SF Chronicle: Police Arrest 14 at UC Regents Meeting

Posted On Sep 17th, 2009

sf chronicle
University of California President Mark Yudof (left) and Board of Regents Chairman Russell Gould listen to public comments at a meeting of the Board of Regents at the UCSF Mission Bay campus in San Francisco on Wednesday. University employees and students showed up in force to protest proposed fee hikes.

Photo: Paul Chinn / The Chronicle

By Nanette Asimov
September 17, 2009

University of California police arrested 14 raucous protesters who briefly shut down a regents meeting today in San Francisco where a proposed tuition hike was being discussed.

“Whose university? Our university!” chanted dozens of UC students, alumni, faculty and staff who expressed fury at UC President Mark Yudof for asking the regents to raise student tuition by 32 percent by next year.

The request comes on top of thousands of employee layoffs and unpaid furloughs intended to close a budget shortfall of at least $753 million.

“You’re incompetent!” David Patida, a UC Santa Cruz student yelled at Yudof and the regents.

The arrests capped angry public testimony in which speaker after speaker told Yudof and the regents that raising tuition would make the university too expensive for many students, and that employee furloughs – amounting to pay cuts – are especially unfair for workers earning under $40,000.

Under Yudof’s proposal, formally presented to the regents for discussion today, undergraduate tuition would top $10,000 for the first time next year, excluding housing costs. Regents are expected to vote on the plan in November.

As the comment period drew to a close, dozens of loud protesters had to be escorted from the room on UCSF’s Mission Bay campus, where the meeting was taking place. When some refused to leave, campus police made arrests for civil disobedience. Fourteen people were arrested.

When the meeting resumed, Yudof offered a lengthy and at times eloquent explanation of why he is proposing the substantial tuition hikes, expressing regret that the protesters were no longer around to hear what he had to say.

“I think the students ought to be angry about the fee increases,” he said. “I’m angry about it, too. I like the old system – the closer the university was to being free, the happier I was. But that’s not the world we live in.

“We have half as much money to spend per student today as in 1990,” Yudof said. “That’s the truth.”

If approved, the tuition increases would raise $409 million for the UC system over two years.

[ Source: SF Chronicle ]

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