Students protest against Daily Californian

Monday, November 11, 1996

CRIME:

Endorsement of Prop. 209 by U.C. Berkeley paper prompts
threatsBy Hannah Miller and Jennifer Mukai

Daily Bruin Contributors

It was a loud week in the home of free speech.

The Daily Californian, the UC Berkeley student newspaper, raised
enough popular ire with an endorsement of Proposition 209 to
inspire a week of massive thefts, death threats and obscene
graffiti.

Last Monday, the paper’s pre-election edition ran an editorial
condemning affirmative action programs as inflicting "racist
policies" on whites and Asians, "blurring the distinction between
qualified and unqualified applicants," and encouraging a yes vote
on the ballot measure.

That day, about 4,000 papers were taken from Sproul Plaza, the
center of campus activity. Rob Zazueta, Daily Cal Assistant City
News Editor, noted that the issue also contained the paper’s other
election endorsements, and that those 4,000 copies may have been
taken by local politicians for distribution among their
supporters.

The editorial advocating the so-called California Civil Rights
Initiative was reprinted in the Tuesday edition, and nearly the
entire press run of the paper disappeared as soon as they were
delivered to the racks around campus. This amounted to about 22,000
papers, determined by the Student Press Law Center as the largest
campus theft of newspapers on record.

An additional 5,000 copies were printed and personally
distributed by the Daily Cal staff hours later.

On Tuesday night, the Daily Cal received an anonymous phone
message linking the theft to the 209 editorial, according to The
Associated Press.

Protest continued on Thursday when a small band of students
attempted to storm the Daily Cal’s offices. When they found the
doors locked, the students seized about 1,000 copies of the paper,
ripped them up, and tossed them from the fifth-floor balcony of the
building.

Thursday night, Coleman received on his voicemail a "message
that said, basically, ‘watch your back,’" Coleman reported. The UC
police department (UCPD) informed him that it was, legally, a death
threat.

Then, early Friday morning, someone vandalized Editor-in-Chief
Mike Coleman’s house, chalking "Fuck the Daily Cal" on the exterior
walls. Coleman has filed a police report.

So where did all this sound and fury come from? An eyewitness to
the massive theft last Tuesday has identified three suspects as
members of the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action By Any Means
Necessary. The Coalition has denied having any connection to the
incident. But, coalition member Ed Vasquez has stated that the
group does not condemn the thefts.

Vasquez stressed the conflict between the conservative Daily Cal
and a strong streak of progressive student activism."The
administration could not have a better paper," he declared. "The
Daily Cal is actually to the right of the administration."

The Daily Cal had aligned itself with the UC Regents in
supporting their initial decision to end affirmative action last
spring.

The paper ventured even further with an endorsement of
Proposition 209, in conflict with UC Berkeley Chancellor Chang-Lin
Tien’s public stance against the measure. Proposition 209 passed on
Nov. 5 with a 55.5 percent margin.

Notably, The Daily Cal’s editorial board had been very much
divided over Proposition 209, ultimately voting six-to-five to
endorse the initiative.

Zazueta, one editor who had voted to oppose Proposition 209, was
"very embittered" by the various attacks on the paper, despite his
support for affirmative action itself. He estimated that "this
prank" could cost The Daily Californian ­ which operates
independent of the university and relies entirely on advertising
for revenue ­ up to $15,500 in printing costs and
reimbursements to its sponsors.

Most important, Zazueta felt, was the infringement of First
Amendment rights in the week’s attacks on the paper.

"Here are people marching ‘in the name of Mario Savio (a leader
of UC Berkeley’s Free Speech Movement of the 1960s),’ and now some
of them are trying to squelch the paper’s voice," he said. He added
that someone was seen taking a memorial candle for Savio, who
passed away just last Wednesday, and using it to set fire to a copy
of The Daily Cal.

"It’s the ultimate irony," Zazueta declared. "Savio was vocally
against Proposition 209, but he would’ve opposed scorching The
Daily Cal."

Although "things have quieted down," according to Coleman, a
police investigation has not resulted in any charges so far.

In fact, since the student newspaper is distributed for free,
university police are "still debating as to what crime this is,"
according to Captain Bill Cooper. If the UCPD decides that the
taking of the papers does indeed constitute a crime, The Daily Cal
can press charges of grand theft. If not, the paper can bring a
civil suit against the responsible parties. Either way,
"absolutely, we’ll prosecute," predicted Coleman.

Coleman has stated that, despite recent incidents against the
paper, The Daily Cal will continue to run anti-Proposition 209
viewpoints in adherence to its free speech policies.

The Associated Press

Demonstrators at the University of California, Berkeley threw
copies of the Daily Californian off a balcony in protest of
Proposition 209.