Students and community organizations in California, Colorado, and Texas conducted the national “Universities Out of Bed with Bombs” day of action on November 30, marking a new level of coordination within the growing nuclear disarmament movement on university campuses. Rallies, guerrilla theater, and mass call-ins to university administrators took place at four campuses -- CU Boulder, UC Santa Cruz, UC Berkeley, and UC Santa Barbara -- and students at three other campuses -- UC Riverside, UC San Diego, and UT Austin -- sent e-mail, sent faxes, and made phone calls to university upper-administrators.

The day of action was a way for students to express opposition to their universities’ involvement in the Department of Energy (DOE)-sponsored bid to manage the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), while also taking a stand for a more peaceful, just, and sustainable world at large. The five demands issued by students to university administrators included Retract from the Bid, Obey International Law, Help Clean up the Mess in New Mexico, and Promote Jobs for Peace Not War.

UC students are calling on their Board of Regents to apologize to the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Overall, the student actions were gloriously creative – the “Universities Out of Bed with Bombs” theme brought out the best in all involved. The following is an overview of the Day of Action activities at each campus:

• At UC Santa Cruz, the Demilitarize UCSC sub-group of the organization UCSC Students Against War conducted a spirited two-hour rally dubbed “De-Nuke the UC,” which drew roughly 100 people to the campus’ Bay Tree Plaza. Among the highlights of the multi-pronged protest were a mock wedding ceremony between UC and Bechtel Corporation, a performance by the “Ragin’ Grannies,” speeches by students and community members, and a powerful address by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) whistleblower Leuren Moret.

A giant papier-machet nuclear warhead adorned the Plaza, serving as a placard for students to write personal messages to UC President Robert Dynes. Demilitarize UCSC members will drop off the warhead at Dynes’ office in the near future.

For photos, click here.
For a more detailed report, click here.

• Roughly 20 people turned out at UC Berkeley for a wedding toast and “renewal of the vows” ceremony between the UC and Bechtel Corporation, which was staged at the campus Bechtel Engineering Center. The event was organized by UC Berkeley Fiat Pax (Latin for “Let There Be Peace”). A "Drunk Dial the Regents" session occurred afterward. A reporter from Berkeley Public Access TV filmed the proceedings and plans to air a 30-minute segment on the event at some point.

Afterward, the wedding crowd attended the second-to-final version of the “UC and the Bomb” class for this semester at Berkeley.

• Roughly 10 CU Boulder students conducted what they describe as “buffalo theater,” whereby a student dressed as CU's mascot Ralphie the Buffalo was felled by a nuclear missile. The students also collected 203 signatures on a petition against CU’s partnership with the University of Texas and Lockheed Martin in the LANL bid, bringing their total number of names gathered so far to more than 1,000.

After the event, several of the students had a brief confrontation with members of the CU Campus Republicans, who were protesting against CU Professor Ward Churchill in an adjacent area. This incident was featured in Boulder Dirt News.

For a more balanced story on the CU day of action event, click here.

• At UC Santa Barbara, students conducted a teach-in and a rally on separate days the week prior to the day of action. The teach-in was titled “The University’s Role in War… and Peace?” and featured several presentations by student and community activists regarding the university’s ties to warfare, with a specific focus on the Los Alamos and Livermore labs, as well as the partial debut of a student-produced original play, “I Went to the University of California and All I Got Was This Stupid Thermo-Nuclear Weapon.”

The following day’s rally featured an open-mic speak-out regarding war, peace, and the university. A “mass meeting” to create a student peace group followed the rally, which marked the formation of a group tentatively called “UCSB Students for Peace.” One of the campaigns of the group will be demilitarization/denuclearization.

On the day of action itself, students and members of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation tabled on campus and solicited signatures on a petition calling on the UC Regents to retract their bid for LANL.

For coverage of the rally, click here.
For coverage of the teach-in, click here.

• Students at UC Riverside, UC San Diego and UT Austin sent e-mails, sent faxes and made phone calls to their Boards of Regents.

The announcement of the LANL bid winner*, originally scheduled for December 1, was recently postponed by the National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA), a branch of the Department of Energy. The announcement is expected to take place within the next few weeks.

The next major steps for the Coalition to Demilitarize -- the nationwide student and community networked that called for the day of action – will be charted out at a national strategy session in Northern California from Feb. 3-5. Meanwhile, students will continue to organize major actions at their individual campuses.