#MillionStudentMarch: Students Rally in Support of Higher Education Reform

Funneling through North Hall, the site of previous acts of student activism, protestors attempt to rally the campus by chanting and calling upon students to "walk out." | Photo by Mathew Burciaga, Executive Managing Editor — Funneling through North Hall, the site of previous acts of student activism, protestors attempt to rally the campus by chanting and calling upon students to “walk out.” | Photo by Mathew Burciaga, Executive Managing Editor

By Gwendolyn Wu
AS Beat Reporter

An estimated 1,500 students gathered at Storke Tower on Thurs., Nov. 12 as part of the nationwide Million Student March, which took place at over 110 campuses across the country. The three demands of the movement are to make public universities tuition-free, eliminate all student debt and establish a $15 per hour minimum wage for all campus workers. The rally began at noon as students walked out of class to join the organizers in Storke Plaza.

The movement’s name comes from journalist Katie Couric’s interview of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders; when asked what his plans were to get reform through a “gridlocked” Congress, Sanders replied that it would take a million young people to march on Washington with awareness of their situation. At the University of California, Santa Barbara, a coalition of campus organizations including the United States Student Association (USSA), the University of California Student Association (UCSA), UCSB 4 Bernie, Pan-African Student Union, Associated Students Office of the External Vice President for Statewide Affairs (EVPSA) and Office of the Student Advocate (OSA) organized the march.

Protesters called for systematic change from the University of California system, chanting slogans such as “UC, step off it, put people over profit” and “I’m fired up, can’t take it no more.” Various staff members joined them, including AS staff, who had been released at noon to join marchers. Many held posters showing the amount of their student debt from attending UCSB; other posters stated support for Sanders and “solidarity with Mizzou,” the University of Missouri campus where racial tensions have run high in recent weeks. Representatives from UCSB’s Black Student Union, AS, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) 3299 and Graduate Student Association spoke at the rally.

Fourth year sociology and black studies major and Black Student Union chair Jamelia Harris and fourth year environmental studies major and BSU political chair Nia Mitchell spoke at the rally. “We, the University of California, Santa Barbara Black Student Union express our anger, discontent and intolerance towards the status quo of student fees and tuition expenses,” Harris said. “As members of a marginalized community that comprises less than four percent of our campus’s overall demographics, we must acknowledge the structural barriers and impediments posed by exorbitant tuition fees. Millions of otherwise qualified high school students are not attending college because of their families’ inability to afford tuition expenses.”

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[Source]: The Bottom Line