Te University of California is an apparatus.
An apparatus - like gymequipment or a computer program – creates specic conditionsdesigned to consistently produce a specic result. Tose who build andsupport the apparatus control how users are shaped. Like a well-testedexperiment, an apparatus is strategically arranged to produce the sameoutcome.
Te University of California is a corporate apparatus.
It is in the business o molding students into docile workers who will enter corporate Americaand advance corporate interests. In other words, the university is anapparatus. It produces a specic type o graduate and it is responsibleor creating a racist, sexist, homophobic, classist and exclusionary environment.
Te central component of the university apparatus is power.
As inany institution, power in the UC system is hierarchical. But the UCsystem uses this hierarchy to police what is said in the classroom. Itprevents proessors and teaching assistants rom empowering studentsto recognize and challenge the systems o oppression that regulatestudents’ lives. Meanwhile, the apparatus allows privileged students topass through with ease while orcing underprivileged students to ghtan uphill battle against an institution that is structured to prevent theirsuccess.
We are part of the apparatus.
Te apparatus is dependent upon our labor.It blinds us to its presence and convinces us that its toxic environment isnormal and inevitable. In this climate, our individual success becomesmore important to us than community and solidarity. But we canopen our eyes. We have the power to subvert the system rom within,undermining the apparatus in overt and subtle ways. Outwardly, wewill appear to be compliant institutional drones, but we will resist andsubvert the system rom within. Te apparatus will not recognize us.But we recognize the apparatus.
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