Students Seize UMass Offices

The rally and the occupation were intended to address a broad range of grievances including insufficient recruitment of students of color, decreases in the availability of financial aid, a dearth of faculty of color in tenure track positions, and the lack of Latino American, Native American, Asian American, and Irish Studies departments. Protesters included members of a variety of student groups not limited to minority organizations. Student Government Association President Maurice Castone and members of the Student Government Senate were among the occupants. ALANA's list of sixteen demands date back to a similar protest in 1992. Following the acquittal of four police officers accused of brutally beating the Black motorist Rodney King, students of color t hroughout the Pioneer Valley led a series of protests on their respective campuses demanding ethnic studies departments, better cultural housing, and improvements in minority representation in each school's staff, faculty, and student body. The successful occupation, in 1992, by Amherst College students of color of the College's central administration building, Converse Hall, sparked the three-day occupation of the UMass Admissions offices by UMass students with similar grievances. The protest at UMass en ded following mediation by the Federal Department of Justice and pledges by the University administration to make the requested improvements.

"Basically what happened in '92 was, we all got together with some of these same demands," said Tara Sanabria, a UMass student and spokesperson for the protesters in the Comptroller's Office. "They [the administration] gave us some wonderful rhetoric and told us what they knew we wanted to hear. They took some action." Nevertheless, last semester when a group of graduate students began to formulate their own list of grievances with the University, they found in their research that most of the demands mad e in 1992 were, in their opinion, never met. When students took their concerns to the administration, they were assured that according to official statistics, the promises of 1992 had all been kept. The leaders of ALANA thoroughly researched their allegat ions, and came up with their own set of numbers, indicating that the University had fallen well short of fulfilling its vows. "According to their numbers they fulfilled everything," reported Sanabria, "but according to our numbers they didn't. As students , we have a better idea of these numbers because we live them everyday and we see what's going on here." The conflict stems from differences in statistical interpretation. One leader of ALANA noted that though the entering classes might meet the target ma rk of twenty percent students of color, the attrition rate among minority students was extremely high, effectively nullifying the benefits of the admissions policy. Similar interpretive issues pervade the conflict between the protesters and the administra tion.

The occupation of the Comptroller's Office began in a peaceful and organized fashion following the escalation of the rally around 10:45AM Monday. Students entered the enormous maze of cubicles in the basement of Goodell Hall in small groups, making their presence known but refraining from interfering with the employees' work. Some of the workers left the office at noon, but others stayed until the normal end of their working day at 5PM. Until the building was officially closed after 5PM, protesters mainta ined a modest but continual rally on the steps of Goodell.

The University Chief of Police, Jack Luippold, supervised the office occupation, making clear for the protesting students who the security officers were and maintaining a police presence to protect the University's property as well as the protesters them selves. "This is a peaceful demonstration," emphasized ALANA spokesperson Cassandra Jendenis. "Security is here to protect us from any intimidation from outside as well as to keep things orderly and clean inside." Ten negotiators from different factions within ALANA met with members of the University administration all afternoon. University Chancellor David K. Scott was reportedly out of town, leaving Deputy Chancellor Marsillet Williams to lead the negotiations. A ccording to reports from an ALANA spokesperson, most of the afternoon was devoted to debating the points of the 1992 agreement and little headway was made. When the negotiations broke off last night, no conclusion was in sight. The administration was repo rtedly receptive to the protesters' demands, but reluctant agree to them.

Negotiations were scheduled to begin again at 8:15 this morning. According to ALANA over one hundred seventy UMass students and a handful of Hampshire and Amherst College students were spending the night in the Comptroller's Office. "Everyone in here has made a concrete commitment to stay until the demands are met or until we have some sort of concrete evidence that something's happening," reported Sanabria. In the meantime, the ALANA protesters have received enormous logistical and spiritual support from other organizations at all five colleges. Such efforts have insured the occupants of the Comptroller's Office suffer no lack of food or water. While at pres s time the University security force was not letting anyone into Goodell Hall, they were permitting people to deposit supplies.

I visited the protesters at Goodell Hall twice yesterday. In the afternoon I served strictly as reporter, but when I returned last night with a larger contingent of Amherst College students, to face a plain-clothed security guard denying us entry to the b uilding, it became hard to limit myself to the role of observer. The afternoon's visit had been marked by the thrill of a good rally, but there was little sense of risk in the Asian, Latino, African, and Native American Students' (ALANA) occupation of one of the most important offices on campus. At night, however, with the steps to Goodell empty but for a flapping bed sheet covered in slogans, and with all the protesters hidden away in a basement office they could not leave if they wished to return, the p rotest took on a new meaning.

In a whispered huddle we met with one protester who was given a moment's leave from Goodell to greet us. In sight of the door guard, but out of earshot, we made quick plans for circumventing security and entering the building unnoticed. Amherst College St udent Government President Dave Brown alone was permitted to enter the building unmolested. The rest of us quietly dispersed and, with the help of protesters inside, one by one surreptiously made our way into the basement of Goodell. When I entered the Comptroller's Office after dodging a guard and slipping in through a side door, I was completely unprepared for the scene I encountered. Instead of the quiet huddles of tired protesters I expected, I discovered a room full of warmth and enthusiasm. Heads and arms appeared above row upon row of cubicle walls, and an ALANA leader standing atop a filing cabinet barked encouragement and logistical advice into a megaphone.

"The day is going to start at 8:15 for the negotiators and we hope that everyone's up by the time the administration comes," he informed his listeners. "It's going to be a long day for us."

The logistical meeting was displaced by the arrival of the Amherst contigent. Brown's announcement that the student government of Amherst College had voted to support the sit-in met with thunderous applause. For protesters who had sacrificed the day's sch ool work and risked removal and arrest at any time, the expression of solidarity was more than welcome. I wandered among the protesters, amazed by the racial and ethnic diversity of the group and thrilled by the sense of comradery that the students accord ed me. While many students enjoyed the social opportunities of the gathering, others studied in isolated cubicles or wandered around picking up trash and attending to other chores.

Though "isolated" from the outside world, the protesters were dependent upon outside sources for food, water, and publicity, and upon each other to achieve their goal. In a basement office crowded with cubicles, at risk of failure, desertion, or arrest, t he ALANA students and their fellow protesters had forged a tiny community that outshined the best efforts of administrators and student government leaders to foster cooperation and tolerance among the student body. Even if the administration defeats this protest, ALANA and its supporters will have already won.

"Our decision to support the student takeover is based on the fact that the UMass administration broke the promise they made five years ago," said Paul Rieckhoff, Vice President of the Student Government Organization. "We believe the violation against th e UMass students constitutes a violation against all of the students in the Five College community."

The primary concern of the student protestors, according to the ALANA representatives, is the lack of trust they feel for the University administration. The students maintain that they will continue to occupy the Goodell Building until they are assured t hat the Administration will not balk again on its promise to fulfill the demands set forth by ALANA.

Members of the SPC questioned the representatives about specific reforms that the UMass administration had failed to enact. While some of the discussion centered around specific demands set forth by the student protestors, SGO President Dave Brown stress ed that the SPC letter of solidarity was aimed at the students' action rather than their platform. "We're not necessarily supporting any individual aspect of their demands," said Brown. "We're supporting their movement against the administration for breaking their promise to the students."

"The protest isn't about these demands," said Sol, an ALANA representative who declined to give his last name. "It's about trust, and the University administration fulfilling the students' needs." Although most of the ALANA demands aim to redress problem s with minority representation on campus, the representatives stressed that the current protest extends beyond racial and ethnic lines.

"It's not a black issue, a white issue, or a Latino issue," said Sol. "Everyone who supports us realizes that the administration broke their promise to us."

Shortly after passing the measure to support the student protestors, Brown and a group of Amherst students presented the SPC letter to the demonstrators in the Goodell Building. According to Todd Darden, Chair of the Black Student Union, the student prot estors responded with great enthusiasm to the news of the SPC's support of the takeover.

"When the students realized that they were not only receiving the BSU's support, but the endorsement of our entire student body, they went absolutely crazy," said Darden. "They had no idea that we were bringing Dave Brown to support their movement."

(As of 1AM Thursday, 6 March)