3 Arrested During Protest At UC Regents Meeting In San Francisco
SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) - Three people were arrested at a University of California Regents meeting Thursday after a demonstration denouncing a possible state funding deal that protesters said would raise tuition and cut employee benefits.
Protesters claim the regents scheduled the meeting at the UCSF Mission Bay campus during Spring Break in order to minimize scrutiny of what they described as a multi-year funding deal reached with Gov. Jerry Brown.
KCBS' Anna Duckworth Reports:
"The regents certainly have a history of coming to UCSF because it's the least accessible of the campuses and has no undergraduate student population," said Daniel Bush, a Ph.D. candidate at UC Berkeley.
Bush said no students or other stakeholders had been consulted during private talks recently between UC President Mark Yudof and the governor's office about future funding for the UC system.
More than 100 students, teachers, campus workers and union leaders showed up for the protest. After the public comment section, the meeting ground to a halt when several protesters stripped down to bikinis and bathing suits and tossed around beach balls for what they labeled a "Spring Break beach party."
University of California police arrested 26-year-old Andrew Harkness-Newton, 27-year-old Cheryl Deutsch and 32-year-old Matthew Sandoval after a scuffle in the hallway once the meeting room was cleared. All three are UCLA students, officials said.
More than a dozen UC police officers manned metal barricades to prevent more protesters from entering the building during the meeting, scheduled to last well into the afternoon.
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