UC Students Protest!

Last Thursday I was at home on my computer, still in my pajamas reading email, grading papers, checking the news. Feeling generally down about the state of the world, the privatization of the education system, and my current lack of involvement in political activism- or rather my lack of causing visible change instead of just theorizing about it. That's when I got the news.

Two of my Community Development peers emailed our group listserve saying something to the effect of; 'for all of you sitting on your --- reading your email, get over to Mrak Hall (UCD admin), there's a sit-in happening!' I mentioned it in my last post, but a quick recap- last Wednesday, the UC Regents voted to increase student tuition by 32% for next year, the largest increase ever in UC tuition. For the last 10 days, students all over the state have been protesting, yet UCD has been conspicuously absent from much of the ruckus. Thursday changed that.

I arrived at Mrak at 2pm. Hundreds of students lined the main entrance hall, the stairs, and the elevator lobby. Sitters were littered amongst backpacks, computers, and posters. Organizers were urging people to text and email their friends, to send the word out virally for a flash mob. A few cops were milling about, and school administrators had to step over clumps of students as they made their way towards their business.

Over the next few hours, hundreds of students came and went. Top level administrators came down from their offices and encouraged us to leave, news crews wandered through with cameras interviewing people, and police warned that the building would eventually close and students would have to leave. For those hours the sit-in shifted between students chatting amongst themselves and spirited waves of cheering, jeering and chanting.

By 6pm it was a different scene. Having officially 'closed' the building at five, the number of police officers and TV cameras had quintupled. No-one was being allowed in the building, and officers had begun to read the remaining protestors their rights. The first person was arrested around 6:30 and cops in riot gear led them out to a patty wagon stationed outside. The building was slowly emptied of protesters, as one by one, folks willing to participate in civil disobedience were cuffed and escorted through the double glass doors, past the hundreds of supporting students, faculty, and staff who had amassed themselves outside. Paraded into a police escort, the arrestees- totaling 52- walked through a gauntlet of heavily armed police in riot gear, lit up by TV lighting crews and helicopters with spot lights flying overhead.

It was a sight to be seen. UC Davis, long lauded as the campus with the least amount of politically outspoken students, had more arrested students than all of the other campuses to date. UCD represent.

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