WarCriminalsWatch Events

Help end Boalt Hall's legacy of torture.

Since 2008, the commencement ceremonies at UC Berkeley Law (Boalt Hall) have been the site of large-scale protest actions. World Can't Wait, human rights and civil liberties groups working against torture, and others have called on graduates to protest John Yoo and torture.

John Yoo did his most notorious damage as deputy assistant attorney general for the Bush administration's Office of Legal Counsel, where his legal opinions were used to justify torture. But he is still a professor at UC Berkeley's Boalt Law School. We'll be at the graduation on the morning of May 13 to continue the demand he be fired, disbarred, and prosecuted for his criminal lawyering as a Bush administration official. We plan to have orange jump suits in tableau, lots of orange ribbons, and excellent signs for the many expected to come out for this action.

The ceremony itself starts at ten, but our protest will happen BEFOREHAND, beginning at 9 am when the gates at the Greek Theatre open to guests (only folks with tickets will be allowed inside, but we'll have plenty of opportunity to make our point as students, faculty, and families arrive).

A note to Boalt graduates and their families: Please be assured that the graduates and their families and friends are not the targets of our protest. We have no intention of heckling attendees or disrupting the graduation. However, we do believe that it is an appropriate time and place to express our outrage that someone who is clearly guilty of war crimes under all internationally recognized standards is teaching constitutional law at Berkeley. We hope that attendees will agree with this position and choose to express that by wearing an orange ribbon during the ceremony (note ribbons in photograph from last year, below). Rather than diminishing their pride in their accomplishment, taking a stand against injustice should increase it.