| Duration | September 24, 2009 - December 31, 2009 |
|---|---|
| Location | California |
| Arrested | over 200 |
The 2009 California university college tuition hike protests were a series of protests held on college campuses in the University of California system and elsewhere in California in September through December 2009. Protests were mostly made up of students, although faculty, school employees, and others joined in the protests as well. They were protesting against a 32% rise in tuition costs which was approved by the University of California Board of Regents.[1] Protesters were also demonstrating against a cut in pay other cutbacks for the university system.
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Beginning in 2008, the state of California was dealing with a major budget deficit. The response was major spending cuts for its state institutions.[2] The University of California school system was also dealing with large budget deficits. In an effort to curb its deficits, the University of California Board of Regents decided to pass an tuition hike for all 10 universities in the system, as did the California State University Trustees for all 23 universities in their system. The Regents and University of California President Mark G. Yudof decided to increase tuition by 32%, which would push the annual costs above $10,000 for the first time ever.[1] Yudof's response to the tuition increase was "When you have no money, you have no money" and said that it was an "unfortunate" consequence of the budget deficit.[1]
A major cause of the university system's budget deficit was due to a lack of state support going to higher education. University officials said the tuition increases were needed as they have already done all they could with spending cuts.[3] In the protests, students would point this out by showing that "California #1 in Prison Spending," yet only "#48 in Education."[1] The tuition hike is a two-step increase with the first hike set to go into effect at the beginning of 2010 and the second for the fall semester of 2010.[4] When the Regents voted to pass the tuition hike on November 18, 2009 many students as well as professors and university faculty broke out in protests.[5] The protests have been compared to similar protests which occurred in the 1960s at California universities.[6]
Demonstrations were held in September and October 2009 to protests state cuts and layoffs at university campuses in California. Major protests held on September 24 and October 15 were against staff cuts, layoffs and student tuition and fee hikes.[7][8][9]
Major protests against the tuition hikes broke out on the 18th of November 2009 after the regents' vote and in the following days. Students sit-down strikes, blocking cars from entering the universities. Students also hijacked several university buildings, locking themselves inside.[10] Major protests broke out at UC Berkeley, where 41 students were arrested for trespassing for locking themselves inside Wheeler Hall. At UC Santa Cruz, over 100 students participated in a sit-in at the campus' Kerr Hall.[3] They occupied the building for an entire three days before surrendering to police.[11][12] Professors participated in the protests as well, many boycotted by not teaching in the days following the vote to raise tuition
At UC Davis, 51 students and 1 faculty member were arrested at the main administration building. 60 students were arrested at UC Berkley on December 11, 2009 for occupying a school building.[13] At least one faculty member at UC Berkeley (Integrative Biology Professor Robert Dudley) was arrested while observing the protests.
Students chanted slogans such as "Whose university? Our university!" and "Yes we can take back our university."
After the Board of Regents voted students protested outside and chanted "Shame on you" as the Regents left.[3]
Demonstrators occupied an administration building at San Francisco State University for over 23 hours and led to clashes with police until they were eventually forced out.[14]
Along with demonstrations and protests, many professors and graduate students continued to teach classes but incorporated short "teach-ins" in the 5-10 minutes at the end of class, to highlight the proposed (and since then, enacted) tuition increases. Teach-ins often contrasted the cost to attend UC compared to comparable private institutions like MIT and Harvard, as well as the salaries of top administrators (Mark Yudof compared to Susan Hockfeld and Lawrence Summers).
The UC administration responded with overwhelming police force to protests--police in riot gear from the university police departments, local county sheriff's offices, California Highway patrol and state police were regularly called out during campus protests.[15] As protests persisted, the administration escalated police violence, intimidation,and suppression of free speech, exposing the structural role of police and state violence in the privatization of public services.
On November 20, thousands of protesters gathered around Wheeler Hall at UC Berkeley in support of 42 students, who occupied the building and successfully shut town the operations of the University for the day. While the occupiers were defending the space from the inside, police unleashed unwarranted violence on students on the outside. They used batons and rubber bullets, injuring the unarmed bodies of over a hundred peaceful protesters.
At the annual Regents' meeting on November 17 the next year at UCSF, the Regents voted another 8% increase while hundreds of police in riot gear used tear gas and batons to fend off protesters from disrupting the meeting. In a particularly heated moment, UCSF Police Officer Jared Kemper drew his gun in front of dozens of students, threatening to shoot at them.
More than 600 students and several faculty members were arrested across campuses between late 2009 and the middle of 2011.