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The Free Speech Movement was a student protest which began in 1964 - 1965 on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley under the informal leadership of student Mario Savio and others. In protests unprecedented at the time, students insisted that the university administration lift a ban on on-campus political activities and acknowledge the students' right to free speech and academic freedom. Student activists, some of whom had traveled with the Freedom Riders and worked to register African American voters in the South over the summer, had set up information tables on campus and were soliciting donations for civil rights causes. According to existing rules at the time, fundraising for political parties was only limited exclusively for the Democratic and Republican school clubs. There was also a mandatory "loyalty oath" required of faculty, which had led to dismissals and ongoing controversy over academic freedom. On September 14, 1964, Dean Katherine Towle announced that existing University regulations prohibiting advocacy of political causes or candidates, outside political speakers, recruitment of members, and fundraising by student organizations at the intersection of Bancroft and Telegraph Avenues would be "strictly enforced." This strip was until then thought to be city property, not campus property. On October 1, former graduate student Jack Weinberg was sitting at the CORE table. He refused to show his identification to the campus police and was arrested. There was a spontaneous movement of students to surround the police car in which he was to be transported. Weinberg did not leave the police car, nor did the car move for 36 hours. At one point, there may have been 3,000 students around the car. During this period, the car was used as a speaker's podium and a continuous public discussion was held which continued until the charges against Weinberg were dropped. About a month later, the university brought charges against the students who organized the sit-in, resulting in an even larger student protest that all but shut down the university. The center of the protest was Sproul Hall, the campus administration building, which protesters took over in a massive sit-in. The sit-in ended on December 3, when police arrested over 800 students. After much disturbance, the University officials slowly backed down. By January 3, 1965, the new acting chancellor, Martin Meyerson, established provisional rules for political activity on the Berkeley campus, designating the Sproul Hall steps an open discussion area during certain hours of the day and permitting tables. One misconception about the FSM was that it was only left-wing oriented. The fact was that all political activity had been banned, including Students for Goldwater and other conservative groups. These groups also participated in the movement and benefited from it. The Free Speech Movement had long-lasting effects at the Berkeley campus and was a pivotal moment for the civil liberties movement in The Sixties. It was seen as the beginning of the famous student activism that existed on the campus in the 1960's, and continues to a lesser degree today. There was a substantial backlash against the players involved in the Free Speech Movement. Under pressure from California Governor Ronald Reagan, the UC Board of Regents dismissed UC President Clark Kerr because of the perception that he had been too soft on the protestors. The FBI had kept a secret file on Kerr. Reagan had gained political traction by campaigning on a platform to "clean up the mess in Berkeley". This included the earlier protests of the House Committee on Un-American Activities meeting in San Francisco in 1960. There, protesters were washed down the steps inside the Rotunda of San Francisco City Hall with fire hoses, as shown in the conservative film Operation Abolition, which became an organizing tool for the protesters. Shortly after the FSM, a young man holding a poster with the simple word "FUCK" created a short sensation known as the Filthy Speech Movement. Although felt intensely by a few, protest over this issue quickly died out, most students not seeing it as a cause to commit to. The student claimed to have been using an acronym for "Freedom Under Clark Kerr". In the Spring of 1965, the FSM was followed by the Vietnam Day Committee, a major starting point for the anti-Vietnam war movement. Today, Sproul Hall and the surrounding Sproul Plaza are active locations for protests and marches, as well as the ordinary daily tables with free literature from anyone who wishes to appear, of any political orientation. A wide variety of groups of all political, religious and social persuasions set up tables at Sproul Plaza. The Sproul steps, now called "Mario Savio Steps," may be reserved by anyone for a speech or rally. An on-campus restaurant commemorating the event, the Mario Savio Free Speech Movement Cafe, resides in a portion of the Moffitt Undergraduate Library. The Free Speech Monument, commemorating the movement, was created in 1991 by artist Mark Brest van Kempen. It is located, appropriately, in Sproul Plaza. The monument consists of a six-inch hole in the ground filled with soil and a granite ring surrounding that hole. The granite ring bears the inscription, "This soil and the air space extending above it shall not be a part of any nation and shall not be subject to any entity's jurisdiction." The monument makes no explicit reference to the movement, but it evokes notions of free speech and its implications through its rhetoric.*
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