University research in the Age of Protest

[gmax137]

Are there labs in that building?

 

[Vanadium 50]

Was this particularly secure building?

Evidently not.

The article says the cops used the crowbar.

The say they used a crowbar.

The cops came in a back entrance. Photos of the front also show damage to a door. But I think this still reinforces my point - these doors are not intended to keep people out who are willing to damage them. This isn't Fort Knox.

 

[berkeman]

Photos of the front also show damage to a door.

Photos please...

 

[Frabjous]

In the 60’s, the protests were much larger and there were “violent” deaths. How many deaths were caused by accidental exposure to campus research equipment?

 

[BillTre]

In the 60’s, the protests were much larger and there were “violent” deaths. How many deaths were caused by accidental exposure to campus research equipment?

Weren't most of them from the police or national guard?

 

[Rive]

the building with the offices of the president and provost

At least, that's a lot more political than the lab Makes (a bit) more sense.
Well, a bit less non-sense...

What I can't understand is that apparently those with such unstoppable attitude are still students there.
OK, keeping them after busting the offices of top brass would be one (bit political) thing, but the case about the labs kind of expected to make a dent on the numbers and means...

 

[Frabjous]

Weren't most of them from the or national guard?

I believe there were also some bombs. If we cannot come up with significant numbers of deaths from exposure to dangerous scientific equipment in the 1960’s, I feel that this entire scenario is not grounded in reality.

 

[Vanadium 50]

In the 60’s, the protests were much larger

Yes, but the amount of research on campus was much smaller. Some of the more dangerous aspects didn't even exist then - XeF₂ wasn't used to create MEMS until around 2000, and didn't even exist anywhere on the planet until 1962.

I also remain unconvinced by the argument "we're safe - we haven't had a fatality yet". Titan sub? 737MAX? The Great Molasses Flood?

 

[Frabjous]

Yes, but the amount of research on campus was much smaller. Some of the more dangerous aspects didn't even exist then - XeF₂ wasn't used to create MEMS until around 2000, and didn't even exist anywhere on the planet until 1962.

I also remain unconvinced by the argument "we're safe - we haven't had a fatality yet". Titan sub? 737MAX? The Great Molasses Flood?

There is no existential threat. People die every day because of stupidity (their own or others) or just plain bad luck. You have not demonstrated why university protestors need special protections.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Photos please...

The Stanford Daily has some, but focus on the interior. KPIX and other stations have videos with a little more context.

There is no existential threat. People die every day because of stupidity (their own or others) or just plain bad luck.

OK, we'll just wait for a couple incidents. How many should we wait for?

 

[Frabjous]

OK, we'll just wait for a couple incidents. How many should we wait for?

436

One can quibble on the number, but isolated incidents are not a societal concern.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Photos please...

As the Mentors discovered, it is difficult to find pictures on the web without accompanying text with one slant or another. My position is not dependent on content - irrespective of who is right in Save the Skeets, we have:

1. Protestors breaking into buildings (including lab buildings) and damaging things inside
2. Hazardous materials and equipment in these buildings
3. Security in these buildings intended to deter the casual thief and not a determined group.

My position is that fixing #1 and #3 is impractical so we need to fix #2. Or live with the consequences.

 

[Andy Resnick]

As the Mentors discovered, it is difficult to find pictures on the web without accompanying text with one slant or another. My position is not dependent on content - irrespective of who is right in Save the Skeets, we have:

1. Protestors breaking into buildings (including lab buildings) and damaging things inside
2. Hazardous materials and equipment in these buildings
3. Security in these buildings intended to deter the casual thief and not a determined group.

My position is that fixing #1 and #3 is impractical so we need to fix #2. Or live with the consequences.

"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." (H. L. Mencken).

 

[Vanadium 50]

And "Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien." (Usually translated as "The perfect is the enemy of the good.")

 

[Bandersnatch]

And let's not forget 1 Corinthians 11:14
'Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?'

 

[Frabjous]

The system will self correct because the protestors have a strong instinct for self preservation. If a tragedy in a science building occurred, they would refocus back on the safety of the administration buildings.

 

[pinball1970]

I had a look at Stanford and the recent criminal behaviour, the graffiti those guys did.
Not good, vile crap.
Should they find themselves in a dangerous situation yet continue to vandalize and disrespect the campus? Breaking lots of laws?
I'm a Brit.
Protest? Absolutely.
Acting like a mindless criminal and getting injured in the process?
No tears only jail.

 

[Frabjous]

I had a look at Stanford and the recent criminal behaviour, the graffiti those guys did.
Not good, vile crap.
Should they find themselves in a dangerous situation yet continue to vandalize and disrespect the campus? Breaking lots of laws?
I'm a Brit.
Protest? Absolutely.
Acting like a mindless criminal and getting injured in the process?
No tears only jail.

They were charged with felony burglary and had to post $20,000 bail.

11 of the 13 have been identified as current students. One is an alum. At least 6 are seniors. It will be interesting to see if Stanford will award them degrees.

 

[berkeman]

At least 6 are were seniors.

Fixed that for you.

 

[Vanadium 50]

As far as the Stanford case, the university can immediately defer their graduation date one quarter, and they can in that period be required to pay restitution and/or perform community service (e.g. help with a Hillel food drive) as a condition of graduation. I don't believe they can normally be expelled immediately.

But this isn't really on point. Does one think even expelling a dozen students will deter others? There have been, according to NPR a month ago, hundreds of students arrested, suspended and/or expelled. Didn't deter the kids at Stanford.

If not, what happens when the next group of protestors break into a lab with a big jug of demethyl mercury or nickel tetracarbony? Even my own lab has exposed high voltage and isobutane, as well as various volatile and flammable solvents. Heck, my undergrad lab had that - along with radioactive sources, cryogens, lasers bright enough to blind, and so forth.

 

[BillTre]

I think it is a mistake to treat all protesters on different campuses as the same.

It will vary between different campuses and the group of people at any given campus will be a collection of people with different motivations.

Here are some of the groups one might expect:

• True believers who will do anything for their cause. They won't care if they don't get their degree if they are students and may not even be students at the school.
• Students who care about some cause, but do care if they get their degree or have other problems with the school.
• People not affiliated with the school, but are protesting about some cause. School policies won't usually affect them.
• Employees of the school in some way (including grad. students, post-docs, faculty, and others). Probably few. Have more at stake.

School policies will not equally affect them all.

 

[Vanadium 50]

The criminal justice system is slow, and universities are not much faster. So probably zero have been convicted or expelled. And there hasn't been much time:

You can see that while demonstrations have been going on a while, most of them are fairly recent.

 

[Frabjous]

Even my own lab has exposed high voltage and isobutane, as well as various volatile and flammable solvents.

You do not have to wait for the university to take action.

 

[Frabjous]

At the end of the day, this is a philosophical question. How much of your freedom are you willing to give up in order to protect the safety of people engaged in criminal activity? For me, not much.

 

[Andy Resnick]

And "Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien." (Usually translated as "The perfect is the enemy of the good.")

Don't flatter yourself- your idea isn't even good.

Have you learned how medical schools handled the wave of anti-vivisectionist vandalism in the 1980s and 1990s?

Here's a clue- medical schools still experiment on animals.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Have you learned how medical schools handled the wave of anti-vivisectionist vandalism in the 1980s and 1990s?

Please tell me.

(Boy, I'm glad I am not a university administrator. One group's slogan is "Don't kill the pigs" and the other is the opposite....)

 

[BillTre]

Please tell me.

Here is my post #6 above:

In the 1980s-1990s there was a strong local PETA group that often protested and one time broke in a vandalized some animal facilities at the University of Oregon (Eugene). This group was very much personality driven and stopped being active when a particular person left town.
When they broke in, they caused a bunch of damage and some humorously funny stupid things.

• One was they tried releasing some pigeons but they didn't go far and wanted to come back their home.
• They also released some white inbred lab rabbits into the "wild" (just off of I-5) where they were observed getting attacked by dogs. So sad.

It was easy to make fun of them. They were generally uninformed about what they were protesting and some of them wore leather belts.

Fortunately for everyone they didn't get to the real labs where the nasty stuff is kept.
Or scramble our genetic lines or databases.

Everything new got doors with card readers with the money from grants for the new facilities.
Older buildings got outer door card readers along with some interior door card readers. I am kind of surprised that this is not the case everywhere. Any new building budget should include this in their budget. It would be hard to refuse. Older places should be upgraded by the University using the indirect funds they get from each research grant which is supposed to support the funded research. This also would seem difficult to refuse.

A few years after this, I is was involved new designing new fish facilities all over campus and got put on a kind of task force for controlling some other spaces with some local cops and people from the physical plant. It was fun because I always prided myself on being able to break into our house when we got locked out. Because I knew how the buildings were put together I could figure new and devious ways to get in.

ˇThese changes are quite doable, and the costs could be covered by overhead the university gets from grants. Things like this are what overhead is supposed to go to, not just money for the university.
These changes don't have to be disrupting to school activities.

 

[Vanadium 50]

I saw that, but my reading of Andy's post is that he was talking about something wider than a few protestors led by a single individual at one university.

If the point is "you just have to wait it out and they'll lose interest," well, maybe that will work. It will certainly work until it doesn't.

As far as "better locks on the doors" - card readers and such - these are ineffective if people are willing to break the doors. As we have seen. Further, a lot of university architecture is designed to look pretty, not to deter angry mobs.

 

[BillTre]

As far as "better locks on the doors" - card readers and such - these are ineffective if people are willing to break the doors. As we have seen. Further, a lot of university architecture is designed to look pretty, not to deter angry mobs.

This would be poor design. A proper door would at last slow them down for several minutes which should give time for at least campus cops to show up. The doors we used were metal and robust. They had little windows with wire in the glass, but not within easy reach of the door handle.
The drywall walls would normally be easier to get through, but they were reinforced, due to my pestering.
There should also be tampering alarms (lock electronics and sounds).

Alternatively, the protesters could just get a bomb or bazooka and blow a hole in the wall or door. That would be hard to prevent but would be expected to attract attention of cops etc..

 

[Vanadium 50]

Alternatively, the protesters could just get a bomb or bazooka and blow a hole in the wall or door

That is so 60's!

If you make the doors too hard to get into, first responders can't get into them either. And remember, during an incident, you may not have power. Further, a door is only as strong as its frame: a vault-type door (yes, that's a thing) doesn't work so well if its set in a wood-and-drywall wall.

When an undergrad, I had my office/lab in a building with lots of defense research (although not mine), and if we left a door open too long or such it would trigger an alarm. My experience was that campus police were not exactly speedy, and usually they would just send the low man on the totem pole to look around. You don't get the SWAT team.

As your story tells, people were able to get in and cause damage.

Oh, and "overhead should pay for it", sure. But "should" and "will" are two different things.