Back in May, I missed my graduation ceremony in order to protest the University of California’s management of nuclear weapons labs.
I was arrested.
Recently, San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris wrote to me with orders to contact community court. Here’s the response I mailed her:
Dear District Attorney Harris,
On May 17th, 2007, along with other University of California students, I was arrested at the UC Board of Regents meeting at UCSF. I was arrested because, with love in my heart for the regents on a personal level, I nonviolently refused to leave the meeting space when ordered to do so by the regents. I stayed to express my firm opposition to UC’s management of the national nuclear weapons laboratories.
I refused to leave because the regents had not, in my opinion, sufficiently considered the students’ proposal to sever ties from the weapons labs. The overwhelming majority of the faculty, students, and citizens who attended the meeting supported the proposal. The regents refused to place the proposal on the agenda. The regents are supposed to be stewards of a public institution on behalf of the public, not servants of the military-industrial complex.
It is my understanding that every single nuclear weapon in the United States arsenal was designed and built at a laboratory managed by the UC. Thus, it is hard to imagine how the UC’s moral position on questions of peace and conflict could be much lower. This is not merely an academic issue, and could someday soon have apocalyptic consequences. President Bush recently threatened “World War III” regarding the United States’ current conflict with Iran. The U.S. refuses to take the use of nuclear weapons off the table.
In fact, the nuclear weapons program has already had horrific consequences. Just ask the hundreds of thousands of Japanese who were incinerated, or the countless thousands who’ve suffered from cancer and death due to prolonged nuclear weapons testing.
I can imagine few more significant forms of community service than actions aimed at the abolition of nuclear weapons. Our action at the regents’ meeting surely was a “community service” in every sense of the term, however small its contribution to the larger movement. Ironically, one of the regents – before refusing to consider our proposal and ordering us out of the building – stated that he was sympathetic to the goal of nuclear weapon abolition and cited a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed on the subject written by George Schultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn. (Why, then, do the regents refuse to act? On what moral grounds did they refuse to consider our proposal? For this they had no clear answer that I heard.)
To the reader of this letter, I ask: Do you want a world free of nuclear weapons? Do you want your children and grandchildren to grow up in a world without the fear of nuclear holocaust? If so, if you agree that this is the goal, then I implore you to recognize the action we took as a laudable community service.
If, however, you believe that there is anything legitimate at all about the existence of nuclear weapons; and if you believe that the University of California, a “public” institution of “higher learning” should be managing nuclear weapons development; and if you think that the purpose of education is compatible with the purpose of nuclear weapons laboratories; then I believe you have no choice but to attempt to prosecute and punish me for my actions, given the tragically flawed nature of our dysfunctional retributive justice system.
If you desire, I am willing to attend community court or other venue to discuss the matter. If you desire, I will continue my community service work toward the goal of nuclear weapon abolition. However, I am unwilling to do any further community service as a form of “punishment” for the community service already done.
I look forward to your response.
In peace and good faith,
Matthew Alan Taylor
