Students Protest Tuition Increases
By MALIA WOLLAN and TAMAR LEWIN
BERKELEY, Calif. — The day after the University of California Board of Regents approved a 32 percent increase in fees that are the equivalent of tuition, protests continued on several campuses, with students occupying buildings at Santa Cruz and Berkeley.
On the Berkeley campus, at least 40 students took over a classroom building, Wheeler Hall, barricading themselves on the second floor. Hundreds of students surrounded the building, huddled under umbrellas, tarps and plastic, chanting slogans like: “Fee hike! We strike!”
“We are planning to stay as long as possible,” Andi Walden, a 21-year-old senior in the building, said by cellphone. “It appears the police are getting ready to break down the doors and drag us out. We had to take direct action. The regents won’t respond to anything else.”
Ms. Walden said she and the others sneaked into the building with sleeping bags and food on Thursday night and slept in a classroom, keeping quiet until the police arrived around 7 a.m. Friday. Three students were arrested, she said.
At 5 p.m., the police entered the building. Forty people were arrested without incident.
Claire Holmes, a Berkeley spokeswoman, said that about 500 people participated in protests across campus on Friday, becoming more confrontational as the hours went by.
“One of our officers has gone to the hospital with injuries,” she said, “so we are in the process of getting some help from the Alameda Sheriff’s Office and the Berkeley Police Department.”
On Thursday, when the Regents voted to raise undergraduate fees to $10,302 next fall, from $7,788 this year, protesters dumped a five-foot mound of trash bags outside California Hall, Berkeley’s administration building.
“They made their symbolic point, and then they cleaned it up, because they knew it would make more work for the workers they were trying to support,” Ms. Holmes said.
Santa Cruz has had sit-ins over the last two months. On Sept. 24, when there were demonstrations at all University of California campuses over state cuts, protesters in Santa Cruz took over the Graduate Student Commons for a week. On Oct. 15, there was a brief takeover of an administrative building. A week ago, more than 250 students held a study-in at a library.
On Wednesday, protesters occupied Kresge Town Hall, and on Thursday, many of them moved into Kerr Hall, where they presented a list of demands to the campus provost, David Kliger. They remained in both buildings on Friday.
“The group inside delivered a list of demands to the administrator, and it’s a pretty far-reaching list, to get them to repeal the fee hikes and stop the privatization of Santa Cruz and U.C.,” said Don Kingsbury, a Santa Cruz graduate student in politics. “It’s kind of a symbolic list.”
Indeed, many of the demands are beyond the reach of the Santa Cruz administrators, including the impeachment of Mark G. Yudof, president of the university system; the elimination of the Regents’ positions; and an end to student fees and debts.
But, Mr. Kingsbury said, the list includes some demands administrators could meet.
“We want them to drop charges against the protesters who were arrested in previous actions,” Mr. Kingsbury said. “We want to stop them from closing the university child care center, trying to dissolve the community studies department.”
Mr. Kliger said in a statement that he had agreed to speak to protesters Friday morning, based on their commitment to leave exits unobstructed and stay away from parts of the building — but that those terms were not met, so he canceled the meeting.
On the Davis campus, 52 people were charged with trespassing on Thursday, when they refused to leave the main administration building. And Friday, 75 to 100 students occupied Dutton Hall, said a university spokeswoman, Claudia Morain.
At U.C.L.A., where the Regents met, a group of students that had taken over Campbell Hall left peacefully Thursday evening.
Video of one of the protests: http://snardfarker.ning.com/video/32-inflation-in-ucla-tuition
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/us/21tuition.html?_r=1
BERKELEY, Calif. — The day after the University of California Board of Regents approved a 32 percent increase in fees that are the equivalent of tuition, protests continued on several campuses, with students occupying buildings at Santa Cruz and Berkeley.
On the Berkeley campus, at least 40 students took over a classroom building, Wheeler Hall, barricading themselves on the second floor. Hundreds of students surrounded the building, huddled under umbrellas, tarps and plastic, chanting slogans like: “Fee hike! We strike!”
“We are planning to stay as long as possible,” Andi Walden, a 21-year-old senior in the building, said by cellphone. “It appears the police are getting ready to break down the doors and drag us out. We had to take direct action. The regents won’t respond to anything else.”
Ms. Walden said she and the others sneaked into the building with sleeping bags and food on Thursday night and slept in a classroom, keeping quiet until the police arrived around 7 a.m. Friday. Three students were arrested, she said.
At 5 p.m., the police entered the building. Forty people were arrested without incident.
Claire Holmes, a Berkeley spokeswoman, said that about 500 people participated in protests across campus on Friday, becoming more confrontational as the hours went by.
“One of our officers has gone to the hospital with injuries,” she said, “so we are in the process of getting some help from the Alameda Sheriff’s Office and the Berkeley Police Department.”
On Thursday, when the Regents voted to raise undergraduate fees to $10,302 next fall, from $7,788 this year, protesters dumped a five-foot mound of trash bags outside California Hall, Berkeley’s administration building.
“They made their symbolic point, and then they cleaned it up, because they knew it would make more work for the workers they were trying to support,” Ms. Holmes said.
Santa Cruz has had sit-ins over the last two months. On Sept. 24, when there were demonstrations at all University of California campuses over state cuts, protesters in Santa Cruz took over the Graduate Student Commons for a week. On Oct. 15, there was a brief takeover of an administrative building. A week ago, more than 250 students held a study-in at a library.
On Wednesday, protesters occupied Kresge Town Hall, and on Thursday, many of them moved into Kerr Hall, where they presented a list of demands to the campus provost, David Kliger. They remained in both buildings on Friday.
“The group inside delivered a list of demands to the administrator, and it’s a pretty far-reaching list, to get them to repeal the fee hikes and stop the privatization of Santa Cruz and U.C.,” said Don Kingsbury, a Santa Cruz graduate student in politics. “It’s kind of a symbolic list.”
Indeed, many of the demands are beyond the reach of the Santa Cruz administrators, including the impeachment of Mark G. Yudof, president of the university system; the elimination of the Regents’ positions; and an end to student fees and debts.
But, Mr. Kingsbury said, the list includes some demands administrators could meet.
“We want them to drop charges against the protesters who were arrested in previous actions,” Mr. Kingsbury said. “We want to stop them from closing the university child care center, trying to dissolve the community studies department.”
Mr. Kliger said in a statement that he had agreed to speak to protesters Friday morning, based on their commitment to leave exits unobstructed and stay away from parts of the building — but that those terms were not met, so he canceled the meeting.
On the Davis campus, 52 people were charged with trespassing on Thursday, when they refused to leave the main administration building. And Friday, 75 to 100 students occupied Dutton Hall, said a university spokeswoman, Claudia Morain.
At U.C.L.A., where the Regents met, a group of students that had taken over Campbell Hall left peacefully Thursday evening.
Video of one of the protests: http://snardfarker.ning.com/video/32-inflation-in-ucla-tuition
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/us/21tuition.html?_r=1
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