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A special project of Berkeley Law’s International Human Rights Law Clinic and the campus’s Undocumented Student Program has helped 103 Berkeley students decide whether to apply for a special immigration category that allows them to work legally and to avoid deportation. Most have won approval under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.
Politics & public policy archive
Media Advisory: Gov. Jerry Brown to address 2013 political science graduates
May 17, 2013: California Gov. Jerry Brown will address UC Berkeley political science graduates May 20.
Berkeley GM crop specialist featured in KQED program Wednesday, May 8 
May 6, 2013: UC Berkeley cooperative extension specialist Peggy Lemaux’s efforts to engineer crops to reduce malnutrition in developing countries.will be featured in a half-hour program, “Next Meal: Engineering Food,” that will be shown on KQED’s Quest on Wednesday. The program explores the pros and cons of GM crops, as well as the future of research and regulation.
For law student, an intensely personal path to Sax Prize
May 2, 2013: For Micah West ’13, winner of the 2013 Sax Prize for clinical excellence, the path to advocacy has been intensely personal. When West was 19, his father pled guilty to two felonies and received a one-year sentence to a halfway house. “I could no more walk away from my father than I could any of the millions incarcerated in this country,” West said in accepting the award, honoring his tireless work at Berkeley Law’s Death Penalty Clinic and his efforts to launch the new Youth Defender Clinic.
From Marin to The Hague, working for justice
April 30, 2013: Alexa Koenig, who is finishing up her dissertation as she settles into her role as executive director of the Human Rights Center, plans to “engage pretty deeply” with the center’s work in war-torn regions all over the globe.
‘Fitness for All’ is an exercise in inclusion
April 24, 2013: Campus staffer and Cal grad Matt Grigorieff is the driving force behind Fitness for All, a new program that aims to provide health and fitness options to UC Berkeley students with disabilities. Among the first offerings is a class on goalball, a court sport that puts blind and sighted players on a level playing field.
Fourth-generation Berkeley student lands prize for water work
April 19, 2013: The Blum Center’s Rebecca Peters, whose classroom work and field research focus on issues of water security, management and equity, is one of 62 “exceptional college juniors” nationwide selected as 2013 Harry S. Truman scholars.
Cal Day launched graduating senior’s Berkeley experience
April 19, 2013: Senior Ahn-Thi Le’s UC Berkeley journey began with Cal Day, when she fell in love with the campus. Now, after following a path that took her to India to work with rural artisans and to a place in the CellScope initiative improving health care in Vietnam, Le is about to graduate.
Chancellor honored for aid to Dream Act students
April 16, 2013: “I myself am a beneficiary of a community that supported my education,” Chancellor Birgeneau told an appreciative audience at Oakland’s Scottish Rite Center, where he accepted the Centro Legal de La Raza’s “Visionary Leadership Award.”
New report: California lags in fracking regs
April 12, 2013: A new report on fracking in California warns of potentially irreversible contamination of surface and groundwater near oil drilling sites, unless the technique is carefully monitored and controlled. “Regulation of Hydraulic Fracturing in California: A Wastewater and Water Quality Perspective” is an independent analysis produced by Berkeley Law scholars.
Experts sound alarm over “perfect storm” in African Sahel
April 9, 2013: The African Sahel, beset with impacts from climate change and the most rapidly growing population in the world, could descend into large-scale drought, famine, war and terrorist control if immediate steps are not taken, according to a new report by experts from UC Berkeley and the African Institute for Development Policy.
#GlobalPOV: Art, videos and Twitter take poverty curriculum to the world
April 8, 2013: Three Cal alumni and teachers — a live-action sketch artist, a social-media proselytizer and a brilliant professor who is also an unapologetic Bono fan — have teamed up to create artful, provocative videos and brought Twitter into the classroom. The goal: to extend the teachings of Berkeley’s biggest minor, Global Poverty and Practice, online. The project could be a model for a new kind of public scholarship and online education.
Berkeley professor to testify in trial of former Guatemalan dictator
April 4, 2013: Professor Beatriz Manz has been called to testify as an expert eyewitness in the genocide trial of a former Guatemalan military dictator.
18 Berkeley students head to St. Louis for Clinton Global Initiative University
April 4, 2013: The April 5-7 conference will include knowledge-sharing and networking opportunities for students committed to tackling the world’s most pressing problems and will feature speeches by Muhammad Yunus, Jada Pinkett Smith, Jack Dorsey and Stephen Colbert, among others.
Live webcast of UC global food forum set for April 9
April 2, 2013: UC will convene some of the world’s leading experts — farmers, researchers, policymakers, economists, environmentalists and geopolitical experts — at a daylong forum focused on addressing how to sustainably feed 8 billion people by 2025.
Berkeley alum, Class of ’50, still ‘Running Wild’
April 2, 2013: Dayton Hyde, 88, has been a cowboy, a rodeo clown, a rancher, a photographer, a non-fiction author, a novelist, a poet and a conservationist. And now he’s the star of a new documentary.
California’s online registration drive draws broader voter base
March 26, 2013: A new Berkeley study of California’s new online voter registration system shows some striking results, including that more registrants come from low- and middle-income neighborhoods than expected.
Henderson Center symposium reimagines justice
March 25, 2013: Problems of racism and violence are exacerbated by supersized prisons and misguided police practices, according to scholars, activists and community leaders gathered for the annual symposium of the Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice at Berkeley Law.
Latin America scholars on Chavez’s death, new Pope
March 21, 2013: What does the death of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, and the election of an Argentinian cardinal as Pope, mean for Latin America? Experts from the Americas offer commentary, in English and Spanish, via the Center for Latin American Studies’ online video series “Critical Insights.”
BBC video features Asian ‘Dreamers’ at Berkeley
March 21, 2013: Across California, Asian students make up 46 percent of ‘Dreamers’ (who would benefit from the proposed DREAM Act) on UC campuses. Undocumented Asians at Berkeley are featured in a BBC news video.
Helping to shape global response to wartime sexual violence
March 20, 2013: Working with the Human Rights Center’s Sexual Violence and Accountability Project, Berkeley law students are aiding a multi-year effort to gather data on sexual and gender-based violence during and after war, across the globe, and to help craft better response policies.
Connected Corridors aims to up efficiency of existing roadways
March 18, 2013: Connected Corridors, a project led by engineering profs Alex Bayen and Roberto Horowitz, is developing technologies to help Caltrans gather and analyze traffic data. A goal of the research: to make existing roadways more efficient, rather than launching new highway-construction projects.
In Richmond, a hands-on approach to energy tech
March 13, 2013: Just three miles from the site of the future Richmond Bay Campus, the Northern California Workshop for Energy Technologies underscored the need for partnerships, and featured a keynote address from former Michigan governor (and current Berkeley faculty member) Jennifer Granholm.
Americans and religion increasingly parting ways, new survey shows
March 12, 2013: Religious affiliation in the United States is at its lowest point since it began to be tracked in the 1930s, according to analysis of newly released survey data by researchers from UC Berkeley and Duke University. Last year, one in five Americans claimed they had no religious preference, more than double the number reported in 1990.
How will federal sequestration impact the campus?
March 1, 2013: How will federal sequestration impact UC Berkeley?The campus’s Office of Governmental and Community Relations fields questions about anticipated reductions in federal funding.
Standing up for low-paid restaurant workers
March 1, 2013: After 9/11, activist Saru Jayaraman co-founded Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, whose focus is workplace justice for restaurant workers. Jayaraman, who directs UC Berkeley’s Food Labor Research Center, is featured in a PBS “Moyers & Company” segment.
How good are generic drugs?
February 26, 2013: Recently, many blockbuster prescription medications have become available as generics, and more brands will soon join the list — thus trimming billions from healthcare costs and allowing more people to afford the medication they need. While the FDA says generics are as effective and safe as the original products, some believe that cheaper can’t be better. Berkeley Wellness reviews the evidence.
Math Club president reveals himself to be an undocumented immigrant
February 14, 2013: In a video released nationally on Feb. 14, UC Berkeley Math Club President Terrence Park reveals that he is an undocumented immigrant and, as part of an effort to sway American minds on immigration, makes an economic case for legislation to make young people like him citizens. SFGate’s Spin Cycle politics blog was first with the news.
Shaping a global response to sexual violence
February 13, 2013: International scholars, policymakers, human-rights advocates and foreign military leaders will take up the issue of sexual violence during and after conflicts at the Missing Peace Symposium 2013 in Washington, D.C., co-hosted this week by the Human Rights Center at the UC Berkeley School of Law.
On the front lines of same-sex marriage fight: One couple’s story
February 11, 2013: Kristin Perry and Sandra Stier never expected to become figureheads in the battle to legalize same-sex marriage. But the case that began as a legal challenge to California’s Proposition 8 has thrust them into the international limelight. The two shared details of their legal and personal journey with 65 rapt students at Berkeley Law.
