.News & Notes

The sound of one side debating; you can't speak out at Cal, but at least they have libraries; Oakland may soon only have tours.

Manufacturing dissent: Following recent decisions by San Francisco and Oakland school boards to hold Iraq teach-ins in their public schools, it was only a matter of time before Berkeley jumped on the peace train, making the same toothless promises to offer students a multisided discussion in a largely one-sided town.

Although there were lessons to be learned from recent controversies in these other districts, Berkeley Unified School Board directors forged determinedly ahead last Wednesday, voting 5-1 to hold a district-wide peace-in on February 5 and 6. “This is one of those opportunities where elected officials can use their office to emphasize issues that are morally important to them,” director Terry Doran told his colleagues.

San Francisco’s teach-in proposal was toned down after parents complained that the one-sided antiwar rhetoric was inappropriate for classroom discussions. And while Oakland Unified went through the motions of recruiting a balanced selection of speakers, organizers claim they were unable to locate anyone willing to take the Bush administration’s side.

Director John Selawsky, who brought the issue to the Berkeley board, isn’t worried about balance. “I have faith in the teachers of Berkeley to be fair about this,” he said. Never mind that the Berkeley Federation of Teachers has already asked the board to emphasize the antiwar theme by shortening the resolution’s title from “BUSD School Days of Public Education on Peace and the War Against Iraq” to simply “BUSD School Days of Public Education on Peace.”

Still, the directors acknowledged that their last-minute proposal left no time to review the two-day curriculum in advance. They were also unsure whether the proposed classroom discussions would violate the district’s ban on controversial speakers. But moral imperative trumped any concern over breaking the rules. “We’re arguing over issues that I don’t believe are significant,” Doran told his peers.

In the ’60s, teach-ins were largely conducted by student leaders distrustful of the establishment and its motives. In this case, though, the peace activists are the local establishment — faculty and administrators are making use of their official capacities to tout the antiwar message in the classroom.

In her lone dissenting vote, Director Shirley Issel decried the contradictions she felt were inherent in the resolution. “I’m highly distressed at the thought that we would in our passion lose sight of our obligation to protect a neutral learning environment,” she said, referring to a subcommittee of the teachers union. “What makes you think the Subcommittee on Peace will develop lessons that present both sides of the issue?”

Issel cited a recent situation in which a Spanish teacher had offered “substantial extra credit” to students who attended the January 18 peace rally in San Francisco.

Teach-in proponents argue that any antiwar discussion in the classroom is already balanced by the media’s alleged warmongering. A teach-in, they say, will merely give students the information they need to make up their own minds about the war. Balanced discussion, Issel countered, needn’t require a teach-in. “Current events should be a part of every student’s curriculum, every week,” she said. “We don’t need a resolution to do that.” — Helene Blatter

Speech, $1.35 a minute: Thanks to a string of reactionary attacks and vandalism against the Daily Californian, the lefty students of UC Berkeley have acquired a rather unsavory reputation as “thought Nazis” — folks who aim to suppress campus speech that doesn’t coincide with the prevailing progressive orthodoxy. Throw in the syllabus of graduate student Snehal Shingavi‘s De-Cal course, which stated that “conservative thinkers are encouraged to seek other sections,” and the inaugural scandal of Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, and the national press has a plateful of delicious irony to chew on: The liberals who once fought so hard for free expression are now arguably its greatest impediment.

Not so fast. Following the recent Emma Goldman Project scandal — when Cal administrators censored a fund-raising letter because the selected Goldman quotes were a bit too relevant to current events — even the most conservative pundits have had to acknowledge that the left doesn’t have a monopoly on the suppression of inconvenient sentiment. And now, the Berkeley blogosphere — that collection of undergraduate insta-pundits who maintain Web logs where they gossip about university politics — has put forth yet another candidate for bête noire in the marketplace of ideas.

Russell Wardlow, a Cal undergrad who runs the blog known as “Mean Mister Mustard,” recently attended the introductory session of “Marxism and Fascism in the Far East,” a course taught by political science professor James Gregor. Wardlow was surprised and amused to read Gregor’s own syllabus. “The course will not be conducted in a politically correct manner,” the professor cautioned, “which means that some students may find the treatment offensive. If you are among those who cannot tolerate alternative opinion, who feel that any departure from the prevailing folk-wisdom of Ethnic Studies or left-wing posturing is objectionable — do not take this course.”

In fact, Gregor suggested several types who might be too fragile to hear about the sins of Marxism: “If you are a Marxist enthusiast and believe that all the evil in the world is the product of a ‘vast right-wing conspiracy’ — do not take this course,” he wrote. “If you require medication to remain civil — do not take this course.”

Entertaining, yes. But Wardlow and the other Berkeley bloggers couldn’t help but notice the similarity to Shingavi’s controversial caveat. Is there a double standard at Cal when it comes to pouncing on intellectual intimidation? Does Gregor’s syllabus qualify as Shingavi-esque? The blogosphere is predictably divided. “Your prof is saying that people with the above-quoted viewpoint shouldn’t enroll,” one poster argued, “just as Snehal said that people with a conservative viewpoint shouldn’t enroll.” Wardlow countered that Gregor’s quote was aimed at ideologues — like Shingavi, for instance — who are unwilling to confront ideas with which they disagree.

Gregor says he’s perfectly happy to have lefty students attend his course, but tiresome true believers are a waste of his time. “There are thirty courses about Marxism on campus; there’s no exclusion here,” he says. “I’m just telling them that if they don’t want to talk about different ideas, this is not the course to take. It’s honesty in advertising.”

Still, the debate over Gregor’s syllabus underscores just how surreal the university climate has become. We’ve now witnessed the emergence of the thought-police police, who scrutinize every faculty course description for evidence of intolerance. Somebody please wake us when the world gets back on its meds. — Chris Thompson

Books or Barzaghi?: The good folks in the Oakland city manager’s office want you to blame Sacramento for their reluctant proposal to close half of the city’s libraries. Let’s just take a moment to savor that: The city intends to close half of its libraries!

It’s certainly convenient for Robert Bobb‘s crew to pretend that the state budget cuts are killing us, so we have no choice but to slash $2.1 million from the library budget. And though we’d love to keep libraries open in our poorest neighborhoods, Gray Davis is taking back his vehicle license fee revenues, so it’ll be curtains for the likes of Elmhurst library, which has been around since 1911. Oh, well — you can’t fight the governor.

That line might even work if the city council had actually been trying to save money. In fact, even with Oakland’s budget deficit growing steadily — $17 million and climbing — the council has continued to dole out the green like there’s no tomorrow. According to an internal memo by library director Carmen Martinez, closing the Brookfield branch for five months would save the city roughly $100,000. What a coincidence: That’s exactly the amount city leaders just agreed to spend on a new contract for “personality trait analysis” for firefighter recruits. If that’s not sufficiently absurd, consider this: The city isn’t even recruiting new firefighters. Sorry, Brookfield, but future firemen may need that time on the couch.

That’s just the tip of the library-killing expenditures. The council recently received a fourteen-page report on disaster preparedness, for which it paid the Endymion consultancy firm $150,000. The council then turned around and gave Endymion yet another contract to study the matter further. This time, the price tag was $1.2 million. How many branch libraries could we have saved if we hadn’t spent that money? Would you believe — all of them?

And let’s not forget the 1999 Zhone Technology deal, in which Oakland sold the broadband technology company fifteen acres of land for $6 million — 80 percent of what it was worth on the open market. Ignore the fact that Zhone officials gave Jerry Brown‘s 3Rs PAC $50,000 while the deal was being negotiated. The city simply couldn’t refuse the stock options the company dangled in lieu of cash. Because everyone knows there’s no healthier industry than broadband infrastructure, right?

All is not lost for the libraries — at least not yet. The city council is scheduled to make its final decision on February 7, ending the agonizing suspense that has already produced two death threats against Martinez. If the council really wants to save the branch libraries, council watchdog Jeanette Sherwin has a helpful suggestion. Jacques Barzaghi‘s salary as Brown’s consultant comes to roughly $130,000, plus benefits. If the council fires him, we can save almost enough money to keep the Melrose and Elmhurst branches open. Plus, we get to fire Jacques Barzaghi! — Chris Thompson

Reality bites: When it comes to attracting tourists, it’s fair to say that Oakland will never compete with the land of cable cars and crooked streets across the bay.

Now, however, San Francisco-based human-rights organization Global Exchange is offering travelers an Oaktown “Reality Tour,” wooing potential tourists with the promise of discovering not Jack London Square, but a less-sanitized West Oakland.

Slated for February 8 and 9 to coincide with Black History Month, the tour is titled “Globalization and Race in California” and will focus on some of the less-than-positive aspects that make the city unique. For $100, participants get a guided visit to toxic hotspots, a walking tour of mom-and-pop liquor stores (noting the absence of real supermarkets), and an opportunity to meet former juvenile delinquents — all of which, according to the organization, are evidence of the links between corporate globalization and urban decay.

Over the past decade, well-intentioned vacationers have increasingly combined travel with activism, shelling out for the chance to build schools in South America or study the lingering effects of apartheid in South Africa. Since 1989, Global Exchange has run Reality Tours to places such as Cuba, Nicaragua, Vietnam, and Afghanistan to educate participants on global politics with the goal of making future activists out of them.

But how would this type of tourism work in Oakland? “A lot of the issues that poor people and people of color face in the United States are linked to our global economy,” says designated tour guide Xiomara Castro. “We try to make the link so people who participate in the program see that corporate globalization isn’t something that only happens far away.” The issues she cites include the rising cost of living, lack of health-care services, high rates of incarceration, and poor access to healthy food.

Global Exchange has also run tours at the California-Mexico border, in the Central Valley, and in San Francisco. According to Castro, the in-state tours tend to be popular with students and locals since they are much less expensive than the international trips.

For East Bay activists who have tried activist vacations elsewhere, this may be a chance to view poverty in their own community through a critical lens. And if tourists won’t come out for the good things Oakland has to offer, perhaps they’ll do so to help fix the bad ones. — Helene Blatter

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