UCSD Office of Graduate Studies backtracks on suspension threat as a result of collective action

On Tuesday May 27, Troy Araiza Kokkinis, a graduate student-worker and aspiring performance artist, appeared for a mandatory meeting with UCSD Office of Graduate Studies (OGS) Assistant Director, April Bjornsen. UCSD OGS threatened Araiza Kokkinis with suspension if he did not show up for a meeting regarding “an incident” that took place on April 23 “in front of the Office of Graduate Studies.”

Araiza Kokkinis appeared for the meeting with roughly 25 fellow students and workers. They walked to the fourth floor of Student Affairs together and entered the OGS office. An administrator greeted the group and asked Araiza Kokkinis to proceed towards Assistant Director Bjornsen’s office for the meeting. Araiza Kokkinis refused, stating that the meeting should be held in public and that the “incident” was not an isolated conflict between himself and OGS. Bjornsen refused to hold an open meeting, claiming that public meetings did not fall under standard procedure.

Araiza Kokkinis remained firm in his position and did not enter into a meeting. A fellow student-worker proceeded towards Bjornsen offering an envelope addressed to OGS Director Kim Barrett, which consisted of two petitions: one signed in support of dropping all charges on Araiza Kokkinis, and another requesting the elimination of the 18 quarter limitation on TA employment, signed by 240 supporters.

Upon leaving from the Office of Graduate Studies, the students and workers posted a banner across the front of the office doors, quoting OGS Director Kim Barrett’s response to an email from a graduate student, in which the graduate student asked to meet with her regarding the problematic 18 quarter limit to graduate student employment. Bjornsen refused to accept the envelope. 

Roughly an hour and a half later, Araiza Kokkinis received an email from Assistant Director Bjornsen with the following message: 

"I am sorry that you chose not to meet with me today at 1:00 as originally scheduled.  As a result I will convey via email what I had hoped to communicate to you in our meeting.

The purpose of the meeting was to discuss an incident that was reported to me via the Student Conduct Office.  A complaint was filed regarding an incident that occurred involving you on 04/23/14 around 3:30 PM near the front door of the Office of Graduate Studies.  The Student Conduct Office deemed that while the incident did not rise to the level of a violation of the Student Conduct Code, it warranted a discussion with you, thus my request to meet."

OGS swiftly moved from threatening to suspend Araiza Kokkinis if he did not appear to a meeting. Instead, Bjornsen reduced the severity of the action to borderline misconduct. After the action, Araiza Kokkinis reflected on his feelings using the words of Ice-T's 1990s hardcore project, Body Count, stating, "Goddamn, what a brother gotta do to get the message through to the red, white, and you?"

UCSD Graduate Student-Worker Intimidated by Office of Graduate Studies

On 23 April 2014, Troy Araiza Kokkinis, a UCSD graduate student-worker and artist, sat in front of the Office of Graduate Studies (OGS) with a sign, declaring, “No future.” He posed alongside a friend and another friend snapped a photograph. The students were protesting the 18 quarter limit to graduate student-workers serving as TAs. The three UCSD students finished what they referred to as an “arts performance” after less than a minute in front of the office.

On 16 May 2014, Araiza Kokkinis received an email from OGS requesting that he appear at the office for a meeting regarding “an incident” on 23 April “that occurred near the Office of Graduate Studies front door.” Of the three artists present, Araiza Kokkinis is the only one who has been called into OGS for a meeting. The email threatens Araiza Kokkinis with suspension if he does not show up to the meeting. The email does not state any official conduct violations made by Araiza Kokkinis, nor does it explain any procedural validity to the meeting. However, Araiza Kokkinis is expected to appear at OGS on Tuesday 27 May at 1pm to avoid suspension.

The woman in the red dress pictured alongside Araiza Kokkinis wishes to remain anonymous, but provided the following statement regarding the series of events that took place on 23 April:

Our performance went quite smoothly. It was very anti-climactic, to be honest. Before setting up to take the photo, I announced to the receptionist that we were going to pose in front of the building for an arts performance. She said that it was okay. We sat down. I locked Troy’s neck to the door handle with a U-lock and we sat there with a banner posing for the picture. I then released him, and we started getting up to leave. A man in business casual attire, or ‘normcore’ as they are calling it these days, told us that we should not block the door because he needed to go to the bathroom. We were already getting up to leave at this point. We apologized and walked away.

This arts performance was documented by photograph and eventually posted on the kimbarrettcade.blogspot.com, which is a crowd sourced compilation of photos of barricades at the UCSD Office of Graduate Studies. UCSD graduate student-workers have recently began mobilizing against OGS for their refusal to address graduate students’ demand for an end to the 18 quarter limitation on academic employment. Kim Barrett, the Director of Graduate Studies at UCSD, has received two petitions in the past two years, each with over 200 signatures, demanding an end to the 18 quarter rule. She has yet to seriously address the issue, aside from a lackluster response to the 2012 petition that consisted of three sentences and a misspelled word. UCSD students have responded by targeting her office with a variety of actions, including the now famous “Kim Barrettcades.”

UCSD Office of Graduate Studies was contacted regarding Araiza Kokkinis’ case, and declined comment.

Araiza Kokkinis declares, “I am obviously being targeted as an aspiring artist for realizing my arts projects here on this vile and repressive campus. My arts projects seek to overcome my alienation and OGS just seems intent on furthering it. I have been involved in student organizing for the past three years, and I think that management is turning up the heat on those of us who are challenging the privatization and militarization of the UC. I really did not think that my photograph at OGS would come down to a threatened suspension. It was just a photograph!

Sometimes I try to do things and it just doesn’t work out the way I wanted to. I get real frustrated and I try hard to do it and I take my time and it doesn’t work out the way I wanted to. It’s like I concentrate real hard and it doesn’t work out. Everything I do and everything I try never turns out. It’s like I need time to figure these things out.”

Araiza Kokkinis confirmed that he will appear for his 27 May meeting at OGS. He expects global media coverage of the case, and offered to translate the verdict into five different languages himself, including Spanish, O’dham, Euskara, Greek, and Polish. He commented, “I haven’t felt this repressed since my days as a Catholic schoolboy in the Inland Empire. Lord willing, this incident will inspire my fellow graduate student-workers to explore their own artistic impulses and let the rivers of creativity pour over UCSD in these painful moments of drought. La lucha sigue, camaradas!” 

Araiza Kokkinis has started a petition demanding an end to intimidation of graduate student-workers and an open meeting on 27 May. A link to the petition can be found below:

https://www.change.org/petitions/kim-barrett-stop-intimidating-ucsd-graduate-students#share

Above: Araiza Kokkinis and The Woman in the Red Dress re-emerge and renounce their identities as atomized subjects of the military-industrial-academic complex.