Eleven UC students were arrested and four police officers were injured yesterday when a rally at the UC Board of Regents meeting held at UC San Francisco turned violent.
Approximately 200 students and 100 UC workers gathered in front of a UCSF hall where the Regents were meeting to protest UC President Mark G. Yudof’s proposed 8-percent fee increase. The Regents will vote on the increase today.
About 15 of those students were pepper sprayed during their attempts to break though the barricades and into the meeting, according to Los Angeles Times.
At the meeting, tensions between students and police heightened when a police officer, having been struck in the head with his own baton, drew his gun in the center of a crowd of protestors.
“It was unfortunate how violent the protest got,” UC Student Association President Claudia Magana said. “The students were frustrated. It showed how serious the issue was and how much the students care for it to get to a point where a gun was drawn.”
Magana was one of the select Student Advocates to the Regents from UCSA that were inside the building at the meeting, advocating against the fee increase by speaking with the voting Regents present and speaking during the public comments section.
Douglas Wagoner, UCSB student and University Affairs Committee Chair, stated that the main purpose of the protests outside was to make the Regents aware of the effects the fee increases have on students.
According to UCSA field organizer, Jaclyn Feldstein, while the student-led protests continued outside, the StaRs inside attempted to persuade the Regents by giving personal accounts of how the fee increases have increased their financial burden and limited their access to higher education.
“The students were definitely able to get the message out there,” Feldstein said. “They spoke about how the fee increase could actually affect them, their families and their siblings by essentially making it impossible for students to pay more.”
Feldstein also said that the arrested students — which included 7 students from UC Berkeley, one each from UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz, UC Merced, and Peralta Community College plus two unknown individuals — they acted of their own accord, and were not condoned by UCSA.
According to Magana, who spoke with some of the voting Regents and during the public comments section, many of the voting members said they are on the fence on the issue of the fee increase.
She said the Regents explained that, due to the state’s strained budget and the lack of adequate funding to the UC system, some consider voting for the fee increase because there is no better solution, while others believe that the projected $114 million net revenue is not worth the negativity that surrounds the issue.
The net revenue is calculated without the amount set aside for increased financial aid, which will be given in the form of grants to students with family incomes of $80,000 or less.
UCSA plans to propose a standstill until a better proposal can be reached — one that doesn’t limit accessibility to students, Magana said.
“[We want to propose] that they hold off on voting for the fee increase, see if they get funding from the state, and then decide whether the fee increase is really necessary,“ Magana said. “They can’t sell [the students] out without seeing what the state has to offer.”
While UCSA plans to speak about the option of a standstill during the meeting, many UC schools continue to raise awareness at their home institution.
At UCSD, the Student Affirmative Action Committee will be hosting a live broadcast of the meeting on Library Walk on Thursday, Nov. 18, as well as hosting a sit-in at the Chancellor’s Complex at 8 a.m.
“It’s basically going be a sit-in at the Chancellor’s Complex [where] people are going to be watching the Regents meeting there and voice their opinions on how they feel about it,” sit-in organizer Chevelle Newell said.
Readers can contact Nisha Kurani at [email protected].
