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103-584: One stated focus of Occupy Cal demonstrations is the role of education in job creation and societal well-being. Tuition increases for students, mandatory furloughs for professors and staff, firings or forced realignment of lower-ranking workers as part of the "Operational Excellence" reorganization, and raises for the highest-paid administrators have further fueled discontent. Occupy Cal continued to engage in organized meetings, events and actions through March 2012. Budget cuts, tuition increases, and unpaid furlough days affecting public California universities have been

206-625: A government (or any other authority). By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be called "civil". Hence, civil disobedience is sometimes equated with peaceful protests or nonviolent resistance . Henry David Thoreau 's essay Resistance to Civil Government , published posthumously as Civil Disobedience , popularized the term in the US, although the concept itself has been practiced longer before. Various forms of civil disobedience have been used by prominent activists such as American women's suffrage leader Susan B. Anthony in

309-721: A 1960s-era building which housed the ASUC (Associated Students of the University of California) Senate, was demolished in summer 2013, after being rated "seismically very poor." It has since been replaced by a new building of the same name. More than 50% of the Lower Sproul Redevelopment Project was funded by the BEARS student fee initiative, passed by student referendum in spring 2010, with the rest provided by Life and Campus Services. Eshleman Hall now houses

412-561: A UC Berkeley student who took a vow of silence as a means of non-violent protest, was arrested, apparently under Section 5150 of the California Welfare and Institutions Code. UC Berkeley Anthropology Library Occupation 2012 On January 17, 2012, a proposal was brought to the Occupy Cal General Assembly to occupy UC Berkeley's George and Mary Foster Anthropology Library due to a recent decision by

515-479: A civil disobedient who pleads guilty is essentially stating, "Yes, I committed the act of which you accuse me. I don't deny it; in fact, I am proud of it. I feel I did the right thing by violating this particular law; I am guilty as charged", but that pleading not guilty sends a message of, "Guilt implies wrong-doing. I feel I have done no wrong. I may have violated some specific laws, but I am guilty of doing no wrong. I, therefore, plead not guilty." A plea of no contest

618-780: A coffee shop, a food hall, and many student-run services such as BicyCal, Blue & God Yearbook, SUPERB, ReUse, Open Computing Facility, and more. The Basement of the Martin Luther King Jr. Building houses the Basic Needs Center, including the Food Pantry, Student Environmental Resource Center, BWell, and an extension of the Student Parents Center. The César E. Chávez Student Center houses the Student Learning Center and

721-474: A desired social goal (such as the provision of medication to the sick) while openly breaking the law. Julia Butterfly Hill lived in Luna , a 180-foot (55 m)-tall, 600-year-old California Redwood tree for 738 days, preventing its felling. In cases where the criminalized behaviour is pure speech , civil disobedience can consist simply of engaging in the forbidden speech. An example is WBAI 's broadcasting of

824-408: A law viewed as illegitimate and then taking the consequences of the law. (For example, they might refuse to swear allegiance to the king, and, as a consequence, accept the prison sentence legally and normally meted out to people who refused to take this oath.) This was focused on the illegitimacy of laws claimed to be "divine" in origin, both the "divine rights of kings" and "divine rights of man", and

927-658: A long history of student activism. Berkeley spearheaded the Free Speech Movement in 1964 and was a leader in the opposition to the Vietnam War throughout the 1960s. On November 9, 2011, students and professors at UC Berkeley participated in a series of "teach-outs" around campus, a noon rally and march. Approximately 1,500 demonstrators attended the day's events. The march route included a Bank of America location adjacent to campus. Not long after demonstrators set up seven tents in front of Upper Sproul Plaza in

1030-463: A maniac and disturber of the peace, and see if he can get over this obstruction to his neighborliness without a ruder and more impetuous thought or speech corresponding with his action. Some civil disobedients feel it is incumbent upon them to accept punishment because of their belief in the validity of the social contract , which is held to bind all to obey the laws that a government meeting certain standards of legitimacy has established, or else suffer

1133-416: A non-violent one, the choice of means will almost never be pure, and will involve such complexities that the simple distinction between violence and non-violence does not suffice as a guide ... the very acts with which we seek to do good cannot escape the imperfections of the world we are trying to change. Zinn rejects any "easy and righteous dismissal of violence", noting that Thoreau, the popularizer of

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1236-544: A peaceful blockade or occupying a facility illegally, though sometimes violence has been known to occur. Often there is an expectation to be attacked or even beaten by the authorities. Protesters often undergo training in advance on how to react to arrest or to attack. Civil disobedience is usually defined as pertaining to a citizen's relation to the state and its laws, as distinguished from a constitutional impasse , in which two public agencies, especially two equally sovereign branches of government , conflict. For instance, if

1339-400: A person can act unjustly. When the government knocks on the door, it is a person in the form of a postman or tax collector whose hand hits the wood. Before Thoreau's imprisonment, when a confused taxman had wondered aloud about how to handle his refusal to pay, Thoreau had advised, "Resign". If a man chose to be an agent of injustice, then Thoreau insisted on confronting him with the fact that he

1442-583: A range of legal measures and public practices that to them promoted ethnic, religious, and racial discrimination . Pro Public and typically peaceful resistance to political power remained an integral tactic in modern American minority rights politics. In Ireland starting from 1879 the Irish " Land War " intensified when Irish nationalist leader Charles Stewart Parnell , in a speech in Ennis proposed that when dealing with tenants who take farms where another tenant

1545-452: A rise above Upper Sproul Plaza and features a broad, terraced stairway leading to the entrance. Large numbers of students walk past Sproul Hall on their way to class or Telegraph Avenue. The combination of a stairway that can be used as a large raised platform and a ready audience makes Upper Sproul Plaza a popular location for student protests, the first of which occurred in 1964 during the Free Speech Movement , when Mario Savio spoke from

1648-426: A set of stairs. Sproul Plaza as well as Sproul Hall are named for the last (1930–1952) University of California, Berkeley president, Robert Gordon Sproul . The Plaza was designed by landscape architect Lawrence Halprin in 1962. At the time, the university was expanding its core campus southward from its prior border at Strawberry Creek to Bancroft Avenue, and acquired acres of commercial and residential properties in

1751-474: A system to function. In this way, they might be considered coercive; coercive disobedience has the effect of exposing the enforcement of laws and policies, and it has even operated as an aesthetic strategy in contemporary art practice. Brownlee notes that "although civil disobedients are constrained in their use of coercion by their conscientious aim to engage in moral dialogue, nevertheless they may find it necessary to employ limited coercion to get their issue onto

1854-485: A variety of evidence and conducted interviews with key players to understand the scope of the events. They concluded that not all instances of police conduct were consistent with campus norms, and were disturbed by the inappropriate use of batons against students and faculty. The PRB noted the potential for deviations from police conduct standards even with comprehensive training. They encouraged Berkeley campus police and leaders to review their report so as to better understand

1957-439: Is a whole class of acts, undertaken in the name of civil disobedience, which, even if they were widely practiced, would in themselves constitute hardly more than a nuisance (e.g. trespassing at a nuclear-missile installation) ... Such acts are often just a harassment and, at least to the bystander, somewhat inane ... The remoteness of the connection between the disobedient act and the objectionable law lays such acts open to

2060-458: Is afraid of how her conscience will smite her if she does not do this. Conrad Grebel and Anabaptists advocated civil disobedience to oppression. Étienne de La Boétie 's thought developed in his work Discours de la servitude volontaire ou le Contr'un (1552) was also taken up by many movements of civil disobedience, which drew from the concept of rebellion to voluntary servitude the foundation of its instrument of struggle. Étienne de La Boétie

2163-488: Is an act of violence . Robert Birgeneau , UC Berkeley Chancellor, George Breslauer , Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost, and Harry Le Grande , Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs initially released a "Message to the Campus Community" in which they stated, "It is unfortunate that some protesters chose to obstruct the police by linking arms and forming a human chain to prevent the police from gaining access to

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2266-432: Is distinct from other kinds of hacktivism in that the perpetrator openly reveals his identity. Virtual actions rarely succeed in completely shutting down their targets, but they often generate media attention. Dilemma actions are designed to create a "response dilemma" for public authorities "by forcing them to either concede some public space to protesters or make themselves look absurd or heavy-handed by acting against

2369-466: Is done by remaining in jail, or by evading it. To accept jail penitently as an accession to "the rules" is to switch suddenly to a spirit of subservience, to demean the seriousness of the protest ... In particular, the neo-conservative insistence on a guilty plea should be eliminated. Sometimes the prosecution proposes a plea bargain to civil disobedients, as in the case of the Camden 28 , in which

2472-503: Is in Sophocles ' play Antigone , in which Antigone , one of the daughters of former King of Thebes , Oedipus , defies Creon , the current King of Thebes, who is trying to stop her from giving her brother Polynices a proper burial. She gives a stirring speech in which she tells him that she must obey her conscience rather than human law. She is not at all afraid of the death he threatens her with (and eventually carries out), but she

2575-432: Is more effective than open disobedience. This assumes that common morality does not have a prohibition on deceit in such situations. The Fully Informed Jury Association 's publication "A Primer for Prospective Jurors" notes, "Think of the dilemma faced by German citizens when Hitler 's secret police demanded to know if they were hiding a Jew in their house." By this definition, civil disobedience could be traced back to

2678-399: Is more effective, it is, other things being equal, more justified than less effective, nonviolent disobedience." In his best-selling Disobedience and Democracy: Nine Fallacies on Law and Order , Howard Zinn takes a similar position; Zinn states that while the goals of civil disobedience are generally nonviolent, in the inevitable tension accompanying the transition from a violent world to

2781-524: Is more of an active attempt to overthrow a government (or to change cultural traditions, social customs or religious beliefs). Revolution does not have to be political, i.e. "cultural revolution", it simply implies sweeping and widespread change to a section of the social fabric. Gandhi's acts have been described as revolutionary civil disobedience. It has been claimed that the Hungarians under Ferenc Deák directed revolutionary civil disobedience against

2884-500: Is much more destructive; therefore, the defects justifying rebellion must be much more serious than those justifying disobedience, and if one cannot justify civil rebellion, then one cannot justify a civil disobedient's use of force and violence and refusal to submit to arrest. Civil disobedients' refraining from violence is also said to help preserve society's tolerance of civil disobedience. The philosopher H. J. McCloskey argues that "if violent, intimidatory, coercive disobedience

2987-424: Is not necessarily right. In his 1971 book, A Theory of Justice , John Rawls described civil disobedience as "a public, non-violent, conscientious yet political act contrary to law usually done with the aim of bringing about change in the law or policies of the government". Ronald Dworkin held that there are three types of civil disobedience: Some theories of civil disobedience hold that civil disobedience

3090-454: Is only justified against governmental entities. Brownlee argues that disobedience in opposition to the decisions of non-governmental agencies such as trade unions , banks, and private universities can be justified if it reflects "a larger challenge to the legal system that permits those decisions to be taken". The same principle, she argues, applies to breaches of law in protest against international organizations and foreign governments. It

3193-415: Is rarely justifiable in court, King regarded civil disobedience to be a display and practice of reverence for law: "Any man who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community on the injustice of the law is at that moment expressing the very highest respect for the law." An early depiction of civil disobedience

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3296-614: Is sometimes regarded as a compromise between the two. One defendant accused of illegally protesting nuclear power , when asked to enter his plea, stated, "I plead for the beauty that surrounds us"; this is known as a "creative plea", and will usually be interpreted as a plea of not guilty. When the Committee for Non-Violent Action sponsored a protest in August 1957, at the Camp Mercury nuclear test site near Las Vegas, Nevada, 13 of

3399-543: Is usually recognized that lawbreaking, if it is not done publicly, at least must be publicly announced to constitute civil disobedience. But Stephen Eilmann argues that if it is necessary to disobey rules that conflict with morality, we might ask why disobedience should take the form of public civil disobedience rather than simply covert lawbreaking. If a lawyer wishes to help a client overcome legal obstacles to securing their natural rights , he might, for instance, find that assisting in fabricating evidence or committing perjury

3502-434: Is whether to plead guilty . There is much debate on this point, as some believe that it is a civil disobedient's duty to submit to the punishment prescribed by law, while others believe that defending oneself in court will increase the possibility of changing the unjust law. It has also been argued that either choice is compatible with the spirit of civil disobedience. ACT UP 's Civil Disobedience Training handbook states that

3605-605: Is wrong. The resistance to authority in South Africa was well advanced before I got the essay ... When I saw the title of Thoreau's great essay, I began to use his phrase to explain our struggle to the English readers. But I found that even "Civil Disobedience" failed to convey the full meaning of the struggle. I therefore adopted the phrase "Civil Resistance." In seeking an active form of civil disobedience, one may choose to deliberately break certain laws, such as by forming

3708-621: The Austrian government . Thoreau also wrote of civil disobedience accomplishing "peaceable revolution". Howard Zinn, Harvey Wheeler , and others have identified the right espoused in the US Declaration of Independence to "alter or abolish" an unjust government to be a principle of civil disobedience. The earliest recorded incidents of collective civil disobedience took place during the Roman Empire . Unarmed Jews gathered in

3811-687: The Baltic countries from the Soviet Union , and more recently with the 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia, the 2004 Orange Revolution and the 2013–2014 Euromaidan revolution in Ukraine, the 2016–2017 Candlelight Revolution in South Korea, and the 2020–2021 Belarusian protests , among many other various movements worldwide. Henry David Thoreau 's 1849 essay "Resistance to Civil Government"

3914-679: The Book of Exodus , where Shiphrah and Puah refused a direct order of Pharaoh but misrepresented how they did it. (Exodus 1: 15–19) There have been debates as to whether civil disobedience must necessarily be non-violent. Black's Law Dictionary includes nonviolence in its definition of civil disobedience. Christian Bay's encyclopedia article states that civil disobedience requires "carefully chosen and legitimate means", but holds that they do not have to be non-violent. It has been argued that, while both civil disobedience and civil rebellion are justified by appeal to constitutional defects , rebellion

4017-788: The British Empire ), in Czechoslovakia 's Velvet Revolution , in early stages of the Bangladeshi independence movement against Pakistani colonialism and in East Germany to oust their Stalinist government. In South Africa during the leftist campaign against the far-right Apartheid regime, in the American civil rights movement against Jim Crow laws , in the Singing Revolution to bring independence to

4120-666: The César E. Chávez Student Center to the north and Zellerbach Hall to the west. Lower Sproul connects to the Haas Pavilion and Recreational Sports Facility to the west. The Chávez Student Center combined forces with artist-activist Emmy Lou Packard to create the 85-foot long, 5-foot high, Modernist, bas-relief mural in the center of the Plaza. Packard's mural is depicting California landscape features, including coastal bluffs, cultivated fields, mountains, and rivers. Eshleman Hall,

4223-478: The Mexican–American War . He writes, If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man's shoulders. I must get off him first, that he may pursue his contemplations too. See what gross inconsistency is tolerated. I have heard some of my townsmen say, "I should like to have them order me out to help put down an insurrection of

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4326-450: The head of government of a country were to refuse to enforce a decision of that country's highest court, it would not be civil disobedience, since the head of government would act in his or her capacity as public official rather than private citizen. This definition is disputed by Thoreau's political philosophy on the conscience vs. the collective. The person is the final judge of right and wrong. More than this, since only people act, only

4429-586: The ASUC and Graduate Assembly (GA) offices, Registered Student Organization co-working space, Senate Chambers, Public Service Center, LEAD Center, Student Technology Services Helpdesk, meetings rooms, and the Bear's Lair pub. The Martin Luther King Jr. Building is home to the Campus Living Room, Pauley Ballroom, Cal Student Store, Berkeley Art Studio, Multicultural Community Center, Creative Lab,

4532-541: The Berkeley campus." Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich responded to the Occupy Cal movement by saying that he believed inequality is bad for everyone. Reich says that Median households are dropping, adjusted for inflation, and is worried about where people are going to get the money to keep the economy going. If there isn't money for the middle class to spend the economy will hurt across the board. In response to

4635-516: The Golden Bear Café. Zellerbach Hall is the largest indoor performance auditorium on campus, and frequently hosts guest speakers as well as Cal Performances engagements. 37°52′11″N 122°15′32″W  /  37.869597°N 122.258850°W  / 37.869597; -122.258850 Civil disobedience Civil disobedience is the active, and professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws , demands, orders or commands of

4738-583: The November 9 Day of Action. The ASUC has worked to raise awareness of issues such as police brutality highlighted by the Occupy incident. In a packed auditorium at International House, Berkeley's Academic Senate also considered a resolution, which would have expressed no confidence in Birgeneau and other senior campus administrators, but the resolution failed. While much of the energy of Occupy dissipated during

4841-603: The Sproul Hall steps, and folk singer Joan Baez gave an early performance. A small round brass marker, embedded in the concrete, declares them as the "Mario Savio Steps." Upper Sproul Plaza was also the site of early teach-ins and protests against the Vietnam War , the 1969 tear-gassing of People's Park protesters by the National Guard, 1985–86 protests against University investment in apartheid -era South Africa, and many other political events. In 2011, Sproul Plaza

4944-491: The University of California, Berkeley. BAMN and twenty-nine protesters sued the UC-Berkeley Chancellor Birgeneau, other administrators, UCPD, and other Alameda County Sheriffs for $ 15 million for excessive force, false arrests, and violation of First Amendment rights from the November 9 protests. They cited other cases where excessive force was used on Occupy protestors and instances where camping

5047-739: The actions of police officers and other perceived failings of Chancellor Birgeneau and the UC Regents , the Occupy Cal voted to call for a general strike at UC Berkeley on November 15, 2011. The timing of the strike and protests was intended to coincide with a meeting of the UC Regents the next day, which was then cancelled by UC Regents and administrators from the UC Office of the President, citing "credible law enforcement intelligence". Many students and faculty did not attend classes and walked out, or incorporated teach-ins, or spent at least part of

5150-433: The activist community, that a suspect's talking to criminal investigators can serve no useful purpose and may be harmful. Some civil disobedients are compelled to respond to investigators' questions, sometimes by a misunderstanding of the legal ramifications or a fear of seeming rude. Also, some civil disobedients seek to use the arrest as an opportunity to make an impression on the officers. Thoreau wrote, My civil neighbor,

5253-466: The administration to reduce the library's hours and service offerings. As part of the overall trend of privatization and divesting of public resources, the university has reduced spending on its libraries by 12 percent since 2012. With mass approval by the General Assembly, members of Occupy Cal decided to lead a study-in of the anthropology library on January 19 to demand the reinstatement of

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5356-469: The afternoon confrontation shows police using batons and dragging two protesters by the hair, one of whom was UC Berkeley English professor Celeste Langan. 39 protesters, including Professor Langan, were arrested for charges including "resisting and delaying a police officer in the performance of their duties and failure to disperse when given a dispersal order." Robert Hass , a UC Berkeley professor of poetry and former United States Poet Laureate , wrote about

5459-470: The bit " Filthy Words " from a George Carlin comedy album, which eventually led to the 1978 Supreme Court case of FCC v. Pacifica Foundation . Threatening government officials is a way to express defiance toward the government and unwillingness to stand for its policies. For example, a supporter of some tax deniers in New Hampshire , Edward and Elaine Brown , was arrested for allegedly telling

5562-488: The board is appointed by and answers to Chancellor Birgeneau, which would in turn taint their unbiased review. The ASUC, UC Berkeley's Student Government, was "outraged by the brutal tactics used by the UCPD against students." With support from other student governments including UC Davis , Brown , and Harvard , the ASUC, UC Berkeley's student government, passed a resolution condemning the police brutality against students on

5665-489: The campaign for a free India. Thoreau's 1849 essay Civil Disobedience , originally titled "Resistance to Civil Government", has had a wide influence on many later practitioners of civil disobedience. The driving idea behind the essay is that citizens are morally responsible for their support of aggressors, even when such support is required by law. In the essay, Thoreau explained his reasons for having refused to pay taxes as an act of protest against slavery and against

5768-716: The campus community stating, "We are outraged and appalled by the violent silencing of UC Berkeley student voices." 70 faculty of the School of Law condemned the police action and called for "a re-establishment of the campus's reputation as a beacon of free speech". 2,363 faculty and staff stated, "We express no confidence in the willingness of the Chancellor, and other leaders of the UC Berkeley administration, to respond appropriately to student protests, to secure student welfare, and to respect freedom of speech and assembly on

5871-509: The campus winter vacation, subsequent encampments have been set up as recently as mid-February 2012 outside the International House at the corner of Bancroft and Piedmont. The Department of Integrative Biology stated, "We are deeply disturbed by the images of violence against members of the campus community, as well as the justification and defense of these acts that followed" The School of Social Welfare issued an open letter to

5974-445: The cause is more important than my freedom" and not incorrectly believe themselves to have legal immunity or feel a sense of entitlement to break laws without being subject to the ordinary legal punishments for breaking those laws. Some disciplines of civil disobedience hold that the protester must submit to arrest and cooperate with the authorities. Others advocate falling limp or resisting arrest , especially when it will hinder

6077-476: The charge of ineffectiveness and absurdity. Bedau also notes, though, that the very harmlessness of such entirely symbolic illegal protests toward public policy goals may serve a propaganda purpose. Some civil disobedients, such as the proprietors of illegal medical cannabis dispensaries and Voice in the Wilderness, which brought medicine to Iraq without the permission of the US government, directly achieve

6180-537: The circumstances." Following media criticism and statements of disapproval from the university community and academic departments Chancellor Birgeneau released a further "Message regarding events on campus" in which he stated, "I returned to Berkeley yesterday after a week-long trip to Seoul, Tokyo and Shanghai where we successfully advanced some important new partnerships that will benefit our campus... While away, I remained in intermittent contact with Provost George Breslauer and other members of our leadership team and

6283-452: The day actively protesting. The UC Davis Faculty Association also voted to endorse the November 15 systemwide strike. Events included a downtown march past Berkeley High School and Berkeley City College, speeches, and resolutions. A small encampment was set up and allowed to exist for a day before being peacefully dismantled on November 17, with 2 voluntary arrests at 3:30 AM. Approximately 100 to 120 police in riot gear were used to dismantle

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6386-525: The fall and spring semesters, there is a "Pet Hugs" therapy dog event to provide stress relief to students. Lower Sproul Plaza, directly west of Upper Sproul Plaza, is the location of numerous small musical and cultural performances and is surrounded by numerous brutalist -style 1960s-era buildings owned by the ASUC , including the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union to the east, as well as

6489-443: The first modern statement of the principle of nonviolent protest. A version was taken up by the author Henry David Thoreau in his essay Civil Disobedience , and later by Gandhi in his doctrine of Satyagraha . Gandhi's Satyagraha was partially influenced and inspired by Shelley's nonviolence in protest and political action. In particular, it is known that Gandhi often quoted Shelley's Mask of Anarchy to vast audiences during

6592-459: The formulation of a single all-encompassing definition of the term is extremely difficult, if not impossible. In reviewing the voluminous literature on the subject, the student of civil disobedience rapidly finds himself surrounded by a maze of semantical problems and grammatical niceties. Like Alice in Wonderland , he often finds that specific terminology has no more (or no less) meaning than

6695-419: The individual orator intends it to have. He encourages a distinction between lawful protest demonstration, nonviolent civil disobedience, and violent civil disobedience. In a letter to P. K. Rao, dated 10 September 1935, Gandhi disputes that his idea of civil disobedience was derived from the writings of Thoreau: The statement that I had derived my idea of Civil Disobedience from the writings of Thoreau

6798-488: The late 19th century, Egyptian nationalist Saad Zaghloul during the 1910s, and Indian nationalist Mahatma Gandhi in 1920s British India as part of his leadership of the Indian independence movement . Martin Luther King Jr. 's and James Bevel 's peaceful nonviolent protests during the civil rights movement in the 1960s United States sometimes contained important aspects of civil disobedience. Although civil disobedience

6901-464: The legitimacy of laws acknowledged to be made by human beings. Following the Peterloo massacre of 1819, the poet Percy Shelley wrote the political poem The Mask of Anarchy later that year, that begins with the images of what he thought to be the unjust forms of authority of his time—and then imagines the stirrings of a new form of social action . According to Ashton Nichols , it is perhaps

7004-420: The library's hours and resources. On January 19, 2012, following a noon-time rally by the larger Occupy Cal community, a group of roughly 100 students, faculty, and staff occupied the anthropology library and sent their demands to the administration. The non-violent study-in lasted 3 days and 2 nights, and involved several email exchanges between administration, and students and faculty. On January 21, 2012,

7107-552: The local city councillors to "Wise up or die." More generally, protesters of particular victimless crimes often see fit to openly commit that crime. Laws against public nudity , for instance, have been protested by going naked in public , and laws against cannabis consumption have been protested by openly possessing it and using it at cannabis rallies. Some forms of civil disobedience, such as illegal boycotts , refusals to pay taxes , draft dodging , distributed denial-of-service attacks , and sit-ins , make it more difficult for

7210-499: The mid-afternoon, law enforcement officials from UC Berkeley Police, the Alameda County Sheriff's Office and other UC Police officers in riot gear arrived to remove the tents. Protesters linked arms to form a human chain in front of the tents to prevent officers from dismantling the encampment. Police used 36-inch riot batons to " jab " and push back the protesters and to break the human chain. Video footage of

7313-420: The occupiers were notified by the administration that their demands would be met: library hours would be reinstated, and a replacement job would be created to achieve regular access to the library. While many non-tangible successes were achieved by Occupy Cal, the reinstatement of the anthropology library's hours represented a concrete, observable success in protecting the accessibility and quality of education at

7416-438: The penalties set out in the law. Other civil disobedients who favour the existence of government still do not believe in the legitimacy of their particular government or do not believe in the legitimacy of a particular law it has enacted. Anarchistic civil disobedients do not believe in the legitimacy of any government, so see no need to accept punishment for a violation of criminal law. An important decision for civil disobedients

7519-414: The police from effectively responding to a mass protest. Many of the same decisions and principles that apply in other criminal investigations and arrests arise also in civil disobedience cases. For example, the suspect may need to decide whether to grant a consent search of his property and whether to talk to police officers. It is generally agreed within the legal community, and is often believed within

7622-409: The police response in a November 19 New York Times opinion piece entitled "Poet-Bashing Police": The deputies in the cordon surged forward and, using their clubs as battering rams, began to hammer at the bodies of the line of students. It was stunning to see. They swung hard into their chests and bellies. Particularly shocking to me — it must be a generational reaction — was that they assaulted both

7725-412: The protest." As civil disobedience is intentionally breaking the law, people engaging in civil disobedience can expect to be arrested , criminally charged , tried , and legally punished for breaking the law. Protestors have to make choices about how to respond to each of these results. Al Sharpton , a civil rights and social justice activist, says that civil disobedients "must be prepared to say

7828-671: The protesters attempted to enter the test site knowing that they faced arrest. At an announced time, one by one they crossed a line and were immediately arrested. They were put on a bus and taken to the Nye County seat of Tonopah, Nevada, and arraigned for trial before the local Justice of the Peace, that afternoon. A civil rights attorney, Francis Heisler, had volunteered to defend the accused, advising them to plead nolo contendere rather than guilty or not guilty. They were found guilty and given suspended sentences, conditional on not reentering

7931-489: The protests on Nov. 9th were in vain. Reports indicate the lawsuit sought $ 15 million in damages, though a final verified outcome is not cited here. Sproul Plaza Sproul Plaza (pronounced [spraʊɫ] ) is one center of student activity at the University of California, Berkeley . It is divided into two sections: Upper Sproul and Lower Sproul. They are vertically separated by twelve feet (3.7 m) and linked by

8034-484: The protests. Some members of the university community expressed skepticism regarding Birgeneau's statement about video access. Police Review Board (PRB) released a report on May 29, 2012, reflecting on the events of November 9. They make it very clear that this is not something they typically do, but given the circumstances and the request of the chancellor to look into the case, the PRB was forced to investigate. They collected

8137-415: The scope of their actions and make future improvements to how they handle protests. BAMN, a civil rights advocacy organization, promotes action 'By Any Means Necessary' and they responded to the PRB review strongly. BAMN wrote an article in which they proposed that the PRB should be boycotted now and in the future because they have a conflict of interest. This is a conflict of interest because they claim that

8240-467: The slaves, or to march to Mexico;—see if I would go;" and yet these very men have each, directly by their allegiance, and so indirectly, at least, by their money, furnished a substitute. By the 1850s, a range of minority groups in the United States : African Americans, Jews, Seventh Day Baptists , Catholics, anti-prohibitionists, racial egalitarians, and others—employed civil disobedience to combat

8343-461: The south campus Telegraph Avenue area. Upper Sproul Plaza is bordered to the east by Sproul Hall, which was formerly the location of the campus administration, and is today the location of student and admission services. To the north is Sather Gate , which leads into the central campus, and to the south are Telegraph Avenue and the South Campus area of Berkeley . Sproul Hall is situated on

8446-460: The state. The statewide campus protests did not sway the UC Regents, however, and the 32% tuition increase was approved in November 2009, setting off another round of protests that included the temporary occupation of campus buildings. Protests continued through 2010 and 2011 with Occupy Cal being the most recent iteration of a multi-year protest for affordable public education. UC Berkeley has

8549-596: The streets to prevent the installation of pagan images in the Temple in Jerusalem . In modern times, some activists who commit civil disobedience as a group collectively refuse to sign bail until certain demands are met, such as favourable bail conditions, or the release of all the activists. This is a form of jail solidarity . There have also been many instances of solitary civil disobedience, such as that committed by Thoreau, but these sometimes go unnoticed. Thoreau, at

8652-409: The table". The Plowshares organization temporarily closed GCSB Waihopai by padlocking the gates and using sickles to deflate one of the large domes covering two satellite dishes. Electronic civil disobedience can include web site defacements , redirects , denial-of-service attacks , information theft and data leaks , illegal web site parodies , virtual sit-ins , and virtual sabotage . It

8755-417: The tactic was applied to Boycott when the alarm was raised about the evictions. Despite the short-term economic hardship to those undertaking this action, Boycott soon found himself isolated – his workers stopped work in the fields and stables, as well as in his house. Local businessmen stopped trading with him, and the local postman refused to deliver mail. The movement spread throughout Ireland and gave rise to

8858-428: The target of protests by UC Berkeley students, faculty, and employees in recent years. The UC Regents has approved increased tuition fees nine times in seven years. In September 2009, several thousand students, faculty, and employees converged on Sproul Plaza to protest a proposed tuition increase of 32%. Simultaneous protests on the University of California and California State University campuses occurred throughout

8961-420: The tax-gatherer, is the very man I have to deal with—for it is, after all, with men and not with parchment that I quarrel—and he has voluntarily chosen to be an agent of the government. How shall he ever know well that he is and does as an officer of the government, or as a man, until he is obliged to consider whether he will treat me, his neighbor, for whom he has respect, as a neighbor and well-disposed man, or as

9064-460: The tents and make the arrests. Following that, tents were flown over Upper Sproul using balloons, including a banner claiming "Our Space". On November 18, newspaper reports indicate that UC Davis police officers used pepper spray on protesters sitting peacefully on the ground. On December 11, the last day to date of the visible presence of Occupy Cal on the Mario Savio steps of Sproul Hall,

9167-484: The tents". They described the protesters’ actions as not meeting the criteria for non-violent civil disobedience ." The administrators also stated, "We regret that, given the instruction to take down tents and prevent encampment, the police were forced to use their batons to enforce the policy. We regret all injuries, to protesters and police, that resulted from this effort. The campus's Police Review Board will ultimately determine whether police used excessive force under

9270-524: The term "civil disobedience" has always suffered from ambiguity and in modern times, become utterly debased. Marshall Cohen notes, "It has been used to describe everything from bringing a test-case in the federal courts to taking aim at a federal official . Indeed, for Vice President Spiro Agnew it has become a code-word describing the activities of muggers, arsonists, draft evaders, campaign hecklers, campus militants, anti-war demonstrators, juvenile delinquents and political assassins." LeGrande writes that

9373-652: The term civil disobedience, approved of the armed insurrection of John Brown . He also notes that some major civil disobedience campaigns which have been classified as non-violent, such as the Birmingham campaign , have actually included elements of violence. Non-revolutionary civil disobedience is a simple disobedience of laws on the grounds that they are judged "wrong" by a person's conscience, or as part of an effort to render certain laws ineffective, to cause their repeal, or to exert pressure to get one's political wishes on some other issue. Revolutionary civil disobedience

9476-489: The term to Boycott , and eventually led to legal reform and support for Irish independence. Egypt saw a massive implementation on a nation-wide movement starting 1914 and peaking in 1919 as the Egyptian Revolution of 1919 . This was then adopted by other peoples who campaigned against European colonial rule from 1920 onwards. Zaghloul Pasha , considered the mastermind behind this massive civil disobedience,

9579-402: The test site. Howard Zinn writes, There may be many times when protesters choose to go to jail, as a way of continuing their protest, as a way of reminding their countrymen of injustice. But that is different than the notion that they must go to jail as part of a rule connected with civil disobedience. The key point is that the spirit of protest should be maintained all the way, whether it

9682-461: The time of his arrest, was not yet a well-known author, and his arrest was not covered in any newspapers in the days, weeks and months after it happened. The tax collector who arrested him rose to higher political office, and Thoreau's essay was not published until after the end of the Mexican War. Civil disobedients have chosen a variety of different illegal acts. Hugo A. Bedau writes, There

9785-571: The young men and the young women with the same indiscriminate force. If the students turned away, they pounded their ribs. If they turned further away to escape, they hit them on their spines. Hass himself was hit in the ribs by a police officer wielding a baton. His wife Brenda Hillman was shoved to the ground by a police officer. In response to questions about the officer's use of force, UC Police Captain Margo Bennett stated: The individuals who linked arms and actively resisted, that in itself

9888-621: Was a native middle-class, Azhar graduate, political activist, judge, parliamentary and ex-cabinet minister whose leadership brought Christian and Muslim communities together as well as women into the massive protests. Along with his companions of Wafd Party , who have achieved an independence of Egypt and a first constitution in 1923. Civil disobedience is one of the many ways people have revolted against what they deem to be unfair laws. It has been used in many nonviolent resistance movements in India ( Mahatma Gandhi 's campaigns for independence from

9991-408: Was allowed to strengthen their case. The lawsuit went on for a number of years and the organization BAMN presented evidence and legal arguments suggesting that police and administrator actions were excessive and impacted political speech. BAMN encouraged people to attend the final hearing on Sept. 10, 2013, claiming that this was a major part of the movement and that without the support of the community,

10094-469: Was eventually renamed "Essay on Civil Disobedience". After his landmark lectures were published in 1866, the term began to appear in numerous sermons and lectures relating to slavery and the war in Mexico. Thus, by the time Thoreau's lectures were first published under the title "Civil Disobedience", in 1866, four years after his death, the term had achieved fairly widespread usage. It has been argued that

10197-593: Was evicted, rather than resorting to violence, everyone in the locality should shun them. Following this Captain Charles Boycott , the land agent of an absentee landlord in County Mayo , Ireland , was subject to social ostracism organized by the Irish Land League in 1880. Boycott attempted to evict eleven tenants from his land. While Parnell's speech did not refer to land agents or landlords,

10300-473: Was kept informed, as much as possible, about the Occupy Cal activities on campus. However, it was only yesterday that I was able to look at a number of the videos that were made of the protests on November 9. These videos are very disturbing. The events of last Wednesday are unworthy of us as a university community." Birgeneau also stated, "We cannot condone any excessive use of force against any members of our community," and granted amnesty to students involved in

10403-431: Was making a choice. He admits that government may express the will of the majority but it may also express nothing more than the will of elite politicians. Even a good form of government is "liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it". If a government did express the voice of most people, this would not compel the obedience of those who disagree with what is said. The majority may be powerful but it

10506-628: Was one of the first to theorize and propose the strategy of non-cooperation, and thus a form of nonviolent disobedience, as a really effective weapon. In the lead-up to the Glorious Revolution in Britain—when the 1689 Bill of Rights was documented, the last Catholic monarch was deposed, and male and female joint-co-monarchs elevated—the English Midland Enlightenment developed a manner of voicing objection to

10609-486: Was the site of Occupy Berkeley protests. During calmer times, numerous student groups set up tables to recruit and inform other students (a practice known as "tabling," as occurs at many universities throughout the United States). Upper Sproul Plaza also features a double row of the pollarded London Plane trees characteristic of the Berkeley campus. On the first Tuesday of each month from 12–1 p.m. during

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