California Memorial Stadium
x 2006–08 tree-sitting protest
By Benjamin Kassel '22
By Benjamin Kassel '22
The year is 2006. I, six years old, am attending my first season of Cal football games. It was a season the likes of which I have yet to see again. Players like DeSean Jackson, Syd’Quan Thompson, and Beast Mode himself, Marshawn Lynch, made me fall in love with the Golden Bears as they went 10–3 and finished #14 in the country.
However, my project is not about that football team. Rather, it’s about the stadium in which they play and the area immediately surrounding it. That’s because the other piece of what made that 2006 season so unique for me was the dawn of the tree-sitting protest on the day of the 109th Big Game. This protest occurred in the oak grove adjacent to California Memorial Stadium, which was to be removed for the construction of the Simpson Center for Student-Athlete High Performance.
Citing University hegemony, environmental concerns, and a claim that the site was a Native American burial ground, activist Zachary RunningWolf began occupying the oak grove on December 2, 2006.1 Over the next 648 days, a battle between the University of California and protesters was carried out. What began as a tree sit-in became a multiple-headed protest with additional casus belli added to the mix, most prominently seismic issues with the site.
While the protesters wielded injunctions and their own waste byproducts as their greatest weapons, the University wielded its status and power.2 The ultimate unilateral conclusion in favor of the University on September 9, 2008 reflects the heavy tilt toward the “gown” side of town-gown relations, by no fault of the greater citizenry. The deck was stacked against the tree-sitters and their supporters, and I more than anything find it impressive that they endured as long as they did. Yet despite their carrying out the longest urban tree-sit in history, little evidence of the effort remains. I’ll dive into why that is and more over the course of this project.
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Carolyn Jones, “Tree-Sitters Say Site Might Be Burial Ground,” SFGATE, January 19, 2012, https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/BERKELEY-Tree-sitters-say-site-might-be-burial-2616166.php.
Ashley Trott, “Tree-Sitters' Supplies Removed From Oaks by University-Hired Arborists,” The Daily Californian, June 19, 2008, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=ucbk.ark:/28722/h2ng4gr9c.