As the University of California Administration engages in a public relations campaign of lies, Santa Cruz Indymedia’s open-publishing newswire is being utilized by UCSC students, staff, faculty and members of the community to expose the truth about the events that took place on Monday evening (4/18/05) at Tent University Santa Cruz (TUSC) and some of the many reasons for organizing TUSC in the first place.
On April 20, at about 8:15pm, Tent University Santa Cruz participants came to a decision at the base of the UCSC campus that all but a dozen TUSCers would spend the night in the Quarry Amphitheater, a beautiful outdoor venue at UCSC, and have a meeting to discuss their platform of demands for the UC Administration.
On Wednesday, April 20, 2005, there were workshops and presentations at Tent University Santa Cruz. I came late to a presentation about the exploitation of workers in maquiladoras (sweatshop factories) and the way that workers are organizing to form networks of resistance and awareness. Strategies were discussed for pressuring the UC and other institutions into making socially-responsible purchases.
On Monday April 18, around 150 hundred people, most of whom are currently enrolled as undergrads at UCSC, marched from UCSC’s Baytree Plaza down to the base of campus. Several large puppets decided to join the march as well. Meanwhile at the base of campus, other folks were busy creating a large steel structure to provide a respite from the hot sun. 