Berkeley

Savio lecturer: Speak up for workers ‘behind the kitchen door’

Published

12 years ago

October 8, 2014

By Barry Bergman, UC Berkeley News

As recently as 2001, Saru Jayaraman admitted Thursday in Wheeler Auditorium, she was just another “oblivious, happy consumer,” a recent arrival in New York City dining out as often as three times a day and rarely giving a thought to the people who served and prepared her meals.

It was the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center — in which 73 workers in the Windows on the World restaurant, mostly immigrants, lost their lives, and which caused the loss of thousands of food-industry jobs throughout lower Manhattan — that opened her eyes, and helped make her one of the country’s most impassioned, articulate voices on behalf of restaurant workers.

Last Thursday night, as the featured speaker at this year’s Mario Savio Memorial Lecture, Jayaraman — now the director of UC Berkeley’s Food Labor Research Center — urged her audience also to “speak up, in the same way that you spoke up 50 years ago,” at the birth of the Free Speech Movement.

And, reflecting at least one way activism has changed since the 1960s, now there’s an app for that, courtesy of the workers’-rights organization Jayaraman founded post-9/11, Restaurant Opportunities Centers United.

The evening, coming toward the end of a weeklong 50th-anniversary celebration of the FSM, began on a technological note, as Lynne Hollander Savio, Mario’s widow, read a message from Edward Snowden, whose release of thousands of classified documents in 2013 blew the whistle on widespread U.S. government surveillance.

“Berkeley’s unparalleled traditions of student activism and community engagement have been both a challenge and an inspiration to human-rights movements worldwide,” wrote Snowden, now in exile in Russia. “They compel us to imagine the world that we want to live in and to stand up for it — and they show us that with vision and persistence, we can change the world.”

That was a message shared by Jayaraman, who agreed that “surveillance is the issue of our generation,” together with “corporate control of our democracy.”

How is it possible, she asked, that the U.S. restaurant industry — “one of the most profitable and fastest-growing industries in America” — continues to provide the “absolute lowest-paying jobs” in the nation? How is it possible that 90 percent of the country’s restaurant workers — many of them involved in preparing food — don’t get even a single earned sick day?

It’s possible,” she explained, “due to the power and influence of the trade lobby called the National Restaurant Association, which we call ‘the other NRA.’”

In 1996, led by former Republican presidential contender Herman Cain, the “other NRA,” she said, “struck a deal with Congress”: It would not oppose a modest boost in the federal minimum wage, so long as the minimum wage for tipped workers “stayed frozen forever” at $2.13 an hour. (California is one of just seven states that do not have a separate minimum wage for tipped workers.)

“The NRA has managed to paint a picture of who tipped workers are,” Jayaraman said. “They say the white guy, working at Chez Panisse, earning $18 an hour in tips, or $100,000 a year — he’s doing quite fine.” In fact, however, “70 percent of tipped workers in America are women — women who work at the IHOP, and Applebee’s, and the Olive Garden and Red Lobster. Women whose median wage, including tips, is $8 an hour.”

Tipped workers have a poverty rate three times that for the rest of the work force, Jayaraman said, and use food stamps at double the rate — “which means,” she added, “the women who put food on our tables in America can’t actually afford to put food on their own family tables.”

Women in the restaurant industry are also subject to constant sexual harassment, she said, both from their managers and from the customers on whose tips, absent a livable wage from their employers, their financial survival depends.

Jayaraman, who attended UCLA before going on to Yale Law and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, was organizing restaurant workers, custodial workers and day laborers on Long Island when she was enlisted to start a relief center to help Windows on the World survivors and their families get back on their feet in the wake of 9/11.

That effort eventually grew into Restaurant Opportunities Centers United — ROC-U — a national restaurant-workers organization with 13,000 members in 32 cities. Jayaraman has written a book, “Behind the Kitchen Door,” and has drawn national attention to the cause via countless news profiles and television appearances.

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Activism

Black Repertory Group Needs Volunteers to Help Shape the Next Generation of Artists and Leaders

Legendary performers such as Whoopi Goldberg and Danny Glover worked with and were inspired by BRG’s founders. More recently, Grammy award-winning artist Kehlani attended the Black Repertory Group Summer Day Camp for several years.

Published

3 months ago

June 26, 2026

Oakland Post

Courtesy image.

By Sean Vaughn Scott, Special to The Post

For more than 60 years, the Black Repertory Group (BRG) has changed lives through the arts.

Founded in 1964 by educators and visionaries Birel L. Vaughn and Nora Vaughn, BRG has become one of America’s oldest continuously operating Black theater institutions. For generations, it has preserved culture, developed talent, and provided opportunities for young people to discover their voices and their potential.

The results speak for themselves.

Long before international recognition, Kehlani performed on the BRG stage. During a summer day camp production of “Princess and da Frog,” she portrayed Ray, the lovable firefly whose light guided others through the darkness. Her journey is proof that today’s camper may become tomorrow’s artist, entrepreneur, educator, or leader.

Located at 3201 Adeline St. in Berkeley, BRG continues that mission through its Youth Summer Day Camp of the Arts.

BRG is currently accepting applications and maintains an open enrollment program. Students may enroll throughout the summer as space permits and immediately become part of the BRG family.

We are also proud to be a multicultural opportunity program, welcoming children and families from all backgrounds, cultures, and communities. Through theater, music, dance, public speaking, visual arts, technical theater, and leadership development, students gain confidence, discipline, creativity, and lifelong skills.

As our programs grow, so does our need for volunteers.

We are seeking community members to assist with youth mentoring, registration, costumes, set construction, painting, props, ushering, photography, social media, marketing, technical theater, and fundraising activities. Whether you volunteer for a few hours or throughout the season, your support directly impacts the lives of young people.

BRG also partners with churches, civic organizations, alumni associations, fraternities, sororities, and community groups through theater party fundraisers, group sales, and buy-out performances. These partnerships have helped organizations raise funds while supporting arts and cultural programming.

The theater also serves as the home of the Berkeley NAACP Chapter, which meets every second Saturday of the month from 1 to 3 p.m.

For more than six decades, the Black Repertory Group has remained committed to one belief: every child deserves an opportunity to shine.

The next great artist may already be among us.

The next Kehlani may already be walking through our doors.

We invite you to volunteer, enroll, participate, and become part of the legacy.

For more information please go to www.blackrepertorygroup.com, call (510) 652-2120, or email info@blackrepertorygroup.com

Sean Vaughn Scott is the director of the Black Repertory Group.

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Bay Area

UC Berkeley Named Top Public University in the U.S. and No. 7 in the World by ‘U.S. News’

Berkeley has been consistently awarded the distinction of the U.S.’s top public university since the Best Global Universities list was first published in 2014. “A strong position in the Best Global Universities rankings recognizes a school’s profound commitment to world-class research and cross-border academic excellence,” said LaMont Jones, managing editor for education at U.S. News.

Published

3 months ago

June 24, 2026

Oakland Post

Photo by Keegan Houser/UC Berkeley.

The 2026 Best Global Universities rankings evaluated 2,250 research institutions from more than 100 countries

By Lila Thulin

U.S. News & World Report has ranked UC Berkeley No. 7 in its 2026 list of the best global universities, which assesses more than 2,250 research institutions worldwide.

Berkeley also claimed the honor of top public university in the U.S.

Released on Monday, the list evaluates universities from more than 100 countries on 13 metrics such as global and research reputation (as reported by academics and peers) and number of highly cited scholarly papers.

Berkeley has been consistently awarded the distinction of the U.S.’s top public university since the Best Global Universities list was first published in 2014.

“A strong position in the Best Global Universities rankings recognizes a school’s profound commitment to world-class research and cross-border academic excellence,” said LaMont Jones, managing editor for education at U.S. News.

The rankings also assess a university’s strength in various subject areas; these assessments are separate from U.S. News’ 2026 Best Graduate Programs rankings released in April.

This year, Berkeley was named in the top three nationally in seven subject areas – environment/ecology, ecology, water resources, physics, computer science, chemistry, and engineering – and in the top five for a total of 17 subjects. Subject rankings are based heavily on scholarly publications and citations as well as reputation.

In September, U.S. News also released its 2026 Best Colleges list, in which Berkeley was also named the No. 1 public institution among American universities.

That honor joins other accolades judging campus to be the best public university in the country, such as those from Forbes, The Wall Street Journal and Times Higher Education.

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Arts and Culture

Farwest Region Deltas Celebrate Centennial With “September Breakfast” Honoring Vivian Osborne Marsh

The region was established in 1925 under the leadership of Vivian Osborne Marsh, who became its first Regional Director. Marsh was a pioneering scholar and civic leader, earning recognition as the first Black woman to receive both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in anthropology from UC Berkeley.

Published

1 year ago

September 14, 2025

Oakland Post

Farwest Regional Director, Kimberly Usher, Mayor Barbara Lee, US Representative Lateefah Simon, and Farwest Regional Representative, Radiya Ajibade. Photo courtesy of Farwest Regional Photographer Vicki P. Love.

By Antoinette Porter

Hundreds of members of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., and their guests gathered at the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union at the University of California, Berkeley, to mark the 100th anniversary of the sorority’s Farwest Region.

Marsh went on to serve as Delta Sigma Theta’s 7th National President, where she launched the sorority’s National Library Project to expand access to books in underserved Black communities in the South. During her presidency, the organization also became a prominent voice in the civil rights movement, lobbying Congress to pass anti-lynching legislation.

Bak in the Bay Area, Marsh devoted her career to advancing educational opportunities, mentoring young people, and strengthening community life. That commitment continues to shape the region, which supports initiatives in education, social justice, and economic development. Current projects include raising scholarship funds for students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, voter education campaigns, and health and wellness programs.

A century after its founding, the Farwest Region of Delta Sigma Theta remains active across California and other western states, carrying forward Marsh’s vision of service and advocacy.