At Berkeley in the Sixties: The Making of an Activist

43 The Regents Meet

43 The Regents Meet Friday was a brilliant day. The Regents, who rotated their monthly meetings among the campuses, fortuitously held this one at University Hall. As a welcoming party, the FSM organized a massive noon rally on Sproul Hall steps. To ensure a large turnout, it asked folksinger Joan Baez to come and sing. She had given a concert on campus in the Greek Theater on October 2nd and there announced to all assembled that she supported the students who had sat around the police car. The crowd was further swollen by the unanticipated presence of a “Big Game” rally on the other side of the Plaza. The annual football game with Stanford University was a major Greek gala, but this was not the usual location for the pre-game rally. For a while the pep rally strove to drown out our speakers. Then Steve Weissman grabbed the mike and led us in a “Beat Stanford” yell. The cheerleaders responded with a “Free Speech” yell, and after a while each group was yelling for the other. Soon our speakers could talk without further interruption. We had been told to dress for the occasion, and some of us turned out in our Sunday best. Someone was beginning to think about public relations and how we looked in the press. Speeches stressed that the U.S. Constitution was the paramount law of the land. After Joan Baez led us in singing “The Lord’s Prayer” and “We Shall Overcome,” the leaders marched through Sather Gate, carrying a banner that said FREE SPEECH, followed by thousands of students. In the front line, Mona Hutchin carried the American ®ag. As we passed under the university’s chief symbol, prominently displayed on its stationery and on the doors of police cars, dozens of photographers took what became the classic shot of earnest student protestors. With the student union building in the background, the famous gate framed the neatly dressed, short-haired sons and daughters of California taxpayers, proudly waving the American ®ag and demanding the most basic of all our constitutional rights. This was our ¤nest moment. It didn’t last long. The Regents didn’t see our display of middle-class patriotism, unless they watched TV that evening. They met in closed session in the morning . The public proceedings in the afternoon were programmed and pro forma. The FSM had written an open letter to the Regents asking permission to appear before them to state its case. Permission was denied, but¤ve people from the FSM were invited to sit in the audience with the press and observe. They were Mario Savio, Steve Weissman, Michael Rossman, Mona Hutchin, and Ron Anastasi. After parading through the campus, the rest of us vigiled on the lawn at the western entrance across the street from University Hall. The Regents endorsed without discussion or debate all of Kerr’s and Strong’s recommendations on the two concerns which had caused the con®ict: discipline and political activity. These were less generous Students rally at the western entrance to campus while the Regents meet across the street in University Hall on November 20th. Photograph taken by the informant for the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission. The names in the margins were probably written by him. Reprinted with permission of the Mississippi Department Archives and History. 202 l At Berkeley in the Sixties than the faculty recommendations had been. All eight students were suspended from September 30th to date. Mario and Art were put on probation for the rest of the semester. Point 4 of resolution 1 warned that “new disciplinary proceedings before the Faculty Committee on Student Conduct will be instituted immediately against certain students and organizations for violations subsequent to September 30, 1964.” As for the problem which started it all, that was addressed in the second paragraph of resolution 2 (which some Regents disapproved). 2. The Regents adopt the policy effective immediately that certain campus facilities, carefully selected and properly regulated, may be used by students and staff for planning, implementing, or raising funds or recruiting participants for lawful off-campus action, not for unlawful off campus action. Speci¤c regulations were left to each campus. Kerr told a news conference that those for Berkeley would be drawn up by Thomas Cunningham , general counsel to the Regents. By implication, this excluded students , faculty, and Chancellor Strong.1 When Mario and Michael reported to us what the...