Students at the University of California, Berkeley shut down a professor’s attempt at giving a midterm exam due to recent events like the earthquake in Mexico and the hurricane in Puerto Rico. The video was shared on YouTube by Joel Simonoff, a student studying electrical engineering and computer science at the university. Simonoff wrote about the video:
I am simply sharing this noteworthy event. I am not expressing any political opinion and I am not commenting on the protests.
The video has reached nearly 36,000 views.
In the video, Simonoff films as students begin to protest the giving of a midterm. While there is immediate audio, video footage does not become available until a little after the 2-minute mark.
At that point, three students are seen at the front of the classroom, with a woman reading from a paper. The students all inform the professor and students watching that the major events that have affected them so took place in their “homelands.” They further go on to explain that their families there have been affected.
“Instead of an exam, we request a take-home essay with significant time to prepare. Our [inaudible] are being put on the line because of our emotional and physical stress that this university is compounding with what is already going on in our everyday lives,” a male protester adds. He then continues that tests are unnecessary because they require memorization. “The content of this class and the way it is being taught is not satisfactory… and even if it is, with only 6-weeks, we feel we haven’t had the opportunity to interact with the text and information.”
The students claim that they have 200 protesters signed off with them.
The professor eventually begins to talk, but the protesters cut him off.
“I think you need to let me finish,” the professor says. “I let you finish.”
“We have let you finish for forever,” one female protester says. “What is your response?”
“My response is that on a campus like on the University of California, Berkeley, I am not about to let 50 right-wing demonstrators shut down a university. I am in demonstrations all the time in Latin America, as recently as the end of August, just before the first day of class. You keep the integrity of the institution you’re a part of.”
The student protesters then bring up further grievances then turn on the students who want to take the test, calling them white supremacists.