2009 California college tuition hike protests

In 2003 Regent Blum, Regent Wachter and Regent Parsky consolidated control of UC’s investment strategy, bypassing the university treasurer’s in-house investment specialists, and hired private managers to handle a number of transactions. This action increased management costs and limited transparency, since these external managers were not subject to public record laws.[1]

The amount of university money placed in private equity soon more than tripled, and by March 2009, the university’s books carried a balance of $6.7 billion in 212 private equity partnerships, which consist primarily of risky leveraged buyout funds (LBOs)—more than 10 percent of the university investment fund total of $63 billion—and by spring of that year UC’s private equity returns were running at a negative 20 percent.[5] Likewise, after the financiers took control of the investment committee, the university’s allocation to private real-estate deals increased from nearly zero to $4.5 billion in less than a decade, and by mid-2009, the private real-estate portfolio had lost an astonishing 40 percent of its value.[1] This shift in investment strategy, which drained the university's endowment, had clear benefits for individuals on the board of regents.[1]

By 2009, in an effort to curb the budget deficits that they had created, the Board of Regents passed a tuition hike for all 10 universities in the system, increasing tuition by 32%, which pushed the annual costs of attendance above $10,000 for the first time.[6] UC President and Regent Mark G. Yudof's response to the tuition increase was "When you have no money, you have no money," propagating the claim that the budget shortfall was due to the recession rather than the regents' mismanagement of university funds.[6]

These increases in tuition costs further benefited individuals on the Board of Regents who had investment holdings related to student lending and private postsecondary education, such as Regent Blum, who is known to have holdings in private education as well as a number of conflict-of-interest holdings.[7]

While causes for the tuition hikes and subsequent protests can be traced to the actions of "Wall Street heavy-hitters" on the University of California Board of Regents who drained the university endowment for their personal gain,[1] the Regents made a claim that was widely circulated by the media that the state's lack of support for higher education was to blame.[1]

The regents also circulated the claim that the recession and the 2008 state budget crisis were the cause for tuition hikes, which allowed the actual causes of the University's budget deficit to go unchecked. The tuition increases occurred alongside spending cuts occurring across state institutions, making them seem like part of the larger recession.[8]

University officials stated that the tuition increases were needed as they had already done all they could.[9] In the protests, students would point out that the state still seemed have quite a bit of money, with signs that read "California No. 1 in Prison Spending, yet #48 in Education."[2]

The tuition hike was voted into effect by the regents on November 20, 2009.[10] This was a two-step increase, with the first hike set to go into effect at the beginning of 2010, and the second going into effect in the fall semester of 2010.[11] When the Regents voted to pass the tuition hike on November 18, 2009 many students as well as professors and university faculty broke out in protests.[12] The protests have been compared to similar protests which occurred in the 1960s at California universities.[13]

Demonstrations were held in September and October 2009 to protests state cuts and layoffs at university campuses in California. Major protests held on September 24 and October 15 were against staff cuts, layoffs and student tuition and fee hikes.[14][15][16]

Major protests against the tuition hikes broke out on November 18, 2009 after the Regents' vote and continued in the following days. Students held sit-down strikes, blocking cars from entering the universities. Students also hijacked several university buildings, locking themselves inside.[17] Major protests broke out at UC Berkeley following the announcement of the tuition hikes in September 2009. In a series of actions on November 18–20, the UC Berkeley administration was seriously challenged by a series of militant actions on every major UC campus. On November 20 at UC Berkeley, 43 students locked themselves inside Wheeler Hall and held the building for 12 hours while thousands gathered outside for support and militant push-back against scores of riot police called in from several counties. One faculty member at UC Berkeley (Integrative Biology Professor Robert Dudley) was arrested while observing the protests. At UC Santa Cruz, over 100 students participated in a sit-in at the campus' Kerr Hall.[9] They occupied the building for an entire three days before surrendering to police. No arrests were made.[18][19] Demonstrators occupied an administration building at San Francisco State University for over 23 hours and led to clashes with police until they were eventually forced out.[20] Although many professors remained complicit, some participated in the protests as well by not teaching in the days following the vote to raise tuition. Many professors and graduate students continued to teach classes but incorporated short "teach-ins" in the 5–10 minutes at the end of class, to highlight the proposed (and since then, enacted) tuition increases. Teach-ins often contrasted the cost to attend UC compared to comparable private institutions like MIT and Harvard, as well as the salaries of top administrators (Mark Yudof compared to Susan Hockfeld and Lawrence Summers).

At UC Davis, 51 students and 1 faculty member were arrested at the main administration building. In December 2009 at UC Berkeley, hundreds of students re-took Wheeler hall for a week to hold open workshops, classes, and teach-ins. The series of events, known as "Live Week," forged an open-access model of education run horizontally and self-governed by the community of students, faculty, and workers.[21] On December 11, 2009, Chancellor Robert Birgeneau and the UC Berkeley administration used the information it obtained about a concert by Boots Riley organized by students and community as a pretext to clear the building. 66 students were arrested at 4 am without dispersal order and taken to Santa Rita Jail. The legitimacy of all these actions is seriously contested in a number of lawsuits against the administrations.

On March 4, 2010, protests at UC Davis were met with police brutality when they attempted to march upon the I-80 freeway.[22]

The campaign inspired a call for a nationwide day of action against tuition increases and budget cuts on March 4, 2010. Dozens of actions took place around the country, most of which were peaceful, although some were violent.[24][25] The largest actions took place in California, notably several large un-permitted marches around the San Francisco Bay Area that tied up traffic and sometimes led to conflict with police. The largest act of civil disobedience occurred when hundreds of protesters converged to blockade Interstate Highways 880 and 990 at Oakland during rush hour. 150 protesters were arrested and one was hospitalized.[26] Protesters displayed a banner that read "Occupy everything," while shutting down the roadway for an hour, an action that has been described as a precursor to the Occupy movement.[3]

In the aftermath of the passage of state Proposition 30 in 2012, Governor Jerry Brown urged the trustees of UC and California State University to reconsider any further hikes, and they complied.[27] UC tuition remained frozen for three years afterward.[27]

• 2010 University of Puerto Rico strike

• After the Fall: Communiqués from Occupied California
• Reclaim UC
• Those Who Use It
• Reclamations Journal
• Occupy Everything
• Occupy California