About 18 students and union workers decided Thursday evening to continue their hunger strike into next week, when U. California-Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau will return to the campus from Europe.
After an informal discussion Thursday afternoon between five members of the “Hungry for Justice Coalition,” Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost George Breslauer and Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Harry Le Grande, the strikers said that they will continue their protest until Birgeneau agrees to discuss their demands in person.
The strikers have been camped out in front of California Hall since Monday afternoon, surviving only on water laced with sugar and lemon. At the time of the discussion, the strikers had been without food for 75 hours.
After the representatives of the strikers spoke with Breslauer and Le Grande for nearly two hours, they addressed about 100 supporters outside of California Hall, saying their discussion was simply a dialogue, not a negotiation.
“We spoke mostly about the strikers’ demands,” said External Affairs Vice President-elect Ricardo Gomez, one of the five students in the meeting. “It was a good step towards moving towards what the hunger strikers want to accomplish.”
In a statement released Wednesday, Birgeneau addressed each of the demonstrators’ six demands and stated that he is “personally prepared” to speak out against the recently passed Arizona immigration law. However, he did not fully agree to the strikers’ other demands.
The demonstrators said they stand by their prior demands, asking Birgeneau to publicly denounce Arizona’s immigration law; make UC Berkeley a sanctuary campus and provide extended protections for undocumented students; drop all student conduct charges against student activists; stop cuts to low-wage employees; suspend conduct procedures and initiate a democratic, student-led process to review the code; and to commit to using nonviolent means of ensuring safety at student demonstrations in the future.
Claire Holmes, associate vice chancellor of communications and public affairs, said Birgeneau is in Europe on university affairs and will return Monday. She added that campus officials will try to reach out to strikers again Friday.
“They had a very good dialogue – we’re in the process of digesting the information and the exchange,” she said. “We’re thinking hard about what commitments we can make. We are very concerned about their health and well-being, and we want them to end the protest.”
The strikers urged the demonstrators to e-mail the administration with their personal stories of how the Arizona law affects them in order for the administration to understand how the immigration law impacts UC Berkeley students.
“To see the protesters here gives me energy,” said UC Berkeley sophomore Alejandro Jimenez while addressing the strikers. “I encourage you to stay strong, to hang in there and to know that you are inspiring a lot of people, keep it up.”