Students, faculty protest the return of UARC

By Tiffany Hill, Tracy Chan and Matt Ing

In a 7-1 vote, the University of Hawai‘i Board of Regents put an end to the conflict between the UH administration and students and faculty representatives by approving a three-year contract with the Navy for a UH Applied Research Laboratory(ARL). The vote came on Thursday, Sept. 27 after a full day of public comment, mostly against the contract.

The BOR meeting took place on the UH Hilo campus, but hundreds of opponents of the ARL turned out in protest, despite the fact that the lab will be on Oahu. The meeting had to go into a brief recess as security officers restored order to the crowd and escorted disruptive protestors out, said Christina Stidman, president of the Associated Students of the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa.

“UARC is tearing our campus apart,” Stidman said in her testimony at the BOR meeting Thursday morning. “With the official stance of ASUH, Kuali‘i Council, Manoa Faculty Senate, UH Manoa administration, Pukoa Council and Faculty Senate of Hawai‘i Community College all against proceeding with the ARL, why would we continue to push this forward?”

Two days before the meeting, the Save UH/Stop UARC Coalition held a press conference in front of Bachman Hall in one last attempt to stop the ARL on Oahu.

Nearly unanimous administration approval

Despite the overwhelming opposition to the Navy research lab, the only regent who voted against the contract was Native Hawaiian James Haynes.

In an article from The Honolulu Advertiser, Haynes stated that because of the Navy’s controversial history on the islands, he could not bring himself to vote for its presence at the university.

University of Hawaii at Manoa President David McClain did not seem to consider these opinions, however. In a four-page testimony requesting the approval of the ARL,McClain stated, “A facility like the ARL is a financially attractive construct.”

Likewise, many faculty on campus support the ARL. The Board of Regents said it learned at an informational meeting in January 2006 that the majority of the 100 most productive researchers at the university – most of whom are affiliated with the engineering department and physical sciences – supported the UH Applied Research Laboratory.

The laboratory itself will not be located on the Manoa campus but will have direct ties with university researchers. For the first three years, the laboratory will not engage in classified “task orders” from the Navy or any other federal entities, according to the adopted contract.

UH officials estimate that the start-up costs for the ARL will be about $1 million. The Navy will then provide a maximum of $10 million a year in funding for the ARL for three years. After the initial three years, the contract will then be up for renewal for an additional two years, bringing the total funding to a possible $50 million.

One last protest

Standing in front of the locked glass doors of Bachman Hall and flanked by Campus Security guards Tuesday morning, two days before the vote, students, faculty and community members urged the University of Hawai‘i Board of Regents to reject a contract for military research at a UH Affiliated Research Laboratory.

“UARC is rotten to the core,” said Kyle Kajihiro, who submitted a 61-page report on behalf of the Save UH/Stop UARC Coalition that outlines the controversial history between the university and the Navy, specifically the University Affiliated Research Laboratory.

He said that the university administration has not done its job in informing the public and critically examining the plans of the Navy.

While many protestors maintain that the university did not incorporate all students and faculty members in the decision-making process, administrators say otherwise.

“From the beginning, we have tried to make the process as transparent as possible,” said Carolyn Tanaka, spokeswoman for the UH system in a telephone interview.

At the end of the press conference, Kajihiro knocked on the glass doors and demanded that BOR Secretary Presley Pang receive the documents for review.

Campus Security Chief Neal Sakamoto looked down upon the conference from upstairs in Bachman, but no one came down to open the door, even after repeated knocks by Kajihiro and the crowd of protesting coalition members and students chanting, “Open the door!” They were told to go around to the back door and present the reports.

“Students, taxpayers and faculty don’t go through the back door,” said Ikaika Hussey, a UH political science graduate and coalition member. “Is that how this university operates? We must go through the back door?”

Nevertheless, UH Manoa will soon become a Navy-affiliated research university, joining John Hopkins University, Pennsylvania State University, the University of Washington and the University of Texas at Austin, all of whom already have Navy-sponsored laboratories.