To: Dean Joseph Greenwell

Demand Dean Greenwell to drop the charges against Kristian Kim!

The threat of suspension among other unjust charges imposed on Kim are an attack on student-worker solidarity and the future of student organizing nationwide. We demand that Dean Joseph Greenwell drop the charges against Kim for her leadership in joining outsourced workers in solidarity.
#KeepKim

Why is this important?

Kristian Kim is a third-year undergraduate at UC Berkeley and member of the campus’ Student Labor Committee. She is currently being singled out, and threatened with suspension for organizing in solidarity with campus workers, who for the past seven months have fought to be insourced by the University where they have collectively worked for over 400 years. This petition is written to support Kim by demanding Dean Joseph Greenwell to drop the charges against her!

The campaign to insource UC workers came about out of a recognition that outsourced workers were paid half as much as their UC-employed counterparts, and were denied access to health and retirement benefits, sick days, holidays, and recourse in the frequent case of abuse. After months of hard work, this campaign has proven successful in arguably the biggest victory against privatization at the University of California in years.

Over the last seven months, students and workers united in multiple forms of direct action and civil disobedience to disrupt the complacency with which administration consistently treated workers' concerns. These actions included marches, rallies, sit-ins, and the largest student occupation of California Hall since the 1970s. Due to her organizational leadership in the #Justice4UCWorkers campaign, Kim has been targeted by the university. The following is an unofficial list of charges Kim has received from the Office of Student Conduct for her leadership since August 2015:

102.06 Unauthorized Conduct (3 counts)
102.13 Obstruction of University Activities (3 counts)
102.14 Disorderly Conduct (1 count)
102.16 Failure to Comply (3 counts)
Violation of the Disciplinary Probation that resulted from the above

Kim is currently being threatened with a 100-foot ban from certain areas of campus and suspension for a period ranging from one semester to three years - to be determined by the Office of Student Conduct and by the Dean of Student Affairs, Joseph Greenwell.

Administrative efforts to punish student organizers are a direct assault upon the ability of students to hold these administrators accountable for their administrative actions. Against all of the public values it so profitably claims to represent, "the number one public university in the world" is unabashedly attempting to crush dissenting voices. If UC Berkeley successfully establishes the precedent for withholding access to higher education on grounds of disrupting the status quo, it will eviscerate the capacity of students at public universities across the United States to intervene upon the injustices that their administrators unilaterally impose. It will also have undermined one of the core values that public higher education exists to uphold: that of the production of critical thought and its expression through transformative action.

Kim’s case will play a defining role in setting the terms for future interactions between administrators and students not just at UC Berkeley, but at public institutions of higher education across the United States. Sign this petition and urge Dean Joseph Greenwell to drop the charges against her!

For more information on the #Justice4UCWorkers campaign and the work of the Student Labor Committee, follow us on Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/Student-Labor-Committee-at-UC-Berkeley-483683265001136/?ref=bookmarks