ECS 188 – Fall 2011 – Discussion of UCD Pepper-Spray Attack of 11/18/11

Dear Class,

I am loath to change an assignment I have already posted, yet I am also loath to discuss topic A when that which is relevant to our class and on peoples’ minds is topic B. After consulting with a couple of students, the second consideration wins out and I am replacing Tuesday’s assignment with a new one. Instead of the nice intellectual-property reading from Boyle, I ask of you the following.

Part 1: Watch a video or two on YouTube of the incident. The first to appear was video1, posted early Friday evening. This was followed by video2 and other videos. Reaction was swift and strong; read Prof. Nathan Brown’s open letter to the Chancellor.

Part 2: Spend an hour or more to research question number (your-group-number mod 100), as enumnerated below. Come to class feeling prepared to give a 3-minute impromptu talk on what you found.

Part 3: Read all of the other questions. Spend another hour or more to research at least one additional question from the same list. Or the second question can be a related one question of your own choosing.

1. News and blog coverage. Read a variety of news articles or blogs on the incident. What insights can you mine? You might start with James Fallows, for example.
2. Going viral. Arguably, news like this becomes national news because people routinely walk around with cameras or video recording devices, can upload the resulting images or videos to social-media sites, and then word about the uploads can quickly spread through texting, twitter, and email. Research this phenomenon, asking just how new media enables certain stories to “go viral”, and what are the usual characteristics of the stories that do.
3. Nonviolent resistance. Read about the history of nonviolent civic resistance. You might focus on the Salt March (1930-34) or the writings of Mahatma Gandhi.
4. Katehi’s letter. Carefully study Katehi’s initial letter on the incident. Take apart the letter, sentence by sentence. Identify rhetorical devices used. Try to decipher what the letter reveals about its author’s point of view. Compare with the follow-up letter the Chancellor sent out the next day.
5. Pepper spray. The technology at the heart of this incident—pepper spray—is most definitely not a “neutral” artifact, and its role tends to get minimized. Consider the pepper spray (“OC gas”) as a player in this conflict. Investigate its history and its current legal status around the world.
6. Riot gear. Another technological player is the riot gear that police, even campus police, now wear almost routinely in confronting protesters. This again is not a neutral artifact. Investigate the history of use of riot gear, and some of what’s been said about it.
7. Humboldt county pepper-spray torture. In 1997 Sheriff deputies dabbed pepper spray with Q-tips into the eyes of protesters. The case became national news because of a frightful video of the events. Read about the incident and the resulting court case. What were the Court’s ultimate findings?
8. The avoiding-rape rationale. In an email to a colleague, a well-connected faculty source explained the Chancellor’s decision as follows: [The Chancellor] had asked that the [encamped] students not be left alone and staff were with them all through the night on Thursday and reported that non-students had joined the group and that some of the older males seemed more interested in the undergraduate females than the staff were comfortable with. Rapes have been a big problem at these encampments in the bay area. So the way she put it to ... was do you do nothing and let a student get raped or do you take action and close the campsite. ... [Faculty] who are parents of daughters all spoke from the perspective of definitely needing to protect students from sexual predators... I think if the faculty want to support the strike then we have to be there in full force as chaperones... First, try to determine if the claim is even factually true: have rapes been a “big problem” at Occupy encampments? Independently, analyze the reason “protect female students from rape” as a reason to close the encampment on the quad.
9. Following orders. Why do most people carry out orders that most would hold to be an immoral? Read about the Milgram experiment and some of its more recent follow-ups. What insights into human psychology have been gained by this line of work?
10. Perpetrator effects. What does torture or police brutality do to the one committing these acts? You might start with a short piece from Alexis Madrigal. Are there social, historical, or technological reasons to believe that we have moved into a world with more perpetrators of cruelty and more victims of it?
11. Suppressing dissent on campuses. There is a long history in the US of police violently reacting to protest movements on campus (the Kent State massacre is the most famous incident). Read a history about any incident of violent suppression of dissent on a university campus, trying to understand why it happened.