Students Disrupt UC Regents Meeting

Riverside - A group of protesters burst into the University of California Board of Regents meeting at UC Riverside today, bringing proceedings to a halt as they clamored for a tuition freeze and higher taxes on the wealthy.

The 16 or so students and their supporters arrived at the regents' open session in the UCR Union Highlander Building shortly before 9 a.m., lining up as if to address the board.

Instead, they soon broke into chants, shouting down board Chair Sherry Lansing as she tried to restore order.

"You're not letting us do our business," Lansing said over her microphone.

When UCR police officers moved in to remove them, the demonstrators locked arms and dropped to the floor, refusing to budge.

The regents left the room, but Lansing returned to address the group.

"If your sole intention was to disrupt the meeting, you've succeeded," she said. "If you hope to have a constructive dialogue, you are welcome to stay. But by continuing to chant, we can't do any business or explore any of the options you've talked about."

The sit-in led to a 45-minute delay in the regents' meeting, but the group finally cleared out peacefully, at which point the board closed further proceedings to the public.

Topping the board's agenda was a discussion about Gov. Jerry Brown's proposed 2012-13 budget blueprint, which spares the UC and California State University systems and community colleges from cuts -- unless tax increases proposed by the governor are shot down.

Brown will seek voter approval in November of a half-percent sales tax increase and hikes on the personal income tax rates of residents earning $250,000 or more annually. The governor maintains the increases are necessary to pare down a $9.2 billion deficit going into next year, but critics counter that the last thing California needs is higher taxes in a nominal-growth economy.

According to the governor's budget proposal, if the tax hikes don't pass muster with voters, $400 million will have to be cut from the UC, CSU and community college systems.

The protesters, who identified themselves as part of a "non-affiliated" coalition representing students, teachers and campus staff, are seeking "strategies for halting the current pattern of disinvestment in education, tuition hikes and privatization of UC," according to a statement released Monday.

Organizers said the regents need to consider backing higher taxes on millionaires, imposing new fees on oil companies and revamping current limitations on residential property taxes as possible ways to bolster the higher education system's finances and spare students from paying more for school.

UC undergraduates now pay $12,192 per semester for in-state tuition. In the last two years, the regents have approved tuition hikes totaling $1,800 for students throughout the 10-campus system.

Meanwhile, from 2008 to 2011, state general fund allocations to all higher education programs were reduced by a total $2.65 billion, according to the governor's office.

"We demand that (the regents) freeze or cut unnecessary administrative positions with salaries over $125,000/year; re-hire laid-off lecturers, faculty and staff; restore classes; and refund library hours and other critical programs that have been cut at UCR and around the system," the coalition statement said.

"Finally, we demand that the regents rescind administrative pay increases approved at their last meeting on November 28, 2011, restoring that money to instruction."