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UC Berkeley, in an apparent attempt to stave off any association with, well, sexy co-eds doing naughty things on camera has bought a handful of .xxx domain names that could link to the school. In other words, domains like goldenbears.xxx, uc-berkeley.xxx and calbears.xxx won’t offer any titillating bits, just a dark screen that says “this domain has been reserved from registration.” “We wouldn’t want to be associated with the kind of industries that would use that domain name,” . . .

Three weeks after a national controversy erupted over the pepper spraying of Occupy UC Davis protesters by campus police, the demonstrators are apparently calling for the dismantling of their tent city for winter break.

Most of you have heard of the controversy surrounding the UC Davis Police who pepper sprayed Occupy protestors. Unfortunately, the story has not been presented in its proper context and, as a result, has subverted the truth and misdirected the public’s opinion. We need your help in making known the other side of what transpired on Friday, November 18, 2011. The links to our YouTube videos (above and HERE) offer detailed footage of the events as they occurred, as well as an article in Accuracy in Media, one of the few outlets to carry our side of the story. So...

Pepper-Spray Used at UC Davis Becomes 'Hit' on AmazonBy Shailesh Shrivastava November 29, 2011 5:56 AM EST Since a campus policeman pepper-sprayed Occupy protesters at the University of California, Davis, the campus has been witnessing protests almost every day. **SNIP** The pepper spray Lt. John Pike used has become famous since the brand name and product id have now been registered in people's mind. Amazon users have posted many creative pictures under the product "Defense Technology 56895 MK-9 Stream, 1.3% Red Band/1.3% Blue Band Pepper Spray." The sarcastic comments as the product review also show that people are in no...

An Open Letter to UC Berkeley Students, Faculty, Administration & Regents from the UC Berkeley Police Officers’ Association It is our hope that this letter will help open the door to a better understanding between UC Berkeley police and the University community. The UC Berkeley Police Officers’ Association, representing approximately 64 campus police officers, understands your frustration over massive tuition hikes and budget cuts, and we fully support your right to peacefully protest to bring about change.  It was not our decision to engage campus protesters on November 9th. We are now faced with “managing” the results of years of poor...

Flash: U.C. Berkeley Faculty Senate Registers 10-1 Vote Condemning Administration Response to Occupy Berkeley ProtestersThe Berkeley Division of the University of California Faculty Senate endorsed, by a 10-1 margin (336-34), a group of four resolutions expressing, with varying degrees of specificity, their lack of confidence in the way Berkeley administrators have handled student protests. Three U.C. Berkeley executives, Chancellor Robert Birgenau and two of his subordinates, attempted an explanation of their actions on November 9, when students and faculty were clubbed by police. They were greeted with stony silence by the faculty members in the front of the International House...

Hundreds of students and faculty members temporarily shut down a University of California Board of Regents meeting being held simultaneously today at campuses in San Francisco, Davis, Merced and Los Angeles by standing in the conference rooms and chanting slogans so loudly the regents could no longer conduct business. The meeting was going smoothly until the public comment portion ended at 9:30 a.m. and several demonstrators began yelling the Occupy movement's familiar "mic check!" call, signalling the desire to have a protest meeting. There were about 50 students at each campus' regents meeting, which was being conducted by speakerphone. "We're...

The Bay Area has come down with a serious case of Protest Fatigue. The 99 percent of Northern Californians who want to go about their business are being jammed with protests and forced to pay for shutdowns imposed by the 1 percent of activists who don't know the difference between free speech and free camping. There are so many protests here that the group No Justice No BART had to call off a planned demonstration on Nov. 2 in order to accommodate activists planning to take public transit to the Occupy Oakland general strike. When President Obama came to San...

Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (VC EDI) The proposal for the creation of the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (VC EDI) follows the “portfolio model” in which the VC EDI has direct responsibility for a range of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and offices and the individuals in those areas with responsibility for the initiative. The VC EDI will be a direct report to the Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, with an indirect reporting to the Chancellor. This reporting relationship is advanced as the most financially viable and cost-effective organizational structure. A...

The Berkeley College Republicans have taken a strong stance against a proposed law that would allow, among other things, race to be taken into consideration during the admissions process. They say on a Facebook event page: "The Berkeley College Republicans firmly believe measuring any admit's merit based on race is intrinsically racist." In this note I'll show that their belief is wrong. Not only is the use of race in admissions not intrinsically racist - the failure to consider race and other similar factors is intrinsically racist. This is not some subjective interpretation of histories of oppression. This is not...

Berkeley student senators voted Sunday to condemn discriminatory behavior on campus - even if done in satire - in response to a Republican student group's plans for an "Increase Diversity Bake Sale," with pastries labeled according to race and gender. The 19-0 vote, with one absence, came during a special meeting of the Associated Students of the University of California, as the debate over affirmative action reignited in Berkeley. "Sure, it came off as discrimination," said Francisco Loayza IV, the treasurer of the Republican group, at Sunday's meeting. "People are being judged by their skin color (in affirmative action policies)....

A Facebook post announcing plans by a UC Berkeley Republican group to sell baked goods priced according to race, gender and ethnicity - "White/Caucasian" pastries for $2 and "Black/African American pastries for 75 cents, for example - has drawn outrage on campus. "I'm ashamed to know that I go to the same school with people who would say stuff like this," responded student Skyler Hogan-Van Sickle on Facebook. "I'm really trying to figure out how someone can be this hateful." The campus Republicans, who expect to go forward with their "Increase Diversity Bake Sale" on Tuesday, say the event is...

BERKELEY -- The protest season began with a near bang at UC Berkeley this afternoon as hundreds of chanting, fist-pumping students angry about tuition hikes charged into Tolman Hall after a raucous noon rally. They filled the ground-floor hallways and jostled police officers. One student grabbed an officer's .40-caliber magazine, sending the ammunition clip flying. Officer Donna Chapman, who had been trying to order students to clear the building entrance, ran to pick up the clip before protesters could grab it. Around her, students shouted "No cuts, no fees, education must be free" as they flooded into the building. Classrooms...

Senate Republicans were irate at Goodwin Liu's opposition to President George W. Bush's Supreme Court candidates. Imagine their indignation if they'd known that Liu had a hand in a Supreme Court opinion that, if it had prevailed, might have kept Bush out of the White House. The information comes from Herma Hill Kay, a law school colleague of Liu's at UC Berkeley. She wrote to the state Commission on Judicial Appointments in support of Gov. Jerry Brown's nomination of Liu to the California Supreme Court, after President Obama's choice of the 40-year-old academic for a federal appeals court seat in...

BERKELEY -- UC Berkeley is asking some of the country's largest foundations to help undocumented immigrants afford college. Buoyed by a new state law that allows public colleges and universities to offer private scholarships to students who came to the United States illegally, UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau said Wednesday he has spoken to major organizations such as the Carnegie and Ford foundations about helping the university. "One was nervous about the political impact," he said in an interview after his annual back-to-school media briefing. "The other said, 'This is fantastic.' " Birgeneau has been a vocal supporter of undocumented...

Gun ownership, carrying a gun linked to heavy alcohol use Large, multi-state study shows certain gun owners more likely to drink excessively June 14, 2011 (SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — Gun owners who carry concealed weapons or have confronted another person with a gun are more than twice as likely to drink heavily as people who do not own guns, according to a study by UC Davis researchers. Binge drinking, chronic heavy alcohol use, and drinking and driving were all more common among gun owners generally than among non-owners, even after adjusting for factors such as age, sex, race, and state of...

Hungry students and their supporters sit for the seventh day in front of University of California at Berkeley’s California Hall, after a futile meeting with University Chancellor Robert Birgeneau. The students asked Birgeneau yesterday to reinstate fired ethnic-studies staff members. “We're still here, we're still fighting and basically, we're not going anywhere," said a weary-looking, third-year Native American studies major, Zoila Lara-Cea. They are protesting cuts resulting from a comprehensive audit of university operations conducted by the consulting firm Bain and Company. The auditors recommended trimming two-and-a-half staff positions from the Ethnic Studies Department. Even though cuts are distributed university-wide,...

A doctor who worked for UC Berkeley's health center for more than 20 years has been charged with sexually assaulting patients, authorities said today. Robert Martin Kevess, 52, of Oakland assaulted at least six male patients since 2006 while working at the Tang Health Center at 2222 Bancroft Way just south of the campus, according to Alameda County prosecutors. . . . A 19-count complaint filed Wednesday accuses Kevess of sexual exploitation of numerous patients, along with several charges of sexual battery with false professional purpose and sexual penetration with a foreign object. If convicted, Kevess could face a lengthy...

The U.S. Department of Education is investigating a faculty member's complaint that a series of pro-Palestinian events at the University of California, Santa Cruz have crossed the line into anti-Semitism and created a hostile environment for Jewish students.

UC Berkeley police arrested one of nine people who walked out on a fourth-story ledge of UC Berkeley's Wheeler Hall at around 1:45 this afternoon, protesting budget cuts to higher education and campus layoffs. Police said the protester left the ledge and entered a classroom, but protesters claim police pulled him down. Some of the remaining eight protesters continued to be chained to the building's stone pillars as hundreds of students gathered on the steps below shouting the now-familiar mantra, "No cuts, no fees, education must be free!"

When Charles Reed, chancellor of the state university system, appeared before legislators recently to talk about impacts of a proposed $500 million budget cut, he pointed out that while coping with reduced state aid, the system also faces steeply increasing retirement and health care costs. Reed said the California Public Employees' Retirement System hit him with a $40 million increase in a mandatory pension fund contribution, while employee health care will cost $10 million more. Reed's not alone. Throughout California, local and state officials are receiving their bills from CalPERS, and it's sticker shock. Even with "smoothing" that spreads the...

Finances are so dire at the University of California that it might have to turn away qualified students, but UC has still found a way to reward hundreds of employees with more than $4 million in incentive pay and raises. At the regents meeting Thursday in San Diego, UC officials reported giving rewards of $150 to $41,205 to nearly 1,500 UCSF employees who met performance targets, raising the pay of some campus executives to above market rate, and providing 10 percent raises of about $20,000 a year to three executives at their Oakland headquarters. The executives, who have various financial...

In his first remarks at a University of California Board of Regents meeting this morning, Lt. Gov. and Regent Gavin Newsom proposed challenging half a billion dollars in cuts to the UC system proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown. Newsom said the regents shouldn't automatically accept the cuts and said, "I'm not convinced we're going to lose that half a billion dollars." The remark suggested Newsom won't hew tightly to the Brown administration line as lieutenant governor, despite coming from the same party and sharing longtime family ties. Newsom, the former mayor of San Francisco, . . .

Assembly bill would limit pension benefits for UC executives -- and othersBy Laurel Rosenhall Published: Saturday, Jan. 8, 2011 - 12:00 am | Page 3A The backlash is mounting against the 36 University of California executives who wrote a letter last month demanding higher pensions. Assemblyman Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, has introduced a bill that would limit the pension benefits available to highly paid workers in all public retirement programs – including UC's. **SNIP** Hill's Assembly Bill 89 would require all public retirement programs in California to adhere to the IRS cap when calculating benefits for employees who join the...

Jennifer Beeman, the former UC Davis employee who oversaw the Campus Violence Prevention Program for 16 years, was arrested today on suspicion of embezzling public funds and committing eight other felonies related to misusing public money. Investigators believe Beeman embezzled between $2,000 and $13,000, according to a statement from UC Davis. In addition, UC Davis returned more than $100,000 to the U.S. Department of Justice after determining that unallowable expenses had been charged to a violence prevention grant Beeman administered. . . . Beeman had falsely inflated the number of forcible sex offenses that took place on campus in 2005,...

NEW DELHI: US-based Indian origin researcher Shuvo Roy has created the world's first implantable artificial kidney. What's sensational about Roy's creation is that the organ, no larger than a coffee cup, will be able to mimic the kidney's most vital functions like filtering toxins out of the bloodstream, regulate blood pressure and produce the all- important vitamin D. The artificial kidney has been tested successfully on a small number of animals. Large-scale trials on animals and humans are expected over the next five years. Once available, and if affordable, this creation by the Roy-led team at University of California will...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Police arrested at least 16 protesters outside a meeting of University of California regents this morning. Members of a group that included UC students, employees and union leaders rallied against proposed tuition hikes and pension cuts as regents met at UC San Francisco's Mission Bay campus. Some protesters tried to push past police barriers and into the building, leading officers to use pepper spray . . .

Dire messages about global warming could backfire and actually increase skepticism about climate change among the general public, according to a new study by a University of California at Berkeley social psychologist. The study, which will be published in the January issue of the journal Psychological Science, says warnings about the potentially devastating consequences of global warming "threaten people's fundamental tendency to see the world as safe, stable and fair." Author Robb Willer said people might respond to such warnings by disputing evidence for global warming and by cutting back on their plans to reduce their carbon footprint. Willer, who...

Two protesters involved in the Feb. 26 Southside riot were acquitted of all charges Monday following a short deliberation by jurors. The defendants - Zachary Miller, an alumnus of UC Berkeley, and Marika Goodrich, a senior at the time of the riot - had been charged with misdemeanors and were arrested during the protest. Miller had been charged with resisting arrest, obstructing a peace officer and attempted removal of a non-firearm weapon from a peace officer, while Goodrich was charged with misdemeanor assault against a peace officer. According to Goodrich's attorney, John Hamasaki, the jury quickly came back with a...

UC Berkeley’s recent elimination of popular sports programs highlighted endemic problems in the university’s management. Chancellor Robert Birgeneau’s eight-year fiscal track record is dismal indeed. He would like to blame the politicians in Sacramento, since they stopped giving him every dollar he has asked for, and the state legislators do share some responsibility for the financial crisis. But not in the sense he means. A competent chancellor would have been on top of identifying inefficiencies in the system and then crafting a plan to fix them. Compentent oversight by the Board of Regents and the legislature would have required him...

Santa Cruz police are working with the FBI to investigate the vandalism of a car belonging to a University of California at Santa Cruz researcher on Sunday morning. The spouse of the researcher, whose name is being withheld, found the car at about 11 a.m. Sunday with its brake lines and cables to the emergency braking system cut, police said. The damage had left the braking system inoperable. Officers responded to the victim's home in the 1200 block of Laurent Street and after speaking with the 55-year-old researcher, determined the motive behind the vandalism may be related to the victim's...

SACRAMENTO — John Yoo, the UC Berkeley law school professor who gave legal sanction to the Bush administration's views on torture, has been on a national image-rehabilitation tour, presenting a softer, more human side than is generally accepted by his critics. For instance, before a relatively small gathering Tuesday at a Sacramento Press Club luncheon, he joked about the lively dinner table discussions he has with his father-in-law, the former CNN wartime correspondent Peter Arnett. And he boasted that he'd bested Jon Stewart in an appearance he made on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" earlier this year. But his core...

When activists (who are not necessarily students) were able to delay construction of a UC Berkeley sports center by living in trees for 21 months, there was no review of what went wrong. When protesters with torches vandalized UC Chancellor Robert Birgeneau's home, there was no review. But when UC police arrested 46 people demonstrating against higher-education cuts by occupying Wheeler Hall on Nov. 20, there were complaints that police over-reacted. And so - with authorities, not anarchists in the sights - a review was born. Last week, UC Berkeley released the 128-page report. In academic fashion, it notes two...

A San Francisco judge today reaffirmed his decision barring thousands of registered nurses statewide, including 1,800 from the UC Davis Medical Center, from walking off the job in a dispute with the University of California over staffing levels. In his ruling, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Peter J. Busch prohibited the California Nurses Association from staging a strike until at least Sept. 30, when the current contract between the union and the university expires. The CNA had planned to stage a one-day walkout at six university-run hospitals to protest what the union said were unsafe nurse staffing levels at the...

Despite a legal setback that blocked a threatened one-day strike, the California Nurses Association announced today that it planned to hold rallies tomorrow at University of California campuses statewide to protest staffing levels at university-run hospitals. Informational pickets are expected to go up Thursday morning . . .

A San Francisco judge today blocked thousands of nurses from striking on Thursday, granting a temporary restraining order sought by the University of California. As many as 11,000 registered nurses employed by the university, including 1,800 at the UC Davis Medical Center, were expected to walk picket lines or stay home Thursday to protest

More than 12,000 nurses in California are set to hold a one-day walkout Thursday, taking part in what could be the largest registered nursing strike in the country's history. The nurses plan to walk off their jobs at five University of California hospitals - San Francisco, Davis, Los Angeles, Irvine and San Diego - and three hospitals in Los Angeles County. Nurses from the same union in Minnesota are also planning to strike that day, bringing the number of striking nurses nationwide to more than 24,000. The California Public Employment Relations Board, or PERB, the quasi-judicial agency charged with administering...

When some 20 UC Berkeley students announced on May 3 that they were launching a hunger strike to protest the new Arizona immigration law, they also issued a set of "demands." They demanded that Chancellor Robert Birgeneau denounce the Arizona law, rehire laid-off janitors and drop disciplinary actions against students arrested after a violent protest. You knew how the story would end before it ended. The administration would kowtow to student activists by agreeing to meet with them and behave as if their demands merited serious consideration. Most of the activists' impossible demands would remain unmet. Then - as happened...

This ain’t your Mother’s or Father’s college education! No what you’ll find on University of California college campuses these days is the Muslim Student Association, the Hezbollah Student Association and “Hitler Youth” week celebrations all in the name of diversity and inclusion no doubt. David Horowitz a guest speaker of the Young Americans for Freedom on the campus of the University of California San Diego on May 10, 2010 was challenged by a young female Muslim Jew-hater and supporter of the eradication of all Jews, regarding what the student attempted to characterize as misrepresentation about who is actually funding the...

BERKELEY — UC Berkeley protesters ended a 10-day hunger strike Wednesday with a ceremonial meal of corn on the cob. The mostly Latino group of 18 students and workers went on strike in front of the administration building May 3 demanding school Chancellor Robert Birgeneau denounce Arizona's new law that allows police to question the immigration status of anyone they stop for other crimes. They also had a host of other demands. Birgeneau denounced the new law, but stopped short of the other demands until the strikers met with him Wednesday. During the strike four students had to be hospitalized...

BERKELEY — UC Berkeley police this morning peacefully dispersed a gathering of hunger strikers who have been camped out on campus for a week, but protesters say they plan to continue their efforts. Students and others have been protesting on the front lawn of California Hall since last Monday. The 19 individuals on the hunger strike have demands of denouncing racist legislation in Arizona, creating a sanctuary on campus and ending retaliation against student and worker activists. A rally has been planned today at 3:30 p.m. to increase the pressure on the administration. In addition, regularly scheduled demonstrations have been...

Saying the University of California's sharply misguided priorities call for unprecedented and unified action, two University of California employees represented by the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 3299 have joined students in a hunger strike at the UC Berkeley campus. Today's action comes after workers last week called on prominent graduation speakers at UC campuses statewide to refuse to deliver their commencement addresses unless workers' demands are met (see list of demands below). Abel Salas, a gardener at UC Berkeley, and the latest addition to the hunger strikers, said, "It is the most important thing...

BERKELEY -- A group of UC Berkeley students started a hunger strike Monday to demand that the university oppose the new Arizona immigration law, drop disciplinary charges against protesters from the occupation of Wheeler Hall earlier this year, rehire laid off janitors and make the campus a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants. Latino groups on the Cal campus called the hunger strike at noon Monday.

The controversial divestment bill cannot be voted on again. The ASUC Senate upheld the veto of a bill targeting companies involved in alleged Israeli war crimes at its meeting on Wednesday night, ending a six-week-long debate that attracted international attention. In order to override President Will Smelko's March 24 veto of the bill, supporters of the bill needed a two-thirds majority vote of all elected senators, but the 13-5-1 vote tallied at the meeting fell short. Student Action Senator Anish Gala was not present for the vote. Student Action Senator Minji Kim said she abstained because she believed the bill's...

Pictures from the Cincinnati Tea Party tax day rally on University of Cincinnati campus on April 15th. Photos by timestax.

PLEASE SIGN OUR PETITION AT http://www.KarlRoveatUCM.comUC-Merced student government leaders are denying the conservative viewpoint on campus. Conservative activist, Mike Fincher, and his club at UC-Merced were working hard to raise funds from their school to host Karl Rove next fall. They submitted the budget to the associated students to pay for Rove's fee. However, the students government president, Juan Carmen, removed their budget request. No other group had their funding removed from the proposed budget. This Tyrant-in-Training Carmen claims this is because he didn't like the fact that Karl Rove's honorarium would take up some of the budget. I wonder...

Help the College Republicans at UC Merced bring Karl Rove to speak on campus. The school has spent well over a million dollars bringing prominent liberals (Michelle Obama, Jimmy Carter, Presidential Candidate for Socialist Party, etc.) to campus, but has failed to invite any conservatives. Our club has submitted a budget proposal requesting funds to get Mr. Rove to speak at UC Merced, however, the proposal has NOT been included in the preliminary budget. Please show your support for the initiative and take a couple minutes to sign the petition. We need as many signatures as possible, so feel free...

An Inconvenient Tax will be shown on April 15th (aka tax day) at UC Merced. It will be held the Bobcat Lair - which is on the very first floor of the library. The event will begin at 6pm and free refreshments will be served. If you plan on attending, RSVP via e-mail at collegerepublicans@ucmerced.edu with "An Inconvenient Tax" as the subject. Hope to see you all there. Here is the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v95xpdcKUjYHere is they synopsis of the movie: Albert Einstein once wrote, "The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.” The product of 95 years...

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Swastikas, nooses, a KKK hood, graffiti, epithets and jeers. An ugly spate of bias incidents has crossed several University of California campuses over the past month, causing consternation, outcry and fear that bigotry is alive among the young and educated. Students have protested and administrators have condemned, but the question remains of what lies behind the sudden parade of prejudice — a growing climate of insensitivity on campuses or a bunch of immature kids yearning for peer acceptance and attention. "My guess is some of all of those things," said interim UC Provost Lawrence H. Pitts....

Students, educators and administrators from across the state will descend on the state Capitol on Thursday for an "Educate the State" rally. The aim is worthy: to promote the value of higher education to the state and protest rapidly increasing student fees, fewer courses and larger class sizes. The issue of declining support from the state for higher education is real. Thirty years ago, 10 percent of the general fund went to the University of California and California State University and 3 percent went to prisons. Today, nearly 11 percent goes to prisons and 7.5 percent goes to our public...