It Could Happen Here - The UC Student Workers Facing Assault Charges for a Labour Protest

Episode Date: June 21, 2023

James talks to Tom and Alex about the assault charges that more than 60 UC graduate students are facing after peacefully disrupting an alumni event in San Diego. Stop the Charges PetitionSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hello, welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast which only has one button and is edited by Daniel using a 10 year old Logitech Xbox controller. That's a submarine joke for those of you who have not been following. Today, I'm joined by Alex and Tom, both of them graduate students in the UC system. And we're talking about this really obscene charge of assault that some graduate students are facing after they disrupted an alumni event in San Diego. Hi Alex and Tom, if you want to introduce yourselves a little bit as far as you feel comfortable. Hi James, sure. Thanks for having us back. My name is Alex, I'm a graduate student at

University of California San Diego. Some of you have been listening since November. I remember when I first came on the show to tell you about our strike. And I guess we're going to give some interesting updates since then. I'm Tom. I'm also a graduate student at UC San Diego. I'm pretty advanced in my program. I've been here for a while. I'm in a humanities department. a bit, but can you just explain what these charges that people are facing are and how they found out that they had been charged with assault after doing something which was not violent in the first place? Yeah, absolutely. So the most sort of recent thing that's happened is, and we'll talk about the details in a moment, but as James alluded to, we held a peaceful protest back in May related to a number of violations of our most recent collective bargaining agreement, which I'll also be happy to go into detail on. And in response to what was, by all accounts, by what I witnessed by everyone else that I've talked to was a completely peaceful protest.

The university has decided to allege that 67 graduate students, including by our count 18, who were either not present or not involved, are going to be charged under the student conduct process with committing a physical assault, as well as charges for disruption and a vague assertion that we were threatening the health and safety of others. These are quite serious allegations. They do carry potential sanctions up to long-term suspension and expulsion from the university. Right, yeah. And that's, I think people, like like the exposure for graduate students is is so high right like if you are on the job market you know this could set back your progress on an already very challenging job market uh it's suspension or expulsion presumably could have long-term consequences for your employability and something that like i think i spent the better part of eight years at ucsd like they could say you've invested a lot of time you

get paid like shit uh and if you then get nothing out of it that is potentially devastating for each individual in this this is absolutely devastating these are our careers and we've invested uh you know a minimum of seven years at least in humanities fund there's many of us more but it's also devastating for the university itself because these students that are being charged are from virtually every program on campus and many of them are working in very prestigious high-powered laboratories have you know done fellowships and scholarships uh so this is really a bad look for the university as well to you know potentially have 67 graduate students yeah under these charges yeah totally uh 67 it's funny i've been 68 we could have uh it's when i like i don't know

when i hear 68 obviously i think of like 1968 and it's remarkable this is a university at one point someone self-immolated at UCSD in protest Vietnam war and now we are like it had a reputation for radicalism and now here we are charging people for walking onto a stage and shouting do you want to talk about the walking onto a stage and shouting can you maybe give us an account of of the events and then uh we'll talk about maybe how those have been represented in the process that makes sense yeah sure um so this particular protest uh took place at an award ceremony, a very sort of fancy sort of annual event that the university hosts where they give awards to various alumni and kind of as a sort of fundraising opportunity as well. And what the protest took the form of was that a number of graduate student workers walked on stage uninvited and began giving speeches and holding signs,

demonstrating the ways in which and informing the audience of the ways in which that our contracts have not been upheld since we signed them in December. The ways in which the university is circumventing some of the raises that we were promised for our research and teaching. And the ways it is trying to sort of prevent those things from being resolved in the sort of normal channels that you go through with these sort of union and contract administration things. And that's been ongoing for, I suppose, six months now with relatively little process. So that demonstration took place about up until the time that some local police officers arrived. And at that time, the demonstration was fully compliant with those orders. And the police officers noted such in their dispatch logs, which I was able to retrieve from the city. And then after that, the demonstration continued outside of the venue

of the event where people were still able to, you know, make a decent amount of noise and raise their grievances, despite the walls separating the group from the alumni inside. And it certainly did get some attention since we were in touch after that with people who were sort of relatively high up in a number of university and alumni-ric offices, um, and who were, um, surprised to hear of the things that we were alleging and, um, wanted to hear more and be able to raise those issues further up into the university. So, um, these charges certainly did sort of come as a shock given that at first, um, a lot of people at the event seemed, uh, receptive, um, in a way, uh, though certainly not all, but some were certainly receptive to our concerns

and what we had to say. I'll add a couple of interesting details there. The first one is that the immediate impetus for this event was actually the news that Chancellor Pradeep Khosla was in attendance and this was only a week or two after it had become public knowledge that he had received a $500,000 raise as an effort to keep him in the university, which raises his salary to more than a million dollars and I think makes him the fourth highest paid university chancellor or president or dean in the United States. So we presented him with an award for UCSD's most overpaid worker.

And that was sort of our rationale for doing this specific event. The other thing is that when the police arrived, they actually gave no verbal orders for us to clear out. As soon as we saw them, we peacefully started to leave the stage. And they stood there as well. No arrests were made, no interviews were done, no orders were shouted. They remained on site for the duration as we stood outside picketing. There were no reinforcements. There were no SWAT teams. It was just one or two squad cars.

The police typically are known for having outsized responses to minor problems. But the fact that they did not have any kind of aggressive response to this indicated to us that they were aware that it was an entirely peaceful event. And the dispatch logs don't show them having any concerns about violence or responding to any real violence,

them seeing any violence and responding to it, right? Yeah, so I was able to grab those and it's difficult to say because it looks like maybe two people called 911, even though it was three yeah two of them said no violence yeah two said there was no violence the third person said they had second-hand reports that we had pushed the chancellor off the stage which we have video of that very definitely not happening uh he stood next to the graduate students and then of his own

initiative turned and walked off the stage so the only allegation that's documented uh in real time of any violence occurring was one admittedly secondhand and two is disproven um conclusively by the available video right and that video is online right like it's been posted yeah it's easy to find there's a that particular one that really easily disproves it there's a vimeo link for the the union uploaded it uh so i can you can drop that in the show notes i can send that to you yeah excellent we'll make sure we do that and likewise the um the pra uh that that's publicly available folks could go see it um all sandy pra's are publicly available.

Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. You know that rush of endorphins you

feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens. So if you love hearing real, inspiring stories from the people you know, follow, and admire, join me every week for Post Run High. It's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all. It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and very fun. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me as the fire and dare enter? Nocturno, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern day horror stories

inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hola mi gente, it's Honey German and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again.

The podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture, musica, peliculas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities, artists, and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators, sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled with chisme laughs and all the vibes that you love. Each week, we'll explore everything from music and pop culture to deeper topics like identity, community, and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun, el té caliente, and life stories. Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral.

Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. or wherever you get your podcasts. We have a lot of evidence that no one was violently assaulted. What is the university alleging that was done, I guess? What did they claim the student workers did? Well, the closest thing that we can find in the documentation that each person was given about the charges that they face, the closest thing we can find to a description that seems to imply assault was that someone claimed to have seen the chancellor, the word they used was bumped, which doesn't even necessarily imply intentionality in my mind um and and really there's the way that i read that sentence is that you know possibly the stage was a little crowded and and someone might have bumped into him and but i don't even

recall ever seeing that happen i haven't talked to anyone who recalls seeing that happen, anyone who was in our group or not. But other than that, the rest of the report is really just full of descriptions of how they, I don't even think they talked to anyone who said they were scared of us. They just said people might have been scared of us. It's very strange. The report reads like propaganda from the class war. It's pearl clutching of the highest order. Some champagne glasses were broken. The event itself cost over $100,000 to set up with many different caterers and vendors. Somebody flew all the way from Switzerland for the event. And I'm actually using made up quotes from the report. And during the event itself, it's ironic because I was at the event as were, you know, an indeterminate amount of other graduate students. And we actually were assaulted by members of the crowd who come up and put their arms on our their hands

on our shoulders and tell us this is why people hate unions and you know hey i i brought my my 90 year old grandmother to this and i have some you know uh 50 million dollar grant and i'm being honored for this that with people thumping my chest people thumping other people's chest sticking fingers in our faces and telling us really that we ruined their special night. And our response was, you know, I think that our need to pay rent and feed ourselves is a little bit more important than your special night at the art museum by the ocean with their glasses of champagne. Yeah, yeah. And it's not like it was even a all that was happening was that people who had given the money or who they want them to who they

want to get money from were being made to feel special it wasn't as if you even interrupted like a uh like a meeting or a function of the university and unless we consider the function of the university these days seems to be to to get money and then distribute it to people in positions of power in the university so given that right that they like this was a an event i guess which reinforced the people who have authority in the university it's interesting to look what's not interesting it's upsetting to look at the nature of the the process that these 67 people are facing right because it's not that they're not being accused in a court of doing a crime they're being accused by the university in the university of breaking the conduct rules of the university so they their university is like uh it's all

parties apart from the defendant right it's the judge it's a jury it's a prosecuting lawyer um and the executioner so can can you... Yeah, go ahead. I'll just say something about that. This was very much calculated on the part of the university to charge us as under the student conduct violation, because if they're charging us as students, they're not charging us as workers. If we had workers, we would have union representation in our meetings, it would be part of that litigation process. But as students, the context of the labor fight that is the result for the entire event is relevant, that can be divorced from that and treated under, you know, these are codes

that are meant to charge undergraduates who are drinking in their dorms or are sexually harassing their peers in their classes. It's just not something that is, in my view, appropriate at all to apply to a labor dispute which is what this was yeah like i think the only time i've been party to these proceedings is when an undergraduate did physically assault someone who i was teaching with but like it it's not a normal procedure by any means and certainly to use against grad students are very clearly taking part in a labor action i think it's very telling that the university is kind of using one system to circumvent the fair bargaining and the unfair labor practices and all the the things that they seem really like they seem almost like inexplicably committed to to not uh sticking to the contract even though they got a

contract that was largely favorable to them and not as much as people had wanted at the start of to not sticking to the contract, even though they got a contract that was largely favorable to them and not as much as people had wanted at the start of the strike. So how does it work from here? What does this process look like? Well, to start with, each of us has an individual meeting

with a representative of the university. And at that meeting, we essentially have the response, the, the, the option to either accept responsibility for all the charges against us, um, or to, um, say that we do not accept that responsibility and want to continue the process forward at, at which point they will, um, they will schedule or attempt to schedule a conduct review board meeting where I believe three representatives from who have been sort of predetermined to serve on these conduct review boards will judge the weight of the evidence in a preponderance of the evidence standard. And at that point, then the Office of Student Conduct, if you are found responsible, I believe that office is then what decides what the sanctions are that you will face. So this is a bit of an unprecedented process, at least for us. We actually, I believe,

and I want to clarify some numbers, I think I said 67 graduate students earlier, they were actually 59 from this event who were charged. And that 67 comes from eight who were charged for a protest related to the university's attempt to fire workers for striking, which is still ongoing. That protest took place in and there that uh conduct process for those eight workers has not yet resolved uh as we speak today on june 20th so it's not clear how they are going to manage the logistics of trying to charge six or 59 workers in a single case um it could assuming they follow their entire procedures by the book and don't dismiss any charges it could take more than a year to resolve this situation jesus and for people who have uh like they're either defending or advancing to candidacy or um these these are all things you can do within grad

school people who aren't familiar where you where you sort of level up your grad student status i guess um are people able to do that yeah luckily um this does not restrict your academic advancement it can potentially if it goes from quarter to quarter they can potentially put i believe holds on registration but i think that's only if you don't sort of carry out your sanctions assuming your sanction is not suspension i could be a time correct me if I'm wrong on that. But what still could be the case is that you could, you know, and it could well be the case for me that I defend before the conclusion of this process, but it could still end up as something that would be on a conduct record that could be released in certain employment situations. So even if you are able to escape the process, so to speak,

it is not necessarily not going to follow you after that point. I'll add that by all indicators, from those who have already had their first meeting, I'm asking, you know, do you accept responsibility? And of course, they've said, no, we don't. I'll file allegations against us. But it seems as if the Office of Student Conduct is quite overwhelmed by this. People have been trying to schedule meetings, have not gotten responses from the office. The office then gets back to them a week or two later with,

you know, only one or two options. The really calculated evil of this is that these charges dropped on the very last day of the quarter, which means that, at least in the arts and humanities, most of us are going out of town or are conducting research or are on fellowships. So we're not around to respond to these. And I think that that was a decision that was purposefully made. But to process this sheer number of students involved in this is staggering. And I think that the office development offices are really struggling. The other thing that I will say is we have it from informal channels that this is something that is being directed from the very top, which is to say from the chancellor's office, that this is not something that the unimpartial observers have made, but something that the chancellor himself is directing.

Yeah, that makes sense, given the chancellor was there. It also, like, it's just put me in mind of 2010, when I don't think either of you were at UCSD, but for those of us who were, and there's a film about it, actually, called Dear White People um but there was a a party where people wore blackface uh and this happened I think through a fraternity that was associated with the university and getting the university to do

anything disciplinary about that required hundreds if not thousands of people to go on strike to march to occupy the chancellor's complex and to like physically demand action for weeks and weeks if not months and from the chancellor's system right like and still it was extremely unsatisfactory process the resolution was with extremely unsatisfactory but i guess that there's a contemporaneous incident happening right now. I don't know all the details, but it appears that an individual was, or a videotape himself, pressing a screen with his professor on it

and making lewd comments and a whole variety of really misogynistic, creepy behavior. Apparently, this is his third restraining order that he's received. But as far as the university is concerned, this is still a case that's moving through it. It doesn't appear to have had any immediate sanctions. We've heard stories of sexual assaults, as you said, of racist harassment that had really gone nowhere. I actually reported a student last summer for very threatening behavior. And the very next quarter, he was in my class.

Yeah, it's the only thing that sort of they've jumped to defend is capital, I guess, or in this case, the sort of administrators of the university and so this this could potentially play out for months what's the and it seems like everyone has accepting responsibility such a strange word because uh like what's what happened is what's at really, not who's responsible for it so much, right? Like, you can accept responsibility for doing what was a protected First Amendment activity, but you obviously can't accept responsibility for assault if you didn't assault somebody.

But given that no one... If 67 students had assaulted Chancellor Freddie Postler, you would think that it would have made national news. Yeah, yeah. That would have been something, I think. Yeah, that's like a beat down. But that didn't happen. So,

what's the plan for defence? I guess is each case like an individual case? Can they mount, can people mount a joint defence like the J21 people did in D.C.? Do we know yet? How does this work? I'm not sure we entirely know yet.

I think the university can make the decision to consolidate cases that share evidence. I don't believe they've made that determination yet. I think what they are trying to do now, and this sort of leads into another part that I think represents a degree of sort of apathy bordering on cruelty of this process, is that we've identified at least 18 graduate students who were either not physically present at all or had merely registered for the event without even knowing that this would take place. And those people have all been charged with the exact same things that everyone who was intentionally part of the protest has been. So we think that we're at the individual stage where they are trying to kind of, they know that they, they're well aware that they caught a bunch of people that had no involvement in this. But we think that we're using really these individual meetings

to figure out who those people are to the best of their ability. And perhaps further down the line, they may decide to try to consolidate these cases to expedite the process. But it's hard to say for sure. Again, the important aspect of this process is the fact that almost every element of it and every step and how that is carried out is entirely at the discretion of a handful of university administrators. There's no real appeal outside of the system.

There's no real accountability outside of the system. real accountability outside of the system. Um, so they can simply implement these things, um, you know, as, as they see fit. I mean, this, there was, uh, um, uh, in when this eventually first broke, there were some, um, former graduate students who run an old, uh, radical, uh, UC Twitter account who shared some write-ups from cases of sit-ins that were charged under the same process, I believe at Berkeley a couple of years ago. And in that one, the administrators at the Berkeley campus actually went as far as to edit the code of conduct during the process. Surely you're not responsible for like ex post facto edits of the code of conduct or were they? They were.

Jesus fucking Christ. Well, this was primarily in, you know, in all fairness, if they deserve any, this was that particular incident was kind of a logistical thing. So it was it was whether or not certain aspects of the process could be waived or could be could be extended. The deadline could be extended. The deadline could be extended and someone who didn't have the authority to extend it did. And when they were called on that, they edited the code of conduct after the fact to say that, okay,

a designee can extend the deadline for, you know, how this process proceeds. So it wasn't that they invented a rule to charge someone under, but they did edit their own due process as they went along. Right. Yeah. So you might be up against a moving target, so to speak. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more.

After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens. So if you love hearing real, inspiring stories from the people you know, follow, and admire, join me every week for Post Run High. It's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all. It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and very fun. Listen to Post Run High

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters, From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time.

Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hola mi gente, it's Honey German and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again, the podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture, musica, peliculas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities, artists, and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars,

from actors and artists to musicians and creators, sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled with chisme laughs and all the vibes that you love. Each week, we'll explore everything from music and pop culture to deeper topics like identity, community, and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun, el té caliente, and life stories. Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral.

Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Did they identify everybody? Because I'm presuming people didn't use their legal names to register. How were they able to identify some of the people clearly the people who were just there as undergraduate alumni and happened to be graduate students probably did use their real names but do you know how else it and five people um well i think they did you know some people did um i i assume that i was caught you with my uh real real name on the registration. Um, and, and that was simply because I, you know, some, some people decided, um, to use different names.

Um, I, uh, decided after weighing the pros and cons of that, I decided that it was, I, you know, I, I figured that there might be, it might be a worse situation if that was, you know, unraveled. And I didn't think that, obviously, I had no plans of assaulting someone and I did not assault anyone. So I had no reason to expect that perhaps I needed to take that level of precaution with this kind of a peaceful protest action. But we believe that they primarily got the names of who they decided to charge from simply registration lists. But again, the fact and there was a sign in at this event where you picked up a name tag and, you know, it was kind of a gate you couldn't really get in without doing that. But they still gave charges to people who actually we know for a fact were not physically present and have been able to prove that they were not physically present so it doesn't seem that they even bothered to consult at least initially the actual sign-in list of people who actually showed up and checked in um which is also a bit strange um but yeah it it it seems to be a very

haphazard process so far there are people who have been charged who weren't there. There are people who were there who haven't, you know, necessarily been identified at this point in time. So it's a little bit of a mystery. Yeah, and we'd love to find out too, because, you know, if they, for some reason, were able to determine using union lists, that obviously would be a massive

unfair labour practice yeah already it seems like an unfair labour practice and a violation of like First Amendment rights and protected First Amendment speech and Jesus it's yeah it just seems that they're sort of

half-assing this thing which could have devastating consequences for some people. And they've just kind of thrown a wide net and sort of, I guess, trying to work out after the fact what to do with this. Has it had like a chilling effect on campus organizing, on protesting their ongoing contract violations? No, not at all.

You can't scare us. We're sticking to the union. Ironically, as many of your listeners are probably aware from listening to earlier episodes of your podcast, there had been a lot of tension on campus between the RSC, the social sciences, and the STEM, dating back to the strike and even before. And they had actually gotten substantially worse in the last couple of months based on the

vacancy elections that were held in April. This ironically seems to be a huge miscalculation on the part of the university because a lot of those issues, although they haven't gone away, have been absolutely subsumed in the injury to one is an injury to all mentality. So there is a great amount of solidarity, but going into the summer, I don't think any work around campus will be expected. Yeah, that's excellent. That's great to hear. So talking of solidarity,

I guess, what can people do to help? Like, it seems like, do you have a legal defense fund? I don't know if you're even allowed to have a lawyer. Is there something they can sign? Is there someone they can write to? Yeah, go ahead.

So there is a petition circulating around for current students, faculty, alumni and community members. The address to that is bit.ly slash UCSD drop the charges. One word. All lowercase. All lowercase. Yeah.

Anything else? Would you plan marches and pickets and stuff as the process continues that people could join? to the administration that there's a wide level of awareness of this issue and concern over this issue, but also to make sure that anyone who wants to be involved in any way that they're able to support us will be able to be kept in the loop. So if you use an email, the address that you actually read when you sign the petition, you will certainly hear about any actions that we have. We are still very much in the early planning stages as as um tom alluded to earlier there is um you know a certain ask there appears to be a certain aspect of strategizing here where uh the the charges were given uh right at the point where campus becomes the least populated potentially of any time throughout the whole year except perhaps christmas

um but you know there's still plenty of graduate students perhaps Christmas. Um, but you know, there's still plenty of graduate students here. Uh, they are all, um, you know, just as shocked as we are, uh, to see this unfolding. Um, so I think we can definitely plan, uh, for, uh, you know, some kind of actions to take place this summer. Nice. Yeah. And maybe we'll get some more student conduct violations. Yeah, yeah. It'd be good if alumni, if people are alumni, like I know a decent number of UC alumni listen and they reached out when we talked about the strike,

like it would be great if those people could leverage that status because the UC goes hard on alumni for donations. They've stopped calling me now. They know I'm poor. But I think those of you who the uc is still calling for donations you know that would be a good time to raise this or you know you could email or whatever email the alumni office um but yeah it's this is obscene and ridiculous and obviously like a continuation of union busting and their fundamental refusal to

acknowledge student workers as workers apparently and and only see people as students and so is there anything else you want people to know about this the only thing else you'd like people to do to show solidarity before we wrap up um i think the big thing is just you know sign the petition that'll help you you know kind of stay in the loop especially if you're uh kind of in the local area and are able to come out and join us in solidarity for any protests. Yeah, again, if you're a UC alum of any kind, certainly make your thoughts known to UCSD. Because apart from, I would say, the two groups of people who have the most power to act in decent numbers in the situation are professors and alumni. And so that would be, like what you said, that's a huge point of support.

Other than that, I think just the way, you know, I've been here for almost six full years now. And, you know, four of those were without a union. I'm a student researcher. So our union is brand new. And you can go back to the November episode to hear that whole story. But my point is that, you know, before we had this kind of network and this kind of collective organization to protect our rights, a lot of, you know, I've seen a lot of friends who through no fault of their own, ended up in some kind of, you know, one sided process where it's them versus the bureaucracy, whether that's, you know, they're a bad relationship with their professor, or, you know, any number of things that might have come up along the way,

health issues leading to lower, you know, not finishing work on time and, you know, getting on the bad side of advisors or anything like that. You know, it is very easy in the status quo of the way the large university works to fall through the cracks and to have a bureaucracy act in secrecy to just simply kind of remove you without anyone really saying a word. So I think the most important thing is to keep eyes on this, to make sure the university knows that people are watching, that they can try to bring this process against us, but it is not going to be a pleasant experience because, you know, the public and the workers here in the community here are going to be watching and they're going to be supporting us. So

I think just keep an eye on the situation if you can, if it's something that you're interested in and able to do. And that's really the biggest way, I think, to support us. I will also say that if you are a UC admin, either statewide or in UC San Diego, either statewide or in UC San Diego, the easiest way to prevent future alumni or events from being disrupted is to actually honor the contract. Yes. That would be a fantastic idea.

Yeah. I do know several professors listen, so it's time to do something. Hopefully, yeah, hopefully they will do something in solidarity but i know a few of them listen and have reached out before well thank you very much i'm sorry this shit is happening to you uh we will keep people updated as the long process continues but yeah i hope i hope you can enjoy your summer without teaching a little bit without this hanging over you

we'll try it's uh that's kind of my motivation is they you know they're using it as a little bit of a psychological warfare in terms of labor organizing so i will just simply choose not to let it bother me at least as much as i can yeah all right thank you very much thanks james thank you it could happen here as a production of cool zone media for more podcasts from cool zone media visit our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts you can find sources for it could happen here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com sources thanks for listening hey, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes,

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