Fighting for Their Lives and Their Education - The UCLA Sit-In

Content warning: Mild cursing, mentions of harassment by law enforcement

The Disabled Student Union at UCLA (DSU) provides a safe and inclusive place for disabled, neurodivergent, and ill people to feel accepted. Its purpose is to empower students through advocacy, education, and pride, build relationships with the administration and wider community, remove access barriers on campus, and advocate for disability rights.

As of February 14th, 2022, when this episode was recorded, the Disabled Student Union was on day 14 of their protest/sit-in.

They are protesting the administration's refusal to commit to a hybrid program, despite the fact that disabled and chronically ill students are still disproportionately affected by COVID.

Co-founder of the UCLA Disabled Student Union, Quinn O'Connor (she/they)
and member, Christopher Ikonomou (he/xe) share their reasons for protesting and what they and other protestors have experienced during the sit-in.

Follow DSU on social media: @dsuucla (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook)

Note regarding sound quality: This interview was done via Zoom. Quinn and Christopher were outside of where the sit-in is happening and the connection was poor at a couple points. Please reference the transcript (found here) for clarification.

The Politics of Disability was named Best Interview Podcast at the Astoria Film Festival in both October 2022 and again in June 2023.

Transcript

[music playing as Mary speaks]

Mary: Hello, everyone, and welcome. My name is Mary Fashik. I am the founder Upgrade Accessibility and your host. I’d like to thank you for joining me today, at the intersection of disability and politics. The road ahead can be a bumpy one, so buckle up and let's navigate this journey together.

[music playing]

Mary: Hello and thank you for joining me for this very special edition of The Politics of Disability podcast. Would you please introduce yourselves to the audience?

Quinn: Hello, my name is Quinn O’Connor and I am a student at UCLA and one of the cofounders of the Disabled Student Union.

Christopher: Hi everyone! My name is Christopher Ikonomou. I use he/him pronouns. I’m a member of the Disabled Student Union at UCLA.

Mary: Thank you both for joining me today. Would you please let the audience know what's going on at UCLA right now, in terms of disabled and chronically ill students, and what you're doing about it?

Quinn: Yes. Um, so right now, today marks actually the 14th day of our sit-in at Murphy Hall, which is basically the administrative building at UCLA and we are protesting for increased remote and increased and guaranteed remote access for our education here at UCLA because right now, especially in the middle of a pandemic. They are not guaranteeing that access for our population. 

Christopher: Yeah. And unfortunately, despite having, and this is across the country, having a year and a half of online options. As soon as the administration decides that we want to go back to normal, similar to what we see on a countrywide level, all of those options disappear and it went from being fully in person in fall quarter 2021, where they were about 20% of classes had some sort of remote option. And now this quarter, in winter quarter, only 200 out of the 7000 classes that were offered undergraduate and graduate, were going to be offered in some sort of remo… remote capacity. So, we actually began this fight in August of 2021 when we learned we were going to be going fully back in person.

We, uh, created a petition for hybrid access that garnered over about 30,000 signatures in a short period of time and we held a protest in October. Not…definitely not on the same scale as what we're doing now, but we basically spent a couple hours reading testimony, letting administration know that this is important, and that we have all of these people behind us.

And unfortunately, at that point, we just got a little burned out like after such a big event, a meeting after the event that was basically well what do you guys want, you know, we just want to hear from you. As if we didn't have a two-hour protest and a whole petition about it.

And it really just drained us for a long time and we didn't know how to keep going. And once we learned, because of the Omnicron surge, that the winter quarter was going to be put online for two weeks and then online for four weeks.

We were like, “Well, what do we do now?” And eventually we learned that we were going to be going back in person. And we created another petition. We you know, created this new form of advocacy that is related to what we were doing before.

And again, we got burnt out as disabled, I'm chronically ill. You get exhausted so fast doing advocacy work like this because it's not only about your community, it's draining for yourself as a member of that community.

Quinn: Mmmhmm.

Christopher: And, luckily, about a week before we were set to come back in person on January 31st, the President of the Student Body government at UCLA reached out to Quinn and was like hey, I really want to help you out with this. Let me make a petition for you specifically for a strike, so we'll potentially you know on Monday the 31st when we're supposed to go back, let's strike. Let's have some sort of rally and show administration that we really can't go back in person without guaranteed remote access 

Quinn: Yeah.

Christopher:  And then a few days after that, we were reached out to by the Mother Organizations Coalition, which is a group of 10 student organizations that represent minority communities, mostly racial and ethnic groups, but also one is for the LGBTQ community. And they were like hey, we've been fighting for access and retention and safety on campus and for administration to prioritize our lives.

Would you like to join forces? Can we join this protest with you and support and be in solidarity and also push some of our demands that we've been advocating for for 5, 10 plus years? And we were like, hell yeah! Like this you know we started creating this amazing coalition, and you know their community support really reinvigorated our community and us in particular and it was like, “Hell yeah I'm going to do a rally on Monday! Oh they're not going to respond to us in a meaningful way? We're going to stay in this building until they do.” 

And that's kind of the origin story of what we're doing. 

Quinn: Yeah, and I think like the really honestly like empowering thing about this is, I think like a lot of, you know, disability’s really intersection and things like that and also in the end like as Christopher was saying like our, our community, the Disabled Student Union was completely burnt out.

After months of fighting for this and I think it's so important to kind of build, build allyship and build coalition rather than like sticking to, you know, single identity politics and things like that. So that was a really good thing, and it was, it was honestly like so re-energizing for me as an advocate, like I can speak for myself on that.

And yeah I think like, we weren't actually planning on sitting in until the day of when we realized that all of these administrators were working remotely, and they were they're working hybrid schedules and you know being, you know, being very hypocritical in that sense. So that's when we decided to just stay and wait until these administrators came to work, and were, you know, taking meetings with us and things like that.

So it's been, yeah, it's been very good to see like this community and also like the amount of support we've gotten from the broader community, not just at UCLA, but beyond when it comes to fighting for this like there are multiple other universities right now who are doing similar things and I'm like, we've been so grateful to be connected with them and working kind of in partnership with one another to guarantee this hybrid access for disabled students.

Mary: I want to make a point that advocacy burnout is real. It affects your physical health. I’m also chronically ill, I’m an advocate also. I cannot imagine fighting for what you’re fighting for because when I’m fighting for our community, I get burned out, it's hard to keep going. So I understand that part of where you're coming from. 

Talk to me about what COVID safety precautions are taking place on the campus or are there any COVID precautions on campus.

Christopher: Yeah, so there are technically, um, but unfortunately they aren't really enforced. So, one thing that they implemented in just this quarter, it wasn't in place last quarter, is all students would have to test once a week in order to be allowed on campus, before that it was only students who were in the dorms on campus but now it's everyone. 

But unfortunately, the way that they check these things is through something called the COVID symptom monitoring survey. You have to take it every morning and it basically allows you to come on campus. But here's the problem with that - nobody checks it. So, you could forget, you could lie on it, you could do it and not be cleared and it's very likely that nobody is going to notice because none of the stores check it, none of the dining halls check it, none… pretty much, I don’t… I have not yet had a professor the checks it, and neither have most of the people that I've spoken with. Besides that, witnessing students close to other students without a mask on and getting aggressive when we would ask them, “Please put your masks on. We have free ones. Student Affairs has free ones, please put one on.”

And there seems to be this misconception that as long as you're outside, there's absolutely no way you can transmit COVID, even though now that we're back at full capacity. If you're in a crowd of people on our, we have this little alleyway in between. It's like the main walkway and campus, it's called Bruin walk if everyone's streaming out or into class at like 8:50 you know or right after class at nine o'clock, those, there's no reason to believe that those people are not going to transmit COVID because none of them are wearing their masks. But they think it's safe because they're outside and other than that we do have like vaccination requirements.

There are a couple like conservative people who have been very open about going to UCLA and not getting vaccinated so they have to take, you know, leave, which at least is good that they're mandating vaccines and boosters as of this quarter. But yeah, the problem with the protocol isn't necessarily that it's not there, it's just that nobody enforces it. And, you know, administration has the same attitude that COVID is going down and it's not that big of a deal anymore because non-disabled people are not being as affected. and last week, you know they have weekly, biweekly meetings with the COVID response and recovery Task Force, they canceled the meeting for the COVID response and recovery Task Force last week because COVID cases were going down.

And like that just as a slap in the face because so many, like as we heard from the CDC 75% of the people who were vaccinated dying from COVID are disabled or immunocompromised or have some sort of co-morbidities, and that just was a slap in the face continues to be a slap in the face for administration saying it's no longer a big deal.

Quinn: And also like one other policy that's like very kind of concerning to… to us is that basically if your roommate who you share a room with test positive for COVID and you happen to be vaccinated and boosted. You are still required to go to class in person, you have no valid excuse to not even if you were directly exposed to somebody who sleeps, you know, four feet away from you in a dorm. So that's another thing that is like extremely concerning.

When it comes to like going to class every day and that's why again like you know having that choice to, you know, for this education that we pay 10s of thousands of dollars for, having that choice to choose what's best for you and your safety when it comes to remote access because again, we're not fighting for like us to completely go 100% online because there are multiple students, and I'll say like, for me like honestly my education. And like, the arts benefits from in-person. 

But you know, I fight, like we're fighting for this here because we want people to be able to choose, because we should have agency in our education, just as administrators have agency in their workplace schedules.

Christopher: And it's been empowering as well because although like Quinn and I have been two of the main representatives for the disabled union because, really, we're fighting for the people who are in the disabled union who can't do…

Quinn: Yeah

Christopher: …you know, in-person so like the fact that we're doing an in-person sit-in and putting our lives on the line is for them it's for the, you know, even if we want in-person, it's not about us it's about if our community is safe.

Quinn: Yes.

Christopher: We're not leaving until our community is safe. And I was also going to mention with COVID protocol we have isolation housing, particularly for people who are on The Hill, which is the dorms. And students have told a lot of stories about how apartment buildings from the… from UCLA, like the university apartments are being used as isolation housing. And say the first 10 floors of an apartment building is isolation housing and the rest is regular housing for students and there's poor ventilation.

There's people getting sick on the upper floors because students downstairs can just move around as they wish. And it's just, it's disappointing, but at a research, you know, a number one research institution that this is how we're dealing with COVID.

Mary: COVID is a threat to those of us who are disabled and chronically ill. It doesn't matter that COVID cases are quote unquote going down. COVID is a threat to so many of us. For myself especially, I have said for the past two years, I catch pneumonia like nothing. And I have scarring on my lungs from pneumonia that I've had. If I get COVID, it probably will be deadly. Vaccinated, boosted. It won't matter.

So, the fact that you're fighting for people who like myself, could not protest in person, thank you, thank you for doing that.

Talk to me… was this inspired by the 504 sit-in? Talk to me about that and then talk to me about the reality of this sit in. And what's happening with the police.

Quinn: Yeah, so, um, actually, coincidentally, Disability Rights Activist, Judy Huemann, was a regions lecturer this past week, and obviously like, she was one of the leaders of the 504 sit-in, so it was actually it was very…

It was a really great opportunity for us. We had a conversation with her as part of her regions lecture. We… you know we Zoomed from, you know, we facilitate the conversation from the city sit-in itself and an interesting, a unique part of our sit-in. I think it's honestly the first time in history, that a sit-in has happened this way is that we have a hybrid component where we have in our hallway, we have a projection screen setup and we opened up a Zoom meeting so that anybody who is immunocompromised or does want to support virtually can. So that's how we stream the event with Judy Huemann. And people were gathered in the hallway watching the event, as well as people over Zoom, where the event was primarily held. So that has been something that we've kind of always wanted to build into our advocacy, especially in our initial protest in October, we had a Zoom component as well we have, I think, over 100 people tune in over Zoom for that specific event. 

So, yeah it's definitely inspired by the 504 sit-ins. We had a great conversation with Judy on that front and kind of, and also with the 504 sit-ins being in collaboration and being supported by the Black Panther Party, like we had conversations because this sit-in is also in collaboration with a bunch of, you know, organizations with students of color who have, you know, shared struggles who have, you know, independent struggles as well but in the end, like, you know, having that solidarity within communities is the most important thing because especially in institutions like UCLA. 

They benefit off of, like, the division that our communities have and the division, where, you know, we aren't necessarily being listened to in any sort of respect and I think especially with these demands from those organizations that have been in existence for 5,10 years because of this sit-in, we've actually, they’ve actually been able to make movement with it. And you know the DSU also obviously made movement on our demands as well. So we're…

Yeah, I think like that just goes to show that when you do unite forces and you do kind of approach advocacy in this way it does actually create much more substantial results in institutions like these.

Christopher: Yeah, and I think one of the reasons why we feel so empowered, is because it is similar to… to advocacy of the past, right? Like this feels empowering that we're, you know, walking in the footsteps of the disabled people who came before us, and in, you know, other advocacy that has happened at UCLA, a lot of it has been for Black students, been for other marginalized students, other students of color and they've done things like this. 

They've done tent cities, they've done all of these sorts of protests. The last sit-in in Murphy was 10 years ago for various issues. And following in the footsteps of, you know, our predecessors, of alumni, of people from our community, feels empowering and it makes you want to keep going even, no matter how exhausting it gets. Because you are making history and you will be the person and the group, and the community that pushes the next, you know generation of activists at UCLA in the, you know, country as we've been seeing to… to get these things and I did want to speak on your second part of your question which was what's the reality of this sit-in. I'll speak on just like the material reality. 

It sucks to sleep upstairs, in floor two. Since we weren't planning on really staying, the first night many of us were just sleeping on the floor, sleeping on a blanket, sleeping on pillows that people had donated or brought from home just because they had time to you know go home and bring it. And as time went on, it got a little more comfortable, you know, people were bringing air mattresses, mattress pads donating blankets and pillows for us to use. Especially, there's been about like 15 to, depending on the day 15 to 30 people sleeping over.

A lot of the organizers have been consistently staying over and a lot of very excited and supportive, like strikers. And it’s been a lot of freshmen, honestly, have been, “Hell yeah I'll sleep on the floor for this!” Like, “I’ll support you. You need me to go get food for you? Hell yeah, like I’m here to help however I can.” 

So, although it has been, you know, there's no windows in the second floor, we don't see natural sunlight very often. So being outside it's kind of a blessing right now.

[Quinn laughs]

Christopher: The fact that like, you know, it feels like, you know when you go to the hospital, right? Like you don't know what time it is, you don't know, you know… your circadian rhythm is thrown off and you are cooped up in this area, so when you get out all of that stress kind of releases and you feel terrible, which I've noticed when I've gone home a couple times through these 14 days and although that has been pretty shitty.

Oh…can I swear? Is that allowed?

[Christopher and Quinn laugh]

Christopher: Yeah? Okay. Although, the last two weeks have been pretty shitty on that front. It really does feel worth it, the community that we're building. Like I did not know, you know the U… the student body president two weeks ago, and now I feel so incredibly close to her. I didn't know members of the African Student Union or the Mother Organizations Coalition until two weeks ago and now I feel this.. such an incredible bond through our activism and through what we're... the shared struggle we're going through now, like this is a shared struggle going through this sit-in. 

Not even just our demands. So, although it's been rough and difficult, and we've still somehow been able to create joy. We, you know, watch Euphoria every Sunday, we buy food for each other, and we make Val… we’re planning on having a Valentines making day today.

Like, making sure to prioritize this community building because we are all humans, and we are all, you know, loving what we're doing and passionate about what we're doing, but we need to center ourselves first in order for that movement to keep going.

Quinn: Yeah, and I think also like what I think what this sit-in has done for UCLA student activism in general is that like this…the students will never be divided.

Prior to this like disabled, specifically disabled students, haven't been involved in activism at UCLA with other communities and you know it's hundred plus years of existence. So, like this sit-in is substantial because they're, like, it's changing the way that students advocate at this campus, and hopefully like this tradition will continue on when it comes to future movements. 

Christopher:  And you did mention run ins with the police.

Quinn: Yes.

Christopher:  Although, as the white guy in the group will probably not be the best to talk about this. We do have an extensive post on the… the DSU Instagram about each incident that has happened with the police, so if anyone wants to go on there and check that out, that'll probably be the best move but I'll just summarize. UCPD, which is the police department specifically for UC campuses, has been intimidating.

In last Friday, which is the first meeting we had with the chancellor, we wanted to make sure, “Hey this building is closing at five. Are we going to be forcibly removed from this building for the weekend by UCPD?” So, at the end of this very long meeting, we rec.. we asked for his permission to record. And we asked, “What's going to happen to us at 5pm?” And he basically could not give us a straight answer. He said things like, “I would hate for anybody to get cited. You've gone through enough I don't want you to go through more.” And when asked, “Can you give us a yes or no? Is UCPD going to come here?” He never gave a straight answer. So that scared us, you know? It's 3pm, it's almost 5pm. What are we going to do? Like can the students that are here be arrested?

Like I take medication, I can't be arrested for my own safety, you know. I take heart meds every.. everyday and they… 

As we know, the police do not treat people well in detain… when they're being detained and arrested. And, of course the majority of our student leaders and the majority of our strikers are students of color. They’re Black students in particular, many are undocumented. Like this cannot be something that we kind of survive, you know. So having that up in the air and being told to our faces, this kind of implicit threat of police presence, was really not shocking, but definitely horrific 

And luckily, we were assured by student affairs that Friday that we wouldn't be… that we would be left alone.

But incidences, like Black students who were walking around campus late at night, being questioned extensively by UCPD officers. Students who, after that experience, left campus and took their walks off campus were followed by UCPD police cars and of course they didn't want to indicate that they were going into a building at nighttime but they had to. They were being followed by this police car and needed to, you know, go to bed at like one, two in the morning. 

And having that awareness that they were kind of always there and always watching us was an intimidation tactic, whether it was intentional by the administration or not. And there was this, especially pretty horrific encounter, where one of our student activists was walking to Murphy Hall the other day.

She is a Black woman, and she is involved in, was involved in activism in high school, so she's kind of a known name in this area. A cop, kind of, drove up to her and said…he waved at her and she of course didn't wave back.

And she kept walking, looking at her phone, and then he drove past her. And out his window, he said, “I know you're going to Murphy Hall, have fun until five o'clock.”

This was on Friday, or on Thursday when it was close to closing time and hearing that was just, that's a that's a direct threat to our safety, and a direct threat to that Black activist, directly to her face that “we are going to come get you.”

And you know, that morning actually one of our… one of our student leaders from the African Student Union, she had spoken to the one of the vice chancellors to be like, “Hey, these threats are going on. Can you help us out? Can you assure that we're going to be safe?” And in that meeting he said, “I have contacted you UCPD, I've contacted the sheriff's office, they’re not going to bother you. If they bother you, please call me immediately so that I can shut that down.” Like he was a very good advocate on that front. And then for when she was supposed to be reporting on that meeting to us and us going. “Hey, something happened when, when she was on her way.” 

Like that was just a slap in the face to you know the… to the Vice Chancellor and to all of us. So, even if it isn't coming straight from the administration, it is coming from somewhere. Whether it just be the UCPD knows that we're here and wants to bother us, but it has definitely been uncomfortable and especially for Black students and students of color it's been dehumanizing and really, really scary.

Mary: And this is where ableism and racism intersect. And this is why understanding intersectionality is vital when we talk about disability rights and disability justice.

Please tell our audience, how we can support you. Any way they can support you. Please let us know how we can do that.

Quinn: Yeah, I think the biggest thing is I think public awareness at this point. When it comes to you know, if you're a UCLA or even just the UC system alumni, emailing administration and making sure that we have like that outside support is… has been really helpful for our movement. We're also accepting mutual aid donations for food etc, etc through…it's the same handle as our Instagram, DSUCLA on Venmo.

Yeah, it's but I think like the most important thing is just becoming aware of this and if you are a college student or if you work at a college. Like this… this battle is not specific to UCLA. So, advocating for it on your college campuses and your own specific places of work even. Like this also, you know, extends to the workplace when it comes to remote options, and this like … like you know in this mid-pandemic, post-pandemic weird reality we live in. 

Christopher: Yes post-pandemic with books, heavy quotes.

Quinn:  Um, yeah I think like those are really the big things that we appreciate. Yeah and I like again, if you ever, if you if you are a college student fighting for this on your campus, feel free to DM on Instagram and we will be sure to connect you with the right resources, with the tactics that we've used. Um, yeah.

Christopher: Yeah, definitely. And I just want to echo like the amount of mutual aid we've gotten has been part of how inspiring this whole thing has been.  I know a lot of disabled people hate the word inspiring and I do too. But this is so inspiring, like seeing all these, you know, disabled people who can't show up being like, hey, can someone come to my car I'm dropping off two cases of water or hey I brought pens and markers for us to have fun or hey I ordered us food. Who should I pay back? You know stuff like that and building those communities across campuses is really what pressures administrations to do things, because as Quinn said earlier, when we are divided, they do not care and they do that on purpose. 

So advocating whether it be with your fellow disabled students, whether your partnership with other organizations for underrepresented people, take that step. Do not be afraid because we are here for you and as we know you are here for us. So as Quinn said, reach out to us, if you want, specifically ways to, you know, encourage this message on your campus or in your workplace but other than that I think we're hopefully nearing the end. Yes, I. If you know no matter what happens, we will be there to support the movements that are outside of our purview.

Quinn: The longest sit-in in UCLA is history as well. 

Christopher:  Yes.

Quinn:  And I think something important is when it comes to also, like coalition building. The big… the big message that we've been trying to push at UCLA is that although like all of our demands are relatively specific to our communities and things like that. One, it is all intersectional, and two, in the end we are all fighting for access and retention for underrepresented communities on campus.

Mary: You’ll be able to find all of the UCLA Disabled Student Union’s information in the episode details. Be sure follow them on social media and find out how you can help them in this fight.

Christopher and Quinn, thank you so much for joining me today.

Christopher: Of course!

Mary: Keep up the fight. You’ve got so many people who support you and you’re making history as we speak.

Christopher and Quinn: Thank you!

Christopher: Thank you so much, Mary. We really appreciate you having us on.

[music playing while Mary speaks] Thank you for joining me for this episode of the Politics of Disability Podcast. As you navigate your journey, remember: disability is political; disability is messy; disability is not palatable--nor does it have to be.

[music playing]