Send to: chancellor@berkeley.edu & cchrist@berkeley.edu

CC your email to bamncalifornia@gmail.com to share with the occupation!

Chancellor Carol Christ: Keep your hands off our libraries!

  • Defend a fully operational anthropology library that is open to the public!
  • Defend free speech and free thought
  • Double underrepresented minority student enrollment
  • Defend public education

UC BERKELEY ANTHROPOLOGY LIBRARY OCCUPATION UPDATE AS OF JUNE 7TH:

63 days and counting (as of June 22): The library remains open through our occupation!

Our occupation represents not just our campus, but the Latina/o/x, black, Native American, other minority, poor, working-class and immigrant communities of our state—the majority and their right to equal access to higher education. The defense of the Anthropology LIbrary is a fight to defend public education. 

Forty-three percent of the students in Anthropology `are Latina/o/x, black, and other underrepresented minorities.The Anthropology Library serves and should remain a place where underrepresented minority students feel and are welcome at UC-Berkeley, and an example of what the rest of the campus should be like. The anthropology discipline on our campus stands as a challenge to all racist theories of the inferiority of non-white people. The ability of all races and nationalities to gather in the library and exchange information gathered in the collections is crucial to our ability to have access to knowledge and to the pursuit of critical thought and free speech. This is even more important as our campus has been a target of the Trump movement. 

Latina/o/x, black, and Native American students make up 61% of high school students in California public schools, but only 23% of UC-Berkeley’s freshman admitted class of 2022. Our occupation must be the beginning of a fight to change the direction of the University of California and our state, to commit to real integration and being a public-serving institution once again.

I support the Anthropology Library Occupation Proposal presented to the UC Berkeley Administration during negotiations on May 30th at the library. Proposal is as follows:

We, the students and community of the open-ended and ongoing George and Mary Foster Anthropology Library Occupation retain our right to negotiate independently of the Anthropology Department and respectfully request a written response proposal to the following proposal as a sign of the University of California Berkeley administration’s good faith commitment to open negotiations.

  • 1. Operation:
    • a. A fully operational, open-to-the-public, circulating library will be maintained beginning on August 16th, 2023, in the Fall semester with regular hours as follows:
      • i. Monday – Friday: 8:00AM – 8:00PM
      • ii. Saturday and Sunday: 10:00AM – 6:00PM
    • b. Library shall be open for summer session beginning on May 22, 2023, using the designated study hall model, with hours being Monday – Friday, from 10 AM – 6 PM. And Saturday – Sunday, from 1:00 PM – 5:00 pm. Library shall be staffed using funding for maintenance of one graduate or one undergraduate student worker as library custodian. This arrangement shall continue until full-time personnel can be hired.
  • 2. Creation of an Anthropology Library Oversight Committee (ALOC)
    • a. The University will establish an Anthropology Library Oversight Committee composed of representatives of the Anthropology faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students, and relevant community stakeholders (e.g., tribal leaders, local community members, alumni, and community activists). These representatives will be appointed through a department-wide selection process.
  • 3. George and Mary Foster Anthropology Library Books and other materials:
    • a. The books and other materials which are currently housed in the George and Mary Foster Anthropology Library must remain in their current location indefinitely, unless approval is obtained from the ALOC.
    • b. By August 16, 2023, the University will return any material which was present in the George and Mary Foster Anthropology Library prior to the implementation of the Long-Term Space Plan.
    • c. The University must attain the written approval of the Anthropology Library Oversight Committee before any sensitive holdings are digitized.
  • 4. Personnel:
    • a. Library must post within 30 days and fill within 60 days a position for a professional librarian.
    • b. The University will maintain and fund two student worker positions to be filled by a graduate and an undergraduate student. The Anthropology Library Oversight Committee will have a role in the hiring process for these positions.
  • 5. Budget:
    • a. The University of California Berkeley will fund the Anthropology Library with the necessary resources dedicated to the ongoing maintenance and management of the collections at the standards listed above through a dedicated budget funded by the University of California.
    • b. Major budgetary decisions must be made with the approval of the Anthropology Library Oversight Committee.
  • 6. In light of the recent announcement of UC Berkeley head librarian, Jeffrey MacKie Mason’s retirement, the University agrees, as part of its new hiring process, to require any new hire to agree to no future cuts to the anthropology library.
  • 7. The University will send an email notification to the campus community announcing the restoration of the Anthropology Library and its hours of operation.

We pledge to continue our public open-ended occupation of our public Anthropology library until a signed agreement has been made by both parties.

*Unanimously approved by Anthro Library Assembly vote on May 17th.