Free Republic

SAN FRANCISCO -- Police arrested at least 16 protesters outside a meeting of University of California regents this morning. Members of a group that included UC students, employees and union leaders rallied against proposed tuition hikes and pension cuts as regents met at UC San Francisco's Mission Bay campus. Some protesters tried to push past police barriers and into the building, leading officers to use pepper spray . . .

When some 20 UC Berkeley students announced on May 3 that they were launching a hunger strike to protest the new Arizona immigration law, they also issued a set of "demands." They demanded that Chancellor Robert Birgeneau denounce the Arizona law, rehire laid-off janitors and drop disciplinary actions against students arrested after a violent protest. You knew how the story would end before it ended. The administration would kowtow to student activists by agreeing to meet with them and behave as if their demands merited serious consideration. Most of the activists' impossible demands would remain unmet. Then - as happened...

The Free Speech Movement lives on at UC Berkeley - 45 years to the day after a barefoot, 21-year-old student named Mario Savio energized thousands from atop a police car by exhorting them to do all they could to stop the administration's restrictive policies. Today the issue is less about freedom of speech than about freedom of access to a quality education, as thousands of students have protested rising tuition, employee layoffs and course cutbacks in recent weeks. "We're the ones fighting for this to be a public university that everyone can afford!" Ronald Cruz, a Berkeley activist, told a...

When the make-love-not-war generation finally got around to having kids, they were so proud of their accomplishment that they fawned over the little darlings and protectively adorned their minivans with yellow caution signs that warned of precious cargo: "Baby on Board." Now, after many years of being told they were special and entitled to endless conveniences and a life without turmoil, the children are grown up. And the University of California system, which has recently endured student protests and arrests over a fee hike, has to contend with the byproduct: Brats at the Gates. The protests erupted after UC regents...

The UC strike reached its peak at 3 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 19, when students and custodians dumped days-old trash from the different campus buildings outside California Hall, where UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau works, to protest recent custodian layoffs. Although California Hall was locked and looked deserted, a couple of people could be seen peaking out from behind the blinds. “Tell me what democracy looks like, this is what democracy looks like!” shouted Kathryn Lybarger, an organizer for the workers union, as students threw used paper cups, apple cores and banana peels at the front door. “What does a regents’...

As part of the ongoing protest over the University of California's 32 percent fee increase, UC Berkeley students marched to UC President Mark Yudof’s office in Oakland Monday afternoon and staged a sit-in, demanding to meet with him. The students went to Yudof’s office after finding out at the Alameda County Superior court that burglary charges against three Wheeler Hall occupiers had been reduced to a misdemeanor. UC Berkeley spokesperson Dan Mogulof confirmed that there were students in Yudof’s office “who were engaged in peaceful conversation with officials there.” Mogulof said Yudof was not present. An employee at the UC...

Dozens of student protesters who took over a UC Santa Cruz administrative building after a systemwide tuition increase were removed Sunday morning when police officers in riot gear ordered them to exit the building or face arrest. No arrests were made, and university officials said the operation concluded peacefully. But videos provided by some of the 70 or so protesters show a tense scene, with officers pushing their way through a wall of students chanting "We are peaceful, what about you?" to reach the entrance of Kerr Hall. Anthropology Professor Mark Anderson suffered minor injuries after he was squeezed off...