Man

Illustration by Matt Boblet.

Have you ever recorded a cover of a Lady Gaga song and published it on YouTube, captioned a “Downfall” (aka “Hitler Reacts To”) video, or created a Harry Potter-related meme?

If Texas Rep. Lamar Smith (R-San Antonio) has his way, you will be considered a criminal.

If it sounds too ludicrous to be true, think again. The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which was proposed by Smith in the House of Representatives in October, would make it a felony to stream copyrighted work that would cost more than $2,500 to license. This means the average college student posting memes for noncommercial purposes could face a five-year jail sentence if convicted.

While it is understandable on the surface that the federal government would want to combat online piracy, doing so through these overbearing means would hurt their cause more than help it. Not only would it affect persons who may post copyrighted content for purely entertainment purposes, but it would also negatively impact the many people who view these videos and images every day. It would undermine an entire cultural current, interfere with our right to free speech, and, as opponents to this bill have stated, break the Internet.

The demise of free music-sharing corporations like Napster shows big business and politicians alike consider piracy a significant problem. Forty billion music files (or 95 percent of worldwide music downloads) were shared illegally in 2008, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. Still, there’s a big difference between someone who downloads hundreds of songs illegally and two friends lip-synching to their favorite Britney Spears hit.

SOPA doesn’t acknowledge this obvious distinction, however. It would allow copyright owners to ask banks and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to shut down websites that contain pirated content and block funds for that company if they don’t remove said content within a five-day period. That means some of the most popular websites — like YouTube, Facebook and eBay — could be at risk if this bill were to pass. Those companies and six others wrote a letter to the Committee on the Judiciary to voice their concerns about SOPA, citing that the bill poses threats to job creation and cybersecurity if passed.

Consider the trickle-down effect it would have on consumers if websites from AOL to Zynga were forced to restrict material for fear of lawsuit. By default, the government would be restricting content published by news entities and average citizens alike, thereby interfering with two different sections of the First Amendment in one fell swoop.

This bill should not be passed as currently constructed and should be rewritten to only include those who are infringing copyright laws for truly malevolent purposes, like selling counterfeit medicine, an example that has been cited with this bill. In the meantime, taking the old-fashioned “write your representative” approach by signing the “Stop the E-Parasite Act” petition would be a good place to start.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at I Cannot Haz Cheezburger?

Illustration by Christine Hipp.

The trouble with mobilizing the 99 percent is the “few bad apples” syndrome.

Just over two years ago, UC Santa Cruz students rallied, bearing signs asking students to “raise hell” over the 32.5 percent fee increase voted on by the UC Board of Regents. On Nov. 19, 2009, approximately 150 students occupied Kerr Hall, eventually barricading themselves inside in protest. When police raided the building and removed the student occupiers, UCSC faculty and students alike were aghast at the reported cost of damage to the facility: nearly $35,000 — an arbitrary and  perhaps conflated amount — was charged to 35 students.

The Kerr Hall incident marked a peak in a brief series of occupations fueled by student angst, administrative indifference, and to some extent, a sense of abandon. An earlier occupation of the Graduate Student Commons had mixed results. Similar to the Kerr Hall occupation, four students were charged with $532 a piece for damages incurred.

While the protest itself was a testament to UCSC student activism, former Executive Vice Chancellor Dave Kliger pointed out in a 2009 email the drawbacks to occupations:

“Unfortunately, occupying buildings — a library last week, an administrative building this week — does little more than divert precious resources while denying others their rightful access to campus facilities and services,” he wrote.

As students, we all feel the brunt of the blow when fees get hiked up and cuts come down. Student movements like these and subsequent occupations should and have drawn attention to these facts. When instances of vandalism occur, it detracts from the overall sincerity and effectiveness of what is trying to be accomplished because it validates skeptics’ criticisms. Simply put, it distracts from the message. We would like to commend the students who occupied Hahn Student Business Services Center for recognizing this.

The Nov. 28 occupation is particularly praiseworthy for seizing control of the administration’s workday while simultaneously being considerate of the student body at large.

As the occupation’s media relations spokesperson, third-year Adam White described the occupation as “really organized” and “very civil compared to Kerr Hall.”

“We all made an agreement that we weren’t going to fuck shit up,” White said.

The Hahn building is both one of the best and worst places for the Occupy movement to have taken place. In solidarity with UC Davis occupiers, the UCSC student body shut down the campus bank. Yet the building also houses other critical resources, including the Disability Resource Center and the Student Financial Aid Office.

But by clearing out of their occupation Tuesday morning, the occupiers show that they remain mindful of the student body at large.

This latest occupation proved student activism will not be a rope for the administration to hang us with. It is about showing students care about student issues, and we’re not going to pay for it.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Effective Occupying

While I greatly support holding Student Governments accountable, as was stated in the 11/17 Editorial “SUA Mismanaged Funds”, [retitled "Students Must Stay Informed About SUA Decisions"] I wanted to address a gross inaccuracy within that editorial.

The ReFund California campaign is a statewide coalition of many organizations, including a number of Unions.  A statewide Day of Action on November 16 was organized by this full coalition, which includes both UCSA as well as UAW 2865, the UC TA Union.  The UAW had already chartered multiple busses for this event before engaging the
UCSC Student Governments, asking for our support in filling the busses with people, not with funding them.  The sentiment that TAs “picked up the slack” from the SUA is flat out incorrect. The editors should be
applauding the SUA for not spending money on something that was already funded, and instead working with the ReFund California campaign on filling the spots on the already-chartered busses.

While I greatly appreciate the recognition of the work of TAs on campus and in campus organizing, pitting the Union against the SUA is not a worthwhile or effective strategy for either of our organizations, and I think the Editorial Board should be ashamed for engaging in such tactics.

- Erik Green, President, UCSC Graduate Student Association, and Member, UAW Local 2865

Editor’s Note: The editorial to which this letter refers, “Students Must Stay Informed About SUA Decisions,” has been amended  in response to concerns expressed by readers. Some of the details mentioned in this letter are no longer included in the online version of the Nov. 17 editorial.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Letter to the Editor: SUA Editorial

Illustration by Christine Hipp

UC Santa Cruz’s Student Union Assembly (SUA) has made strides in representing students on campus in the University of California Student Association and the United States Student Association. While City on a Hill Press applauds the efforts of SUA members, many of whom struggle in their positions with problems inherited from those who previously held their positions, it is important to pay attention to the actions of the representatives and ensure student money is being used responsibly and effectively.

Third-year Justin Riordan serves as Kresge parliamentarian, and on Oct. 31 submitted a report on the operations of the SUA. Riordan has found areas that seem like appropriate places for budget cuts.

In a letter to City on a Hill Press, Riordan said he presented an alternative budget to the SUA that had no cuts from conferences, save the Grassroots Legislative Conference (LegCon) in DC, and instead made up the cuts in Officer Programing.

“I did and do advocate for cutting from LegCon because of the expense per student required of this particular conference. Which was correctly identified as about $1000 per student,” he said. “These conferences are one of the direct and tangible things the SUA does for the Student Body and I encourage all student to apply to them, as they are open to all students and not just members of the SUA, [and] as they are amazing opportunities.”

Another aspect of the budget that has received much attention from the campus community has been the $5,000 used to purchase “B” parking permits for officers. Sources note there has been considerable opposition to ending the purchasing of the permits for officers, which are not guaranteed as compensation in the SUA’s documentation.

Without explanation, this kind of spending can be interpreted as a sign the representatives hold themselves above the students they represent. When the majority of UCSC students utilize campus and Metro buses to get around campus, such a large sum being spent on these permits seems unnecessary.

However, whether or not students agree with these decisions, it is important to stay informed — students should ask questions about where their money is being spent, and know the reasons purchases are made. It is important to note that the campus community must charge themselves with closely monitoring SUA representatives’ spending, and take action against projects they do not feel are in the best interest of the student body. In the current uncertain climate of the UC, it is more important now than ever that all students are communicating and working together to protect their right to their education.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Students Must Stay Informed About SUA Decisions

In 2003, at UCSC 90.74 percent of voting students made a monumental decision to pass Measure 7, the Campus Programs Fee, in an effort to preserve valuable student services cut by the state, students agreed to levy a tax of up to $51 per student per quarter. At the time an overwhelming majority of students believed the University’s and the State’s budget would equalize and the state would restore funding to the University. As every student today knows, this never happened. Today Measure 7 is the life source for many students’ services, funding programming, staff salaries and benefits.

Eight years later, UCSC students now face another student services funding crisis. Measure 7 was not designed to permanently backfill state cuts to student services. Instead, the money was supposed to temporarily subsidize state cuts that would be eventually restored. Nevertheless, it has become a crucial component funding approximately fifty campus services, including some of the most recognizable units providing campus services. For example, the Resource Centers, the Educational Opportunity Programs (EOP), OPERS, SOAR, SHOP, etc. receives substantial Measure 7 funding to support staffing. As a result, Measure 7 is now in a deficit. Measure 7 does not generate enough revenue to fund programming and the increasing costs of salaries and benefits. As such, we must confront Measure 7’s devastating structural deficit. Without an increase or cost of living adjustment, the $51 per student per quarter will not cover the increasing costs of staff salaries and benefits that support student services. We, the Student Fee Advisory Committee (SFAC), have been consulted by administration in an attempt to resolve this major campus issue. As an advisory committee to the administration, we are confronted with a daunting challenge. One the one hand we do not want to return Measure 7 to the ballot to increase the fee amount, thus allowing UCSC students to fund this structural deficit. Nonetheless we must be faithful to the student’s desires for quality student services.

To successfully accomplish this goal, we must ask every UCSC student: are you willing to tax yourself more to fix this problem? If not where are we willing to cut?  In other words, is the student body willing to tax themselves more to preserve staffing for student services? To solicit feedback, SFAC now turns to City on the Hill Press. It is our hope that the publication of this letter will spark a conversation about student referenda and, more importantly, encourage every UCSC student to actively engage in the decision making process regarding funding of student services.

To voice your opinion on student services, send an email to: sfacmail@ucsc.edu.
For more information visit: http://www2.ucsc.edu/sfac/

Sincerely,
The Student Fee Advisory Committee

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Letter to the Editor: Is the Student Body Willing to Tax Themselves More to Preserve Staffing for Student Services?

Illustration by Louise Leong.

We owe a great deal to the men and women who make up the U.S. Armed forces. In a complete 180-degree turn from the public stance adopted during the Vietnam War, the rhetoric is now “Support our Troops.” It’s a shared recognition — whether or not one agrees with the presence the United States continues to have in Middle East — a kind of “love the warrior, not the war” ideology.

But that’s the easy part.

Financing our support requires walking down a much rockier road. It’s clear for many the current rate of defense spending is absolutely unsustainable, especially with the U.S. economy in as much trouble as it is. National defense makes up about 19 percent of the entire federal budget for the 2012 fiscal year, just behind social security (20 percent) and healthcare (22.6 percent).

In real terms, 19 percent year after year is an enormous amount. In 2006, U.S. military spending exceeded that of China, Russia, Britain and the next 12 countries combined. The 19 percent has bought the missiles, unmanned drones, ships and private contractors that “accomplished” our mission in Iraq in 2003, then officially “ended” it eight years later.

More importantly, however, the 19 percent also provides veterans their benefits and premiums in the form of Tricare — accessible only to those service members with 20 years of service or more — and other healthcare benefits through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

The Pentagon has recently been ordered to trim its budget over the next 10 years by $450 billion. Should the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (more colloquially referred to as the “Supercommittee”) fail to agree on a plan to cut the deficit by $1.2 trillion by Nov. 23, defense spending will take another hit of roughly $500 billion.

While the majority of what’s being considered for the Pentagon’s chopping block is its vast array of defense contracts, the benefits and support afforded to its uniformed personnel are also under consideration.

As proposed by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, additional fees to Tricare may have to be implemented and military retirement pay may ultimately be renegotiated.

This is unacceptable.

While the costs of providing healthcare to veterans has jumped from $19 billion (inflation-adjusted to $25 billion) to $53 billion over the last 10 years, these pale in comparison to the Pentagon’s defense contracts and misappropriated funds. If, for example, the Pentagon chose to cancel purchasing 2,400 new F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, nearly $400 billion alone would be saved.

And what of the veterans who have yet to claim their benefits? There are hundreds of thousands of combat veterans on the VA’s backlog waiting to qualify for Tricare. Over 500,000 veterans — some with missing limbs and others with post-traumatic stress disorder — continue to rely on aid and assistance provided by VA medical facilities. A study from Brown University projects the cost of care won’t even peak for another 30 to 40 years.

With Obama looking to end our military involvement in Iraq and reel in the number of active servicemen, the federal government needs to carefully consider how we will reappropriate military spending.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at What’s the Value of a Wounded Soldier?

Illustration by Christine Hipp.

Many students and their families are locked in an unforgiving system: borrowing from the government, banks and private institutions in order to fund a higher education that often doesn’t match the price tag. Students across the country are walking away with an average of $25,000 in debt, only to be left staring at a bleak job market and dwindling prospects for financial improvement.

In an effort to ease the pain of loan repayment, President Obama recently unveiled a loan forgiveness program that would allow qualified loan-holders to pay only 10 percent of their discretionary income — any income 150 percent above the poverty line — toward repayment, with remaining debt forgiven after 20 years. The concept is an extension of the “Pay As You Go” loan forgiveness programs currently in place. Previously, the program required graduates to pay 15 percent with loan forgiveness after 25 years.

The program also allows for consolidation of federal student loans and other federally subsidized private loans given out through programs like the now defunct Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP). Consolidation of such loans would result in an average half-percent interest rate decrease. A decrease that only puts a bandage on a situation that requires stitches.

But there is a catch — or two — to this new program: It would not be effective until 2012, loans taken prior to that will not qualify, and to qualify to participate in the program, you must have taken out at least one loan in 2012.

Furthermore, loans taken privately through banks, and not through a federal program like FFELP, will not benefit from consolidation and loan forgiveness programming.

Other legislation currently sitting in Congress now would further reevaluate — and hopefully change — the way student loan debt is addressed. For starters, student loan debt cannot be erased by claiming bankruptcy — unlike credit card debt, for example — and many students and their families are left paying off staggering five- to six-digit debts. Proposed legislation, if passed, could change that.

Despite these well-intentioned moves toward alleviating student debt, what the government is offering is only a taste of the kind of reform that needs to occur.

Students and families trapped in non-federal loans are still left at the mercy of banks that ultimately profit through risky lending practices. If graduates cannot even escape the weight of student debt through bankruptcy, banks are able to maintain a hold on their loans and require payment even when an individual demonstrates he or she lacks the ability to do so.

The problem of student debt is much bigger than Obama’s recently approved plan. It isn’t necessarily the students borrowing from the government or the students with the subsidized loans who are taking the hardest hits — it’s the students who have become victims of private loans.

Student aid, high interest rates and inflexible repayment plans make private loans a kind of silent financial suicide. But with ever-increasing tuition costs, what options are students left with?

Debt is a profit generator for lenders. And insufficient loan forgiveness programs and bankruptcy loopholes that favor lenders are only continuing to promote such profit through debt.

Student debt is destroying the credit and financial well-being of graduates who are left looking forward to an unstable job market and promissory notes that serve as shackles.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at A Lifeline Too Late: Still Sinking in Debt

Illustration by Jamie Morton.

This June I will walk away with a piece of paper that somehow legitimizes me and my abilities. But I’m leaving when it seems my education is barely beginning.

And when I walk, I will be the first in my family to hold a diploma from a four-year university. I will be one of the few in my family to have seemingly escaped the traps and pitfalls of poverty. My graduation is not about me but about my family, the communities I come from, and the advancement of a group of people that has struggled to rise above the positions of store clerks and office drones.

But while my graduation means so much to so many others, it means nothing to me.

As a first-generation student, I had very skewed perceptions of what university would be like — my visions were much more akin to the things I’d seen in movies than reality. I wanted to sit in musty libraries and engage in heated conversations, take that class with the professor who would change my entire way of thinking, and find a purpose and a cause. I wanted to become passionate about my education in a way I had never been before, which I hoped to gain here.

But two unimpressive years went by, and I began to believe I was a number, a tuition, a walking dollar sign, and my successes and failures were only part of statistics and schematics.

I was not growing intellectually, but completely stagnating. No one was pushing me to question and no one was asking me to think critically — I could simply regurgitate the words my professors and TAs said and I’d be golden. It felt like high school with a much bigger price tag.

It wasn’t until last year when I stumbled my way through a City on a Hill Press interview and managed to nail down a job at the Ethnic Resource Center that I found what I was looking for.

Everything I ever learned at UC Santa Cruz I didn’t learn in a classroom. I have learned from my peers, from student organizers and leaders, from people who work hard to insure we as students get the most out of our education, because — honestly — the academic system itself isn’t delivering.

I have met students who have interests completely divergent from my own — environmental justice, race and politics, feminist studies, international relations and foreign policy — and I have grown because of them. I’ve talked to them, traded reading material with them, and engaged in conversations I am not having in the classroom. And because of these students, I have unearthed interests and passions of my own that were never explored in the confines of a class.

Where the UC — and where public education overall — has failed me is in ignoring me and numerous students like me. By being a business first and an institution of higher learning second — by raising my tuition, cutting resources and limiting my access to classes that piqued my interest — the UC put the mighty green before my intellectual growth, and I was never given the opportunity to realize my abilities.

I was too consumed with finishing my major and my general education requirements that it isn’t until now that I have the time to take the classes I’ve always wanted to — I’ve never enrolled in an anthropology class, a politics or economics or art class. The closest I’ve come is sitting silently in the back of a lecture hall, absorbing information I would otherwise not have an opportunity to learn because my name isn’t on a roster. It isn’t until now, the end of my fourth and final year, that I have the ability to round out an education that would otherwise have a very narrow scope.

There’s something wrong with our educational system, something much bigger than the UC itself, when we are only churning out students and improving our graduation rates without a second thought to what it is these students are walking away with. I was lucky enough to find peers — and eventually professors and advisors — who care about my success, but how many others will graduate without that experience?

The success of one means nothing if the collective is still struggling. The reason my professors, advisors and peers are invested in my education — and I theirs — is because my success is contingent upon their success. If the majority is stuck in a system that leaves us hungry, unfulfilled and still searching, what do the achievements of a few mean?

In the end, what I’ve learned from my time at UCSC is that in order to succeed, we must make our education our own. If we never stray away from the standard, if we never look elsewhere, if we believe the classroom is the start and end of our education, we may burn out, disillusioned and dissatisfied. As students, it’s important we realize while the institution is the beginning, everything amazing, delicious, thrilling, interesting and entirely overwhelming we could learn is outside of lecture halls. It’s in experiences and conversations.

Even as students rally and demonstrate, we’re learning. We’re embracing our education in a way the classroom doesn’t allow. We’re experiencing something that can never be experienced from a textbook: activism to create create substantial change.

Even in this climate, we as students can — and still are — defining ourselves by the education we are choosing for ourselves.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Still Hungry: An Education Unfulfilled

Illustration by Matt Boblet.

For too long the city of Oakland has been synonymous with violent crime and police brutality. The FBI recently ranked Oakland the most dangerous city in California, according to The Huffington Post. With 15.3 violent crimes per 1,000 residents in 2010, the city has one of the highest crime rates in the country.

On Oct. 25, Oakland police violently dispersed hundreds of demonstrators occupying Frank H. Ogawa Plaza in downtown Oakland and destroyed their encampment. Flinging tear gas canisters into the crowd, shooting “less-lethal” projectiles, and clearing out tents, police forces allegedly put one man in critical condition, injured several others and arrested about 80 protesters.

Scott Olsen, a 24-year-old Iraq War veteran, was rushed to the emergency room on Tuesday after allegedly being struck by a police projectile that fractured his skull and caused other head injuries. His condition has improved and he is expected to make a full recovery.

The Oakland police adopted a Crowd Control Policy in 2003 as a result of an anti-Iraq War protest. The policy prohibits the department from firing “less-lethal” projectiles “indiscriminately against a crowd or group of persons even if some members of the crowd or group are violent or disruptive.”

It has become apparent that Oakland police broke this rule.

According to The Bay Citizen, Oakland police “requested 500 officers from at least 17 agencies to help with its response to the Occupy Oakland movement.”

While the Oakland police denies using rubber bullets, YouTube videos, photographs and witnesses have confirmed their use. With so many agencies present, it is likely that communication between departments broke down.

Nonetheless, Mayor Jean Quan and the Oakland Police Department must take responsibility for their actions. The police’s violent treatment of Occupy protesters was abhorrent. It is time we stop thinking about Oakland as a place of inevitable crime and start upholding the basic civil liberties of individuals participating in peaceful protests.

On Oct. 26, roughly 2,000 Occupy Oakland supporters gathered downtown to bear witness to police violence against demonstrators that occurred the night before. Yesterday, Occupy Oakland gathered for a day of action.

Historically, Oakland residents and their police have clashed frequently. Police actions have been continually scrutinized by the Oakland community, and controversy over particular cases at times pick up international attention, as is the case now.

In 2003, Oakland police opened fire on an anti-war protest with beanbag bullets, wooden dowels and sting-ball grenades, according to the Los Angeles Times. Consequently, the city paid over $2 million in settlements to injured protesters and enacted new crowd control policies.

In an open letter to the citizens of Oakland dated Nov. 1, the Oakland Police Association explained that dispersing protests has been necessary in past situations where the demonstrators became violent.

“We performed the job that the Mayor’s Administration asked us to do, being fully aware that past protests in Oakland have resulted in rioting, violence and destruction of property,” according to the letter.

However, the Occupy Oakland encampment was assembled peacefully when police arrived. Mayor Quan was in Washington, D.C. at the time of the raid. Throughout the letter, the police association expresses confusion regarding “mixed messages” sent by the mayor’s administration.

According to the letter, “the Administration issued a memo on Friday, October 28th to all City workers in support of the ‘Stop Work’ strike scheduled for Wednesday [Nov. 2], giving all employees, except for police officers, permission to take the day off.

That’s hundreds of city workers encouraged to take off work to participate in the protest against ‘the establishment.’ But aren’t the mayor and her administration part of the establishment they are paying city employees to protest? Is it the city’s intention to have city employees on both sides of a skirmish line? It is all very confusing to us.”

The letter also cites a message that was sent to all police officers: “Everyone, including those who have the day off, must show up for work on Wednesday. This is also being paid for by Oakland taxpayers. Last week’s events alone cost Oakland taxpayers over $1 million.”

Mayor Quan and her administration have explaining to do and reform to make. The Oakland police were ordered to disperse the crowd, but they didn’t have to treat the occupiers with such disregard for their well-being. That was the choice of each individual officer.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Oakland Needs Readjustment

Illustration by Jamie Morton.

Nov. 15-17 the UC Board of Regents will hold a meeting to discuss the financial future of the UC system. The Occupy Education event will be held on Nov. 16 at UCSF Mission Bay, the same location as the regents’ meeting.

Protests at regents’ meetings have become common-place. Over the years, as multiple fee increases have been approved, it has become difficult for UC students to feel heard and not despair that they are members of a dying system. Just last year, the regents voted on an 8 percent increase in student fees, and this coming meeting will likely see even higher fees.

But this time around, we are presented with an opportunity. We are presented with the support of Occupy entities of local Bay Area colleges, Occupy Education and the Occupy movement as a whole. And their numbers are large.

We are presented with the opportunity to turn out in droves and bring the kind of state and national media coverage this issue deserves. With increased media coverage comes increased attention from California state voters who, at the end of the day, have massive amounts of control over the UC budget based on what legislators they vote for.

We should look to UC Berkeley, where protesters plan to hold a two-day event on Nov. 9–10. The protest will raise awareness of potential fee hikes, which will be determined during the regents’ November meeting.

According to the Occupy Education website: “We call on all the 99 percent, on all the Occupy general assemblies and camps throughout Northern California, on all student, labor, and community organizations, to come together in a massive display of non-violent civil disobedience to prevent the UC regents meeting from taking place, to send the strongest message that we will not accept any fee hikes, cuts, or concessions in any level of public education.”

By virtue of being UC students, we are 100 percent part of the 99 percent, and we should be mobilizing 100 percent for the change we need to take place.

Third and fourth-year students who sigh under their breath, “Thank god I’m getting out” and look the other way, this applies to you. You may be getting out of the UC system, but you are only getting into the poor job market.

First-year students, do not be defeated into thinking this is the way it must be — just because you don’t know anything else does not mean you cannot demand better.

We need to be our own advocates. We need to show up and speak up, and this is a grand opportunity.

So carpool, public transit, Zipcar — San Francisco isn’t that far away. On Nov. 16, meet up at 7 a.m. at the UCSF Mission Bay campus, 1675 Owens St., San Francisco, Calif. and Occupy the future of the UC.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at An Opportunity to Occupy

Illustration by Jamie Morton.

Remember, remember, the month of October.

That may not rhyme or roll off the tongue, but when it comes to national political protests, it’s been the rule of thumb for the past couple of years — and if these protests can be used as any sort of pulse of the liberal or progressive movements, we’ve gotten a lot less fun, but a lot more focused.

We started with the seed of something groundbreaking, something that had the potential to marry popular culture and politics in an effective way that had never been used before. This was was Jon Stewart’s and Stephen Colbert’s joint effort, the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Keep Fear Alive on Oct. 30 of last year. But the movement dissolved into a bland, predictable ruse that was cynical without being constructive.

What didn’t work for last year’s rally was that nobody was completely sure what it was trying to accomplish. A plea for young liberals and progressives to wake up, perhaps — and on some level maybe that worked. But once we were awake, then what were we supposed to do? Keep watching “The Daily Show” and “Colbert Report” and shaking our heads at other people’s stupidity? Reach out to people across the aisle, despite there being no common ground for us to stand on together? The Rally to Restore Sanity, so arrogantly ambitious in its title, ultimately did little more than advance Stewart’s and Colbert’s profiles.

For the left, that used to be enough: The idea that we had comedy, intelligence and the best of culture on our side was, for too long, an acceptable alternative to wielding actual political power. Because for many educated progressive young people, it’s simply not in our nature to take politics seriously. When we know that the odds are so clearly stacked against us, it’s much easier to just laugh at the fools on the other side.

The election of Barack Obama was an exciting moment to be sure, but when he made some questionable compromises with Republicans despite the power the supermajority gave him, it became clear that the president was at best a moderate, which in this case is political shorthand for “won’t put up much of a fight and wants campaign money.”

And there was Jon Stewart on the air almost every weeknight, attacking Obama and Congress for their decisions. Stewart clearly considers himself liberal, and knowing that he could criticize politicians and be so popular was a nice consolation prize. But did Stewart and the like provide so much catharsis that real action no longer seemed necessary? Facing the growing Tea Party was a joke-filled pseudo-protest in Washington with signs and slogans like “Angry Protest Sign” and “Make Awkward Sexual Advances, Not War” the best we were going to get?

Apparently not. Almost a full year later, Occupy Wall Street happened. And it’s still happening. It has spread all over the country, and some of its main goals — to take power away from big banks and to redistribute wealth from the top 1 percent to the other 99 percent — are unapologetically progressive. This truly grassroots movement, which started in chaos, is gaining organization and attention, and has a real voice. There are a few jokes coming from this occupation, but then, jokes don’t pass laws.

If anything was gained by the Rally to Restore Sanity, it was the reminder that putting all of one’s faith in a leader who relies on public opinion for his or her livelihood is a risky move. The left saw that with Obama, who is smart enough to know that if he wants to be reelected, he cannot serve any one faction too loyally. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are the same — for all their strong views and influence, their attempted “movement” showed that they value entertainment above anything else, and frankly, entertainment is what they’re best at.

What’s great about this movement is that Jon Stewart and his peers on “Saturday Night Live,” etc. still have a place — but it’s as the commentators on the sidelines rather than as the center of it all. A year ago, the young left, disillusioned with Obama, was a movement without a singular leader, and we thought we needed one in order to voice our discontent. But with Occupy Wall Street, that weakness has turned to a strength. Putting your faith in people is asking to be disappointed, but if you put faith in ideas, you remain in control. We are no longer caught up in our own self-image, reflected back to us in the detached cynicism of the Rally to Restore Sanity, but rather are focused on making ourselves heard to create a more just society.

Think of it this way: The progressive movement last year was like that cynical hipster in your discussion section who implies through his sulky tone that he’s smarter than the TA, but can’t muster much more than a snarky comment or two. Today it is the teacher’s pet, always up on the reading and brimming with insights.

Maybe both of those individuals are annoying to you, but the latter is going to get an A.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at A Tale of Two Protests

Illustration by Louise Leong.

It is not uncommon to hear, within American politics, rhetoric that demonizes and dehumanizes undocumented workers. It is even more common to hear that undocumented workers are at the crux of many of the economic issues that face the United States. Politicians and pundits spout claims that such workers, often field hands and hard laborers, are stealing jobs from the American public.

And it’s not surprising that this past June, Alabama passed the strictest immigration legislation seen in the United States in an effort to combat the “problem of dealing with illegal immigration” — a problem that Alabama governor Robert Bentley said the federal government has failed to address.

Known as HB 56, the law has been contested and tried, and several components are now being blocked by the federal government, including one provision that would require public K–12 schools to check the citizenship of enrolling students.

As a result of this legislation, undocumented people in Alabama have fled the state in fear of legal backlash, leaving seats in classrooms empty, businesses closed and fields shorthanded.

And where does that leave farms, many of which have relied on the sweat and toil of immigrant workers?

The Associated Press recently reported that farms in rural Alabama are struggling to find laborers who are not only able-bodied but willing to stick with the work. Picking tomatoes, uprooting potatoes and plucking blueberries is thankless, grueling work and the pay for unskilled pickers can seem nonexistent. While a crew of four skilled farmhands can make $150 a day, a recent crew of 25 American workers not only produced less, they earned only about $24 a day.

Such reports only prove the fallacy in claims often touted by politicians: that undocumented workers are a threat to American jobs. While there are — and always will be — American workers willing to take up field work, an overwhelming majority of people tend to deem the work undesirable or prove to be unable to complete the task as well as experienced farmhands can.

Undocumented workers have continually been an economic scapegoat, but the Alabama legislation is only effectively proving the symbiotic relationship that exists between undocumented labor and American agriculture. This relationship, unfair to laborers, is one that has been seen consistently in American history — agricultural business thrives on the backs of the unpaid or underpaid and the overworked. From slavery, to Coolies and cheap labor, to undocumented — and vilified — field workers, American agriculture has become intimately tied to and, unfortunately, reliant on, immigrant workers.

Rhetoric that continues to devalue and dehumanize undocumented workers, depicting them as leeches on a system and a burden to Americans, is not only detrimental but clearly false. The threat to American jobs in the fields is not undocumented workers — it’s American expectations. The work outweighs the pay, and farms are hard-pressed to find American workers who are willing to break their backs for paychecks that don’t reflect the amount of work put in.

The issue of undocumented labor is much more complex and historically rooted than the Alabama legislation recognizes. By alienating people and forcing many to leave the state, Alabama’s government has only proved the inadequacy in our understanding of immigration and the U.S. economy.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at The Fallacy of the “Illegal Immigration Problem”

Illustration by Christine Hipp.

When corruption and greed are as widespread as they are today, it is perhaps overly ambitious to hope to actually change the economic system in the United States. But there are alternatives that at least make it possible not to support that system. One of those alternatives, which is growing increasingly popular, is using credit unions instead of big banks.

ABC News recently reported that credit unions are seeing a big surge in membership. Navy Federal, the world’s largest credit union, has seen a threefold increase of new members compared to this time last year.

And it’s easy to see why. Wells Fargo and Bank of America both recently announced that they will be adding new charges for debit and credit accounts, as well as for online services. Some of these charges are even targeted toward people with low account balances, making it clear whose business these banks really value.

Banks exist to make money, hence the extra charges in times of economic crisis, not to mention the incredibly irresponsible lending habits that led to said crisis. Credit unions, on the other hand, are cooperative, meaning that their members own and operate them, and profit is put into enhancing membership experience or improving the surrounding community. Every union is a little different, but most keep charges incredibly low — it’s not uncommon for members to only have to pay a small one-time-only membership fee.

Another reason to consider making the switch to a credit union is that many of them give loans to small, local businesses. Spending locally is on everyone’s minds these days, and if the national economy is borderline unfixable, then why not focus on making Santa Cruz, or wherever you may live, stronger?

Yes, major banks have their advantages. Interest rates can be higher, and being part of a bank that has a branch in every city makes it easier to travel or move around, which is particularly important to college students. But credit unions offer personal attention one cannot find at a large bank, and websites like LoveMyCreditUnion.org offer help in finding a credit union that suits your location and lifestyle. Most credit unions also provide “switch packages” with tips on how to leave one’s big bank.

Perhaps the most concrete change Occupy Wall Street has brought is the realization that we are not paralyzed consumers. We have a choice of who can handle our money, and each individual does have power. So what is your choice — handing over your power to a system with a history of greed, or retaining control of your own resources? Switching to a credit union may not seem like much, but if nothing else, it sends a message.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Kill Your Big Bank Account

Illustration by Christine Hipp.

9-1-1.

They’re three digits that, in sequence, hold a lot of weight. You memorized this number as a young child and grew up with the notion that, with a few quick clicks, you could be at a hospital with professional medical staff to help you.

Think again.

With the passage of H.R. 358, the House of Representatives is set on changing this ideology. The bill, which passed last Thursday by a vote of 251 to 172, includes a provision that would allow hospitals to refuse to perform emergency abortions. Doing so would override the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), which states that a hospital must treat a pregnant woman in a life-threatening situation or transfer her to a facility that will.

Proponents have dubbed this the “Protect Life Act,” while pro-choice advocates call it the “Let Women Die Act.” The latter moniker is a much more accurate depiction of the bill, no matter on which side of the abortion debate you find yourself.

Not only is it a violation of the aforementioned EMTALA, but it wholly contradicts the Hippocratic Oath, a doctor’s ethical code of conduct. The oath reads that a doctor “will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures that are required” and “must tread with care in matters of life and death.”

Physician or not, the bare bones idea behind this bill defies logic. It’s valuing the life of an unborn person over that of a living human being, one whose life is in jeopardy. If a pregnant woman has serious problems during her term — say, if she’s hemorrhaging — and is refused service because she needs an abortion, the likelihood that she and her fetus will die goes up drastically. The bill purports that one’s morality, whether it is embedded in religious beliefs or entirely separate from them, supersedes a life-or-death situation. If made into law, it would allow for gross negligence as a doctor and as a human being.

Although this bill likely won’t make it past the Senate (and even if it did, President Obama has already said he would veto it), the fact that it was even proposed on the floors of Congress is deplorable. Moreover, the fact that this outrageous bill and others like it have made their way to Capitol Hill (as addressed in Nikki Pritchard’s recently published City on a Hill Press feature, “Reproductive Rights Restricted Across the Country”) signals a paradigm shift in what politicians consider illogical.

While those within this university may be shocked that such a measure could be passed by a legislative body, clearly the extreme nature of H.R. 358 did not dawn on 251 people. So even if this bill isn’t signed into law, who’s to say it won’t be revived in the future with renewed fervor and legislative backing? That possibility alone should concern all American citizens, regardless of gender or political affiliation.

In a time when so many Americans are already fighting for their economic well-being, women should not have to be faced with the possibility that they could be in a literal fight for their lives without the assistance of medical professionals.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Putting Hypocrisy in the Hippocratic Oath

Illustration by Matt Boblet.

If there were no workers on campus, the East Field would be dry, dining halls would serve fewer customers and bathrooms would never be cleaned. If there were no workers on campus at UC Santa Cruz, the nine other UCs, the five medical centers and other UC facilities, these facilities would not function at their current standards — in fact, they wouldn’t function at all.

To say our UC workers go unappreciated is an understatement.

The University of California workers’ union, the American Federation of County, State, and Municipal Utilities Local 3299 (AFSCME), more than deserve the recently ratified contract with the UC, which includes increases in salary and retirement benefits.

The union workers have been fighting for this for over a year, and students and others affiliated with the UC should support them. In an institution where the UC regents can raise administrative salaries by 10 percent with a simple meeting vote, it’s a shame that UC laborers had to fight for a year for a 3 percent raise. It’s clear where the power lies in the UC system, and students and workers should form a united front in working for what they need.

Beneath the glamorous, endowment-winning research and academia lie employees who cannot provide for their families with their UC salary.

The documentary “Hanging by a Thread” features a UCSC food service worker who earns $20,000 less than needed as a single mother of three in Santa Cruz. She works at the Boardwalk to make up for this deficit.

Workers do not tend to students just through their jobs. In past protests, workers have stood beside us, backing us. It’s crucial we, as students, don’t let gaps in age and lifestyle separate us from the UC workforce.

The university should not pride itself on its prestigious endeavors if it does not even show concern or care for all its employees. As students, we cannot forget we are not the only afflicted amid budget cuts and rising fees. People are not dispensable.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Supporting Our Supporters