SAN FRANCISCO “”mdash; Thirteen audience members were arrested during the UC Board of Regents meeting Thursday after leading a protest and refusing to leave the room.
Of the 13 people arrested, 10 were students from UC Santa Cruz, UC Santa Barbara and UC Berkeley. The protesters attended the meeting to ask the regents to sever connections with two nuclear labs the University of California manages.
Some protesters said they believe an academic institution such as the UC should not be associated with weaponry research.
Students sat down on the ground and went limp when police officers tried to hand-cuff them with plastic ties, and they eventually had to be carried from the room. The board was evacuated from the room, but a number of regents re-entered to watch the arrests.
All 13 individuals were taken to the county jail in downtown San Francisco to be booked for charges of trespassing and failure to disperse, said Chris Harrington, a UC spokesman.
Darwin Bond-Graham, who participated in the protest, said he believes students had to be “disruptive and combative” for the regents to listen to their opinions, since he believes the regents have been ignoring students.
The UC currently manages two nuclear labs: the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Last week the UC was awarded a new management contract for the Lawrence Livermore lab after managing it for over 50 years.
Bond-Graham said students came with the specific purpose of stopping the regents from discussing the labs. Audience members began shouting out and hissing once the discussion began, including one student who said “we want actions, not words.”
Though almost 60 individuals participated in the protest, many peacefully left the room when the police told them to leave. Several of the protesters were also participants of a hunger strike and had not eaten for nine days.
Regent Norman Pattiz told the audience that he believes the regents understood their concerns and asked them to allow the committee’s business to continue without interruptions.
“Many of us on the (Board) of Regents share your feelings and concerns in the debate that goes on in this country about the ethics of nuclear weapons,” Pattiz said.
Pattiz said the regents must talk about the nuclear labs as their duty to carry out the business of the UC. At the end of his remarks Pattiz urged the participants of the hunger strike to “go out and have lunch.” Many of the arrested students spoke during the morning’s public comment period, telling the regents of the effects of nuclear warfare, though they were each given a one-minute time limit per board policy.
“My heart aches when I think of kids that can’t take nutrients into their systems because of the cancer because of the toxins we’re putting into the environment,” said Adrian Cole, a fourth-year UC Santa Barbara student and hunger strike participant.
The regents also postponed a vote Thursday on a policy that would restrict the UC from receiving research funds from the tobacco industry. Because regent John Moores ““ a proponent of adopting the policy restricting tobacco funds ““ could not attend the meeting, the board chose to postpone the vote until July.
The policy was originally supposed to be voted on during the regents meeting this past January, but at that meeting several board members requested more time to further research the policy because of differing moral and ethical positions.
The UC Berkeley School of Public Heath banned the use of tobacco industry funding for its research in 2004.
The regents committee on compensation also presented the results of an audit that addressed past compensation practice violations and corrective actions that occurred in response.
Regent Judith Hopkinson, chairwoman of the compensation committee, called the audit a huge overhaul of procedure in order to hold the UC accountable. Hopkinson said some UC employees were given discipline for violating compensation policy, ranging from letters in personnel files to salary penalties.
The board also approved the approximately $400 million budget for the UC Office of the President for 2007-2008. This marks the first time the budget was voted on by the regents separately from the general UC budget.
Regent Russell Gould said he considers changes made to the budget, such as the separation of voting, a “work-in-progress,” since he believes the regents have an “obligation” to continually improve on budget matters.