For the 16 of us who were arrested at the UC Board of Regents meeting Wednesday, the time has come. We are referring to the “second mode of civil disobedience” that famed student activist Mario Savio coined some 40 years ago on the steps of Sproul Hall at UC Berkeley.
As the University of California machine relentlessly grinds toward full privatization, chewing up the most disenfranchised of us, we find in Savio’s words a distant comfort: “There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart that you can’t take part! You can’t even passively take part! And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus ““ and you’ve got to make it stop! And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it ““ that unless you’re free the machine will be prevented from working at all!”
After listening to Lt. Gov. John Garamendi rail against the dangers of consistently “taxing the students” to cover the state’s egregious fiscal policy, thus sending us down a “one-way road to privatization,” the board didn’t flinch before voting 7-2 to raise student fees for the sixth time in the last seven years. The lieutenant governor outlined, with copious research, what exactly the effects of raising student fees, yet again, would be.
It would mean more out-of-state students, as much as 40 percent, because they bring more revenue for the school, thus limiting space for California residents. It would mean less diversity, as the poorest students ““ overwhelmingly of color ““ are effectively excluded from a public education because they simply can’t afford it. It would mean families most vulnerable to fee increases would be forced into a false choice of accruing massive debt or not sending their children to school. It would mean pushing the California dream farther and farther off the Coast for much of the state’s truly diverse population, as the UC student body becomes both richer and whiter.
What was UC Regents Chairman Richard Blum’s solution? “Cal Grants will cover the increases.” What Blum apparently doesn’t know is that Cal Grants are the smallest source of student funding, they cover only a portion of eligible students’ tuition, and they are only slightly easier than a green card to get. Listening to Blum talk about grants is like listening to Marie Antoinette talk about cake.
To be fair, the voices of dissent were raised and the tough questions asked. The lone voices of reason on the board asked if the regents had explored other options, besides taxing the students, to cover the budget deficit. The answer: “No.”
They asked if there was any oversight to monitor how student fees are spent. The answer: “No.”
They asked why students were paying $60 a year to pay for a lawsuit that the UC Regents lost because they illegally raised student fees in 2000. The answer: “We didn’t know where else to go.”
The voices were heard but no one cares. Having exercised the very limited democracy we have, we were quite literally shown the door.
New Chancellor Gene Block sat in his chair unfazed as we were handcuffed and escorted out. By comparison, even though only two of us are UC Santa Barbara students, UCSB Chancellor Henry Yang came to visit and made sure we were OK as we were being detained.
As the future of the nation’s largest public good ““ the UC ““ hangs delicately in the balance, the voices of its largest stakeholders ““ the students ““ are systematically excluded. The people who purport to represent us can’t even bother to check in. The time has come.
Noah Ebner submitted this on behalf of the students arrested. He is a fourth-year geography student. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.