Tuesday, July 31st 2007
We are from Berkeley, but not that Berkeley
The University’s revised student group naming policy has generated some more attention. While the story was first broken by Yaman and followed up by Beetle two weeks ago, it only made it to print in the Daily Cal Monday. If you missed all those and the latest on Beetle, here is the short version.
The University will not allow any new student groups to have names that contain UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California unless it is a reference to the geographical place of Berkeley. The reasoning I gathered is the University does not want to give the impression the University is in agreement with or endorses anything such a named group says or does. Established groups with now illegal names will not be affected (yet). Considering the University was rather touchy about Calstuff and their use of Cal written in script, they have a history of being protective of what they see as their name.
This should help you register groups that do not conflict with the new rules.
I thought of an interesting turnaround. If the University does not want the public to possibly think student groups speak for the University, then the public should not be tempted to think the University administration speaks for students. If students can’t use UC Berkeley, then neither should the Chancellor when he writes an opinion piece like this.
Intelligent people understand the words of student groups only express the opinions of the student groups that said them, even if their name is Berkeley or has Cal in it. One thing is clear, the University has no claim at all on regulating the use of California or Berkeley.
Update: As as happened so many times before, if I wait long enough Beetle will have something good to say. Here he explains how to effectively fight this. Some people will not like it, as whining is not allowed.
I don’t really explain how to effectively fight this, nor do I attempt to. I just wanted to point out that there is a real distinction between those who want to complain about stuff (me) and those who want to change stuff, and it’s a distinction many in the former group like to deny. Whining is absolutely allowed, it just isn’t part of the solution.
It’s like those who go to Washington D.C. to be paragons of morality, because that’s how it should work. Except it doesn’t work that way. And if you want it to work that way, you aren’t going to accomplish it by pretending that it works that way. You have to actually change it, through deals, or bullying, or whatever, and doing so may very well not reflect whatever ideals you might be seeking.
It’s simply not effective to want things to change but not actually taking action to change them (instead just pretending that the change has already occurred). You can do that as a statement (and I’ve done it numerous times), but if you’re interested in seeing real change, you actually have to change things.
Comment by Beetle — 7/31/2007 @ 2:32 am
I’d tell new groups to use the name anyway. The worst that can happen is getting the group banned, and insert the “any publicity is good publicity” mantra here. Taking a university action like that to the public does nothing to make the university change, but will hopefully make it look silly, which is really all we have the power to do anyway.
I think it reflects poorly on the school to not want credit/responsibility for what its student groups do. After all, it’s not students versus everyone else, we are supposed to be a “university community”, and that contradiction kinda makes them look silly too.
Comment by megans — 7/31/2007 @ 9:57 pm
Taking it to the public actually does make the university change. They have a PR priority. But that would only work if we had a newspaper that could create controversy through hard-hitting pieces. Unfortunately, we have the Daily Cal, which hasn’t said anything bad about anyone in years. (Hey, look, octopus kites!)
Groups won’t get banned, they simply won’t get recognized, which means no ASUC funding and no “right” to use classrooms and table on Sproul. This may be weakly enforced, which means the functioning of groups would end up being left to the discretion of university administrators. They can simply kill off unpopular groups without any real risk.
Comment by Beetle — 8/1/2007 @ 12:56 am
If you can’t work within the system, do your best to circumvent it. The old ways are changing. Advertise on Facebook, get sponsorship from local businesses, start working on new marketing techniques. Don’t think of it as an obstacle, think of it as a challenge. This will prepare you for how the real world works, so embrace it and go with it.
Well, either that, or just use a new name. How about the Stanford Republicans? Has a nice ring.
Comment by Avinash — 8/6/2007 @ 3:39 am
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