The Ever-Expanding University of California: Property Claims and the Battle over People’s Park

As the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) aims to assert its property rights over the long-contested and storied People’s Park, I examine the history and variation in property claims to the park and how they have been argued—legally, in the media, and as articulated through actions surrounding the park. I discuss the struggle over property and land rights through the shifting and slipping claims to publicity. In particular, I survey the changing language of the university’s claims to public purpose, as well as the role of police power in enforcing property claims to this space. I explore the formation of the University of California, highlighting the historical continuity of imperial expansion and land grabs undertaken under the guise of “public purpose.” Finally, I analyze the student and community opposition to the university, and its impacts on both the articulation and realization of university’s claims to property rights. I argue that the definition of “public” as articulated by the university’s actions and rhetoric, rests both on its service to students and its role in fulfilling the military-imperial interests of the American state. These claims to “publicness” in turn allow the university to indiscriminately seize land in the East Bay.