The University of California Board of Regents may get a rude
awakening at their meeting today in San Francisco.
Hundreds of UC students from around the state plan on attending
the regents meetings today and tomorrow to protest a potential fee
hike and urge the board not to approve the state’s
Classification by Race, Ethnicity, Color and National Origin
initiative.
Some students will rally outside the meeting while others
participate in public debate and solicitation of the regents
inside.
One of the key issues students will take up is that of fee
increases. The regents were supposed to vote on a student fee
increase today, but the decision was delayed, pending further
information about the state’s financial situation. Gov. Gray
Davis is to release his latest state budget revision, the May
Revise, today at noon.
The fee vote will probably take place at the next regents
meeting in July or at a special regents meeting convened before
then.
Chris Neal, external vice president of the Undergraduate
Students Association Council, said that though the fee vote was
delayed, it is important for students to make sure their voices are
heard at the meeting now.
“I think the key thing is to have students as an active
part of this discussion to make sure key services aren’t
cut,” Neal said. “You want to make sure the students
are helped.”
Matt Kaczmarek, external vice president-elect of USAC, said the
potential fee increase has caught the attention of many
students.
“All students are affected by the fee increases,
especially when it goes from an increase of 35 percent, which is
outrageous, to 70 percent, which is unacceptable,” he
said.
Kaczmarek added there is a chance that the regents will hold
their next meeting by conference call from different locations,
making it difficult for students to consolidate in one area.
Accordingly, protesters at the meeting will request that the
regents hold their next meeting at UCLA either by May 28 or after
the first week of fall quarter to facilitate student input.
“The regents need to have the meeting at a place where
students can talk to them so they can’t do things in
secret,” said Yousef Tajsar, a protest organizer at UCLA.
Organizers accuse the regents of delaying the fee vote until
summer because it will be harder for students to organize protests
then.
However, the UC Office of the President said the vote was
delayed “until more information about the state budget
becomes available” and warned that “additional
reductions … could necessitate fee increases above those
scheduled for consideration at the regents’ meeting,”
according to a May 9 statement.
Jerry Kissler, assistant vice president for budget planning at
UCOP, said the UC would try to avoid raising student fees.
“We’re going to do everything we can to fight off
these increased cuts,” he said in a May 7 conference
call.
But the protests are not limited to student fees. When the
regents discuss CRECNO on Thursday, protesters plan on staging
rallies to persuade the regents not to approve the initiative.
CRECNO, formerly known as the Racial Privacy Initiative, would
prohibit the state from collecting information on race in most
areas of government business. CRECNO will appear on the March 2004
ballot.
Mo Kashmiri, external vice president of the graduate assembly at
UC Berkeley, said CRECNO would “wipe out” research
programs at the UC and destroy outreach programs, both of which
rely on racial data.
“It’s going to be horrible. It’s going to be
the worst state initiative to pass yet, as far as continuing the
attack on students of color,” he said.
Proponents of CRECNO say that the concept of race is outdated
and inconsequential and that it is not the state’s business
to know one’s ethnicity.
Initially, the regents meeting was to take place at UCLA but was
moved to San Francisco for safety concerns. According to Trey
Davis, press aide for the UCOP, the layout of Covel Commons ““
where the meeting was scheduled to take place ““ presents a
security concern, adding that the new location can better
accommodate protests.
Moreover, Davis said, there are also cost savings, as the
additional security and travel of UCOP staff would be
eliminated.
Undeterred, students from around Southern California gathered at
UCLA Tuesday to travel by bus to San Francisco, and students from
UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz converged on the meeting as well.
All told, organizers anticipate that about 600 to 800 students
will attend.
There is a historical precedent for student protests at regents
meetings. Most recently in 2001, over 1,000 UC students rallied at
a regents meeting at UCLA to protest SP-1 and 2, policies that
banned the use of affirmative action in the UC.
The protest, which culminated in a student takeover of Royce
Hall, seemed to have left a powerful impression on the regents
because at the next meeting they voted to repeal the policies.
Anica McKesey, USAC president-elect, was optimistic about the
chance of the students’ voices’ having a positive
impact this time, as well.
“There’s a strategy in place, so as long as
everything goes according to plan, the regents should be receptive
to us. And hopefully we won’t have a student fee
increase,” she said.
Kashmiri said it is important that the regents be held
accountable for their actions by the students they represent.
“These are our regents. They work for us,” he
said.
With reports from Rogelio Morales, Daily Bruin Contributor.