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"We Vote NO!" - Dramatic Protest at Regents Meeting

Regents Ignore Massive Resistance, Vote to Bid for Los Alamos

(All photos by Josh Sonnenfeld)

Over 50 University of California students, joined by a handful of nuclear abolition activists from across the state, converged on the UC Regents’ 25 May meeting at UC San Francisco in a spirited display of opposition to the UC’s partnership with Bechtel Corporation and continued involvement in the nuclear weapons business.

The Regents had announced only days before that they would vote at the meeting on whether to enter a partnership with Bechtel Corporation, BWXT Techonologies, Washington Group International, and New Mexico’s three state university systems to bid to manage the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).

During the meeting’s public comment period, one student after another rose to the microphone stand and spoke out against the UC-Bechtel relationship, the UC’s involvement in the prospective manufacturing of new plutonium pits at Los Alamos, and the conflicts of interest among various members of the Regents who are tied to the nation’s nuclear weapons complex, among other topics.

After 30 minutes, The Regents closed the public comment period despite numerous students’ still being signed up to speak, prompting the protesters to break into chants of “We Will Not Be Silenced in the Face of UC Violence,” “Let Us Speak,” and “Student Power; Regents, Cowards.” The Regents left the room, before several University police officers entered and declared the protest group an “unlawful assembly.” The students eventually agreed to remain relatively silent in exchange for not being arrested.

Two hours later, after the Regents’ finance committee and "oversight of the Energy Department laboratories" committee voted unanimously to recommend that the UC join the bidding competition, students once again disrupted the meeting with boisterous chants – this time, “We Vote No!” was the favorite. The Regents once again left the room, and the police finally coaxed the students to go outside, where they staged a spirited rally while donning shirts that spelled out “BOOKS NOT BOMBS.”

The protest was by far the largest at a Regents meeting over the issues of University lab management in at least 15 years. The majority of students who took part are members of the UC Santa Cruz group Students Against War (SAW).

The following day, after the students went home, the Regents voted 11-1 to officially enter the DOE bidding competition. In contrast to the previous day, the Board devoted only a few minutes to its discussion of the bid.

The sole dissenter was Regent Gary D. Novack, vice president of the Alumni Associations of UC. Novack told the San Francisco Chronicle that he worries that “continuing our relationship with the Los Alamos National Laboratory may defocus UC from its primary mission of teaching, research and service to the people of California.”

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