Protests intensify at UC campuses over 32% tuition cost jump

BERKELEY, Calif. — The day after the University of California Board of Regents approved a 32-percent increase in fees that are the equivalent of tuition, protests continued on several campuses, with students occupying buildings at Santa Cruz and Berkeley.

On the Berkeley campus, at least 50 students took over a classroom building, Wheeler Hall, barricading themselves on the second floor. Hundreds of students surrounded the building, huddled under umbrellas, tarps and plastic, chanting slogans like "Fee hike! We strike!"

UC Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof told San Francisco's KGO-TV late Friday afternoon more than 40 people, at least some of them students, had been arrested and the protest appeared to be coming to a "safe end."

Claire Holmes, a UC Berkeley spokeswoman, said about 500 people participated in protests across the campus on Friday, becoming more confrontational as the hours went by.

"One of our officers has gone to the hospital with injuries," Holmes said, "so we are in the process of getting some help from the Alameda Sheriff's office and the Berkeley Police Department."

On Thursday, when the Regents voted to raise undergraduate fees to $10,302 next fall, from $7,788 this year, student protesters dumped a 5-foot mound of trash bags outside California Hall, Berkeley's administration building, then cleaned up the mess.

Santa Cruz has had repeated sit-ins over the last two months. On Sept. 24, when there were demonstrations at all of the University of California campuses over cuts in state financing, protesters in Santa Cruz took over the Graduate Student Commons for a week. On Oct. 15, there was a brief takeover of Humanities 2, an administrative building. A week ago, more than 250 students held a 24-hour study-in at the Science and Engineering Library.

On Wednesday, Santa Cruz protesters occupied Kresge Town Hall, and on Thursday, others moved into Kerr Hall, where they presented a list of demands to the campus provost, David Kliger. They remained in both buildings on Friday.

On the Davis campus, 52 people were charged with trespassing Thursday evening, when they refused to leave Mrak Hall, the main administration building.

At UCLA, where the Regents met, the group of students that had taken over Campbell Hall left peacefully Thursday evening.