March 1st Inside the State Building

Pictures at occupysf.org/

Fourteen of us emerged in handcuffs, after a contingent of students and teachers from Occupy SF and the Occupy Education coalition occupied the Hiram Johnson State Office Building in downtown San Francisco. We demonstrated to demand full funding of education, passage of the Millionaires Tax and an oil extraction tax, abolishing all student debt, and the right to peaceful assembly.

In the State Building lobby, we held a teach-in, a strategy session on the Occupy movement, and we submitted our demand letter be faxed to the Sacramento offices of Governor Brown and State Representatives Yee, Ammiano, Leno, and Ma. Each office agreed to fax out our demands, except Governor Brown’s office that was closed. Between two and three pm, protestors gathered in front of the building for the rally, while about twenty of us entered the building, dispersing to different floors in preparation for the 3:15 “mic-check” by retired school-teacher, Kathleen.

Around three o’clock, the numbers inside swelled to over seventy-five as many of the protestors from the outside rally joined us. Kathleen called the “Mic-check” using the people’s microphone (an Occupy technique where the speaker talks in segments and the crowd repeats) and she explained, “We will no longer accept cuts to education…the needs and the wants of ordinary people will no longer be ignored…”

We rolled out our Occupy Education banners and report cards grading the California State Legislature “F” for education performance. As we gathered around, Kathleen explained that the continued allegiance of the legislature of California to the interests of millionaires and billionaires, at the expense of students and teachers, must end. We listened as five educators taught on topics ranging from the thirty year shift of taxes away from the rich and corporations, to cuts in social programs and “austerity”, to San Francisco’s Budget Process, to Martin Luther King Jr.’s connection to jazz music.



About a half-hour into the teach-in, the teams of “faxers” all returned from the offices of the State legislators with fax receipts in hand, announcing that the demand letters were successfully sent out. The teach-in continued with a music teacher singing, “It’s Time to Tax the Rich” to the tune of “Puttin’ on the Ritz, as she tap danced in a tuxedo. Janice, a CCSF student, said the teach-in had been so informative that she thinks she learned more there in that State Building lobby than she had in her college classes in a long time…

We continued with a speak-out after the educators finished their classes, with students speaking about their unbearable debt burden, the high unemployment rate for graduates, and the challenges facing the formerly incarcerated to get an education. The president of CCSF, John Rizzo, surprised the group, showing up at the teach-in and asking to speak about how the cut in funding from the State has affected enrollment.

A rush of participants hurried out to join the education rally at the Civic Center around five o’clock, but about thirty of us stayed to continue occupying, some of us deciding to occupy until our education demands were met. Long-time activist David Solnet taught a session on movement strategy, as closing time approached and more protestors exited the building.

We called an impromptu press conference a little before six, where teacher Wendy K. and student Janice reiterated our demands: that both Jerry Brown and our legislators fully fund education and social services by passing the millionaire’s tax and the oil extraction tax, that all student debt be forgiven, and that the 400+ teacher layoffs in San Francisco be reversed.

Around 6:30, shortly after the building was closed, we were handcuffed, cited and released, one by one. As each of us was escorted off by the police, we chanted, “When education is under attack, what do we do? Stand up Fight Back.” A crowd remained outside and cheered for us as we exited the building, waving our citations for trespass.

So why are our demands important enough to risk arrest? California ranks number forty-six in spending on K-12 and fifty in class size. California now spends more on prisons than on higher education, even though a lack of education is a primary determinant of whether a person will end up in the prison system. We have 80 billionaires in California alone and they have assets of over 230 billion dollars, almost ten times the amount of the state’s budget deficit!

This concentration of wealth contributes to market bubbles and economic uncertainty. Instead of being spent within the state to stimulate the economy, as it would in the hands of the poor, the middle class or local social programs, the money is spent primarily on speculation in real estate or financial markets. When the recession hit, California began cutting education and social services, and continues to do so at a time when those services are most needed, as people are losing jobs, housing and health care at record rates. Why does the California legislature continue to beat up the students, the poor and the middle class to appease the super-wealthy by refusing to increase taxes at the top, even though the tax burden has shifted to the shoulders of working families over the last thirty years?

Jerry Brown’s solution is to tax the 99% even more. Brown’s tax proposal called “Our Children, Our Future” raises personal income taxes on anyone making over $7316 per year. The burden of fixing this problem must fall on those who can afford it, and that is why we included in our demands that Jerry Brown change his support over to the “Millionaire’s Tax of 2012″ which raises taxes by 3 to 5% only on people earning income over one million and two million dollars respectively, and uses the money to restore education and social programs.

We also demanded support for Proposition 1522, which is an oil and natural gas extraction tax to supplement education funding that would fall only on the oil corporations and include a penalty if the corporations try to pass the cost on to the consumer. Even Alaska under Sarah Palin passed an oil extraction tax! A few states understand that the budget problem is simple to fix: Oregon wiped out its deficit with a tax on the wealthy several years ago.

California tuition has increased at four times the rate of inflation; wages for the middle class are stagnant and unemployment is high. Students come out of college and graduate school to become debt slaves. California had free education not so long ago. Why are we burdening our young people with education debt on top of all the other challenges, including climate and food security, which they will also face, due to the negligence of our State and Federal legislators?

Written by Beth Seligman, JD