Week 2 Blog Huiling Chen ASA002 A01

Week 2 Blog:

Huiling Chen

ASA002 A01

In our UC system, there were two parades were stopped by police in a violent manner. In 1999, UC Berkeley, when the college decided to reduce the budget and faculty in the ethnic studies department, students stroked to raise people’s awareness of the issue and hoped to change the campus decision. However, their action was stopped by the police. The police arrested more than 80 students at once and the campus refused to negotiate. And a similar thing happened at UC Davis in 2011. The police use pepper spray to stop the students. Actually, I was shocked by these actions because I still remember in the American history class, I learned that people have the freedom of speech. And they should be allowed to show their opinions about the life they have, which is according to a law class I am taking. So, I am not sure why they were stopped and stopped in such a violent way. Is that they violate some part of the law? Also, the chancellors seem to have a strong resistance to the students’ suggestions in the first place and started to accept the negotiation only when the students get more support from the community and faculty. It seems like it was the social pressure that forced the chancellors to negotiate instead of their own willingness. And in the reading of "fight the tower", I still remember the author mentioned how the minority is treated and the majority rule the world. This also reminds me of the purpose of the Berkeley strike. They said the purpose of the ethnic studies department is the reflect the histories from different perspectives. They want to learn what history and culture are like from different perspectives. So that might be one of the reasons that Asian American history class is important for me. It is a way for me to understand the history and culture from diverse perspectives.

Question:

Why the parade/strike were stopped? Isn’t that they have the freedom of speech?

Citation:

Free speech and the law: the United States. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.citizenscount.org/
issues/free-speech