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By Ayala Ochert Around 2,500 students gathered in Sproul Plaza for a candlelight vigil on the evening of September 11 to mourn the victims of the terrorist attacks that took place that morning in New York City and at the Pentagon. During the vigil, students heard of the death of Mark Bingham ’93, who was aboard United Flight 93, the hijacked plane that crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. Members of his fraternity stood silently in a circle around his photograph. The day had begun with an impromptu gathering of students in Sproul Plaza. Shocked and saddened by the news to which they had woken, students filled posterboards with their thoughts and reflections. These were later moved to the wall of the Berkeley Art Museum, close to Alexander Calder’s “Hawk for Peace” sculpture, to act as a memorial. Unlike many other state facilities, the campus stayed open that day. “By remaining open, we can offer our students—particularly those who arrived on campus for the first time only a couple of weeks ago—a safe and supportive environment,” said Chancellor Robert Berdahl. Many students, seeking to combat their feelings of helplessness, gave blood at the Tang Center, while graduate students Miriam Walker and Ka-Ping Yee found a different way to help out. On discovering that phone lines to New York City were jammed with calls, Walker had the idea to set up a Web site that would allow the public to find out whether their loved ones were safe, and asked her friend Yee to help her create it. Within hours of the attack the site (http://safe.millennium.berkeley.edu) was up and running.
It is not yet known how many alumni and others associated with Cal were lost on September 11. Still missing is Brent Woodall ’93, a former Cal football and baseball player who worked as a stock trader for Keefe, Bruyette & Woods on the 89th floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center. Woodall had been planning to return to Berkeley for a players’ reunion at the Cal–Washington game during Homecoming Weekend, September 28. A number of New York-based members of the Cal family report that they personally witnessed the collapse of the World Trade Center towers. Among them was Steve Weber, associate professor of political science, who watched events unfold from a midtown Manhattan skyscraper. An expert on national security, Weber contributed to a study commissioned by Congress last year on “National Security in the 21st Century.” “People talked a great deal about domestic terrorism,” says Weber. “[But this was] inconceivable. It’s never happened anywhere in the world.” The structural engineers of the World Trade Center, Leslie E. Robertson Associates, founded by Leslie Robertson ’52, had designed the building to withstand the impact of a small airplane. News reports say that it was the intense fire created by tons of burning jet fuel that weakened the buildings’ steel columns, causing their ultimate collapse. In response to students’ requests, Chancellor Berdahl organized a formal memorial service on September 17. It was held in front of Doe Library at Memorial Glade, a recent gift of the War Classes in honor of the Cal students who died in World War II. The somber tone of the service captured the mood of the campus. As participants entered the glade, each was handed an iris, and a lone trumpeter announced the start of the service. An estimated 10,000 gathered for the service—the largest gathering in Berkeley in over 30 years—and they maintained a respectful silence throughout. Outside McLaughlin Hall, students proudly held up a large American flag—an unusual sight on the Berkeley campus. Speakers included Chancellor Berdahl, ASUC President Wally Adeyemo ’03, and faculty members Maxine Hong Kingston ’62 and Robert Hass. The Wind Ensemble began the service; later, the Men’s Octet and UC Chorus led the audience in singing “The Star Spangled Banner,” and ASUC Senator Joanne Liu ’02 gave her rendition of John Lennon’s “Imagine.” After the service, many laid their flowers around the Memorial Pool, which was encircled by ten large wreaths of yellow and white flowers. After the immediate shock of the September 11 attacks, student and academic leaders moved quickly to try to avert a backlash against Muslim students on campus. But not even Berkeley was immune to the hostility experienced by Arab and Muslim Americans—and those mistaken for them—around the country. When the Muslim Student Association began to receive hateful e-mail messages, president Basim Elkarra ’02 decided to hold the group’s weekly Friday prayer meeting (Jumaa) on campus, and to use the event as an opportunity for people to learn about Islam. More than 1,000 students of all faiths attended the service in Pauley Ballroom. “The campus is just an amazing place of tolerance,” said Elkarra. “The ASUC and the administration were very supportive of our efforts.” But those feelings swiftly changed when, four days later, the Daily Cal published a cartoon depicting two terrorists, dressed in robes and turbans, in Hell. Later that night—in scenes reminiscent of earlier in the year, when the newspaper published an ad opposing reparations for slavery—over 100 protesters jammed the lobby of the Daily Cal, demanding an apology. Boalt Law School student Will Youmans called the cartoon “the most vile form of ethnic characterization.” The newspaper refused to apologize, and the cartoonist, Darrin Bell ’99, said that he had been misunderstood. “The cartoon was a commentary on only those 19 terrorist hijackers and on bin Laden’s organization,” he stated the next day. Meanwhile, harassment of Muslims and Arabs on campus escalated—one Palestinian group reported that it had received eight death threats in the week following the attacks. Some Sikh students, mistaken for Muslims because they wear turbans, had also been verbally abused. Junior Tejinder Singh, a member of Berkeley’s national champion debate team, heard shouts of “Terrorist! Towelhead!” as he walked on campus. On September 21, the Afghan Student Association and several Afghan community groups held a press conference at Alumni House to highlight their community’s unique situation and to ask the media for help in preventing further hate crimes. They spoke of the many years of war that Afghans had been through since the late ’70s, and explained that most ordinary Afghans do not share the views of their Taliban leaders. ASUC President Wally Adeyemo was there to support the students. “Afghan [students] are as American as the rest of us,” he said, pointing out that they, too, had lost friends and loved ones in the World Trade Center. “History will judge us on how we treat our brothers and sisters. In the past, we have not treated them well.” In an echo of the anti-war movement of the 1960s, 2,500 students gathered in Sproul Plaza on September 20 for an anti-war rally organized by the newly formed Berkeley Stop the War Coalition.
Speakers condemned the terrorist attacks, but suggested peaceful means of responding to them. “I want freedom, and I want justice. I want to honor those victims by dedicating myself against all violence,” said June Jordan, professor of African American Studies. “We should bring the perpetrators to an international court of justice, there to convict and punish them.” Others expressed concern that any war would create more innocent victims in countries like Afghanistan. “Send them food rather than bombs,” said professor of Near Eastern Studies Hatem Bazian, who spoke on behalf of the Muslim Students Association. The loudest cheer during the rally came when Berkeley City Council member Kriss Worthington spoke up in praise of Rep. Barbara Lee, MSW ’75, the Democratic representative for Berkeley and Oakland. She was the only lawmaker in Congress to vote against the “war powers” resolution granting President Bush authority to use “all necessary and appropriate force” against those who carried out the September 11 attacks. On September 24, the Monday following the anti-war rally, a smaller group of around 300 students countered with a pro-USA rally in Sproul Plaza. Hoisting American flags, and wearing red, white, and blue, the protesters chanted “USA! USA!” This demonstration was organized by another newly formed group, the Berkeley Coalition Against Terrorism, which included members of the Berkeley College Republicans, the Cal Berkeley Democrats, and the Israel Action Committee. “Regardless of political affiliation we’re going to stand behind our president and behind our country,” said Anka Lee ’03 of the Cal Berkeley Democrats. Randy Barnes of the Israel Action Committee rejected comparisons of the new anti-war movement with past Berkeley student movements: “This is 2001, not 1968. This is not Vietnam, but an act of aggression acted upon us as a nation,” he said. Stop the War protesters countered the chants of “USA!” with their own chants of “Peace!”  Return to Top |
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