San Jose Mercury News: UC Protestors call for tax reform, more funding

UC protesters urge tax reform and delay UC Regents meeting

By Lisa M. Krieger, Hannah Dreier and Steve Harmon
Staff Writers

San Jose Mercury News 

Posted: 11/29/2011 06:20:24 AM PST

At University of California campuses across the state on Monday, students staged teach-ins, shouted slogans and interrupted a statewide regents meeting. While the frustrations over fee hikes and clashes with campus police sounded familiar, students added something new -- albeit, politically improbable -- to their roar: Please, raise taxes.

Although they fell short of their threat to shut down UC Davis, scores of students made an emotional appeal to the regents to persuade Sacramento to raise money for the struggling university system, through tax reform.

"Please do your duty as leaders of UC," said Harrison Weber, a political science student at UC Santa Barbara. "This issue should be on your agenda of every conversation, in every community you come from and on the formal agenda for every one of your future meetings."


Monday's meeting was raucous but peaceful, a relief to leaders who had canceled the original meeting amid threats of violence and vandalism sparked by the Occupy clashes at Berkeley and Davis. But the show of support spread to campuses across the state, including Santa Cruz, where students shut down an administrative building.

Students' demanded regents sign a "pledge" that they would fight to raise taxes on the wealthy, close corporate loopholes and end Prop. 13, the state's historic cap on property taxes.

Yudof made no promises, instead saying "I have learned a great deal. ... We will do our best to carry out
many of the suggestions that students are making." And UC Regents Chairwoman Sherry Lansing instead suggested further discussions, and she sought their help in organizing a January protest in Sacramento.

"You are better at this than we are," Lansing said.

Angered, the crowd at UC campuses in Davis, San Francisco and Los Angeles erupted into shouts, forcing regents to suspend the meeting staged at four campuses via teleconference. At UCSF's Mission Bay campus, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, one of the regents, sat down to talk to about 40 protesters after the meeting ended abruptly.

After the meeting, many students said that they believed the regents were paying lip service to their causes. In addition to their tax reform proposal, students testified to the impact of annual tuition hikes, and challenged chancellor salaries that exceed $400,000 at a time when some professors have to buy their own paper.

The students' "pledge" is unlikely to get political traction at a time when there are already four tax-related proposals likely to end up on the ballot next November, said Bill Whalen of Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

"From a practical political perspective, throwing another measure into the mix doesn't make sense at this point," Whalen said.

"What is more sensible, rather than pestering the regents, is to cut to the chase and go straight to the governor and the Legislature," he said. "Those are the people they should be talking to."

But Menlo College political science professor Melissa Michelson said "it is very clear what they want, and they've researched constructive fixes to the problem that don't involve raising fees again."

Protesters at Davis had promised to shut down the campus with a general strike in response to the now infamous pepper-spraying of docile demonstrators Nov. 18, which has focused international attention on the
Occupy movement at UC schools. Weeks earlier, Berkeley police were caught on camera striking protesters with batons, raising similar outrage.

But despite calls for a strike, most Davis students such as freshman Tee Her said even though she sympathized with protesters, she did not feel inspired to join them.

"I'm not the type of person to protest," she said while walking back from class. "Even though I'm against the raise in tuition, it's just not my thing. And I feel like a lot of people are thinking the same thing."

The regents finalized their 2012-13 budget, which asks Sacramento to increase its annual support from $2.3 billion to $2.7 billion. State cutbacks have forced UC to operate at the same funding level as 1997 -- with 73,000 more students.

While far below the university's peak funding of $3.2 billion several years ago, the proposed budget could "avoid the issue of increased tuition and begin the process of ... hiring more professors and smaller classes," said Yudof.

"If there is no increase in state funding, we will continue to do our best to pare spending and raise other revenues," he said.

At UC Berkeley, the site of violence earlier this month, the school's Academic Senate met for a special session on Monday afternoon and condemned the police violence. Chancellor Robert Birgeneau acknowledged mistakes were made, and that he had "explicitly" told police Chief Mitch Celaya not to use pepper spray or tear gas on protesters.

"Unfortunately, we didn't at the same time discuss the use of batons," Birgeneau said, adding, "I was -- possibly, probably because I'm the chancellor -- more disturbed than anybody in the room."

Earlier Monday, UC Berkeley police sent an open letter sent to the community as a peace offering of sorts to protesters and blasted what the department says is a lack of support by the administration. The letter says campus police sympathize with the protesters' outcry over rising tuition, and that officers have been put in the position of "managing" the UC system's poor budget planning.

Staff writers Matt Krupnick and Robert Salonga contributed to this report.

 

A DAY OF PROTESTS

UC Davis: Protesters fall short of shutting down campus, stage teach-ins and rallies.
UC Santa Cruz: Protesters stage noon-time rally, shut down administrative building.
UC Berkeley: Faculty senate condemns police violence, Chancellor Birgeneau acknowledges mistakes and police issue letter blasting administration and sympathizing with protesters.
UCLA: Chanting protesters force regents chair Lansing to shut down public portion of regents meeting.
UC San Francisco: Lt. Gov. Newsom meets with protesters after regents meeting delayed.