Day of education protests heat up
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An Oakland police officer escorts a protester after he and a large group attempted to block Interstate 880 following a rally for the national Day of Action against school funding cuts and tuition increases March 4, 2010 in Oakland.
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(03-04) 17:58 PST SAN FRANCISCO — All lanes of Interstate-880 in downtown Oakland were shut down temporarily in the middle of rush hour after a splinter group of people protesting cuts to education entered the highway just before 5 p.m.
The shutdown occurred shortly after a peaceful rally at Oakland City Hall. Some of the demonstrators – who reached the freeway on an exit ramp – were chased and tackled by police officers in riot gear. Many wore black and identified themselves as anarchists. They chanted “No justice, no peace.”
Officers marched the protesters off the highway’s Jackson Street offramp and began to reopen lanes at about 5:30 p.m. But traffic backed up for miles in all directions, the California Highway Patrol said.
One protester was taken away in an ambulance after either falling or jumping from the freeway onto a tree and a roadway about 25 feet below, police and witnesses said. The person’s condition was unknown.
The action came as thousands of students, teachers and others rallied today at UC Berkeley, San Francisco State University and many other schools across the Bay Area and beyond. They expressed anger and frustration over the decline in funding for California’s beleaguered public education system.
The demonstrations were largely peaceful, with protesters carrying signs, chanting, singing and sharing personal stories. However, there were efforts by some to make a more forceful – and at times disruptive or violent – statement.
Authorities reported that up to 30 protesters at UC Santa Cruz smashed the rear and side windows of a car with either a hammer or a rock just before 8 a.m. The male driver, who was passing by the campus, was unhurt, and no arrests were made.
At UC Davis, nearly 300 protesters tried to enter and block Interstate 80 before 3 p.m., prompting officers to form a human barrier and launch a ball of pepper spray to hold them back, said campus police chief Annette Spicuzza. The highway remained open.
Today’s statewide protest, dubbed the March 4th Day of Action in Defense of Public Education, was to culminate locally with a 5 p.m. demonstration in San Francisco’s Civic Center. It aimed to send a simple message to Sacramento: Students are suffering because of budget cuts.
Similar rallies and protests were planned in other states that have also experienced funding cuts.
At UC Berkeley, political science student Luis Reyes, 21, kicked off a noon rally on Sproul Plaza by telling a crowd of several hundred people that “March 4th is just the beginning.”
“Today we march!” he shouted. “Today we strike! Today we show solidarity with workers! Today the crisis has brought us all together. Public education is a human right we’ll fight to the death!”
After the rally, about 1,000 people moved along Telegraph Avenue in a 6-mile, peaceful march toward Oakland City Hall. Supporters lined the route – PG&E workers in yellow hardhats, white-robed Middle Eastern shopkeepers raising their fists in solidarity, and nodding grandmothers on the stoops of old Victorians.
One protester was detained, a Berkeley police spokesman said, but only because the person matched a description in an unrelated case.
“It was the peaceful protest we had hoped for,” Officer Andrew Frankel said.
At Oakland City Hall, people delivered speeches, rapped and recited poetry over a microphone. Students from Laney College in Oakland, as well as from high schools in Oakland and Alameda, were in the crowd. Across the street, two dozen riot police officers readied themselves for any sign of trouble.
Meanwhile, at UC Santa Cruz, Provost David Kliger urged students, employees and others not to come to the campus today. He said officials had received reports of protesters carrying clubs and knives and smashing one car windshield with a metal pipe.
“Behavior that degrades into violence, personal intimidation, and disrespect for the rights of others is reprehensible, and does nothing to aid efforts to restore funding to the university,” Kliger wrote in a message to the campus community. “These actions should cease.”
At San Francisco State this morning, hundreds of protesters formed a picket line at the main entrance to campus at 19th and Holloway avenues, urging students not to go to class. Before noon, they began blocking the intersection, backing up traffic temporarily before police officers slowly moved the protesters out of the street.
Earlier in the morning, demonstrators blocked the entrance to the ethnic studies and psychology building, booing students who entered. And a fire alarm was pulled inside one building, disrupting classes.
Student organizer Anastasia Gomes of SFSU United said her group wanted to shut down the campus with picket lines. “Why march to Civic Center and protest empty buildings?” Gomes asked, referring to a planned protest in downtown San Francisco tonight.
Anthropology lecturer Sheila Tully was among those protesting, although she said she would teach her class this morning.
“Students are paying 31 percent more,” Tully said. “I should be there to teach, even if only one kid is in class.”
This morning, at UC Berkeley, about 100 protesters gathered at Sather Gate in a peaceful rally, although they blocked students from passing through the campus’ main entrance. The rally was being monitored by university and city police, who were caught by surprise early Friday when a campus protest spilled onto city streets, leading to a riot and clash with officers on Telegraph Avenue.
Police made clear today that they would be monitoring the situation carefully.
“We are hoping for the best and preparing for any contingencies,” said Berkeley police Sgt. Joe Okies.
Protesters said they were hoping to shut the campus down entirely. An informal survey of classrooms this morning showed that they were having some success; the campus appeared far less populated than usual. A university spokesman said few, if any, classes were canceled but that some professors had relocated or rescheduled.
One of those not boycotting classes was Arianna Deane, 19. “I support the strike, but I still have to turn in my math homework,” said Deane, adding she also had a physics lab to attend. “If you miss it, you have to make it up on your own time.”
At Wheeler Hall, the site of a raucous protest in November, biology lecturer David Presti wasn’t talking about molecular structures. Instead, he discussed a ballot initiative crafted by UC Berkeley linguistics Professor George Lakoff that would change the way the state Legislature passes budgets and raises taxes.
Groups of protesters beating drums and shouting, “Today we strike! Tomorrow go to school!” ran through campus buildings, interrupting classes.
They startled students and the professor teaching an Italian class in Dwinelle Hall, when the protesters threw open the classroom door and shouted, “Out of the classrooms, into the streets.” The professor smiled and shouted in Italian to get out.
The protesters also interrupted classes in history, Chinese, and medieval Latin as they continued through the hallways. The classrooms were mostly empty, but who chose to attend classes refused to take the bait.
“I’m supporting them – mentally,” said Andrew Pai, 20, looking up from the Japanese textbook he was studying in the hallway with a group of students.
In another hallway, Min Song, 23, tapped at a laptop as the protesters crowded past, shouting at him to get going. Song sighed, pressed his earphones deeper in, and, ignoring them, said, “Berkeley.”
At the corner of Bancroft Way and Telegraph Avenue, unionized university workers were protesting and chanting, “You say furlough, we say, ‘Hell no!’ “
The rally prompted UC President Mark Yudof to release a statement saying he supported the peaceful protests. “The university is an investment,” he said, “not only in an individual’s well being, but also in the public good.”
High school students also participated in the day’s events. Among them was Oceana High School in Pacifica, where instead of attending regular classes, students went to workshops and traveled off campus to collect signatures calling attention to budget cuts, said Principal Caro Pemberton. Some students formed an “SOS” on the beach near the Pacifica pier.
Education officials across the state urged teachers and parents to keep children in school and to take to the streets only after school let out for the day.
“We’re expecting people to use good judgment,” said San Francisco Unified spokeswoman Gentle Blythe.
Yet across the Bay Area, teachers, parents and local administrators made their own judgment calls. In San Francisco, more than 50 Commodore Sloat Elementary fifth-graders boarded a Muni bus to the state building, each wearing handmade sandwich board signs protesting budget cuts to schools.
Teacher Libbie Schock said the “field trip” was in line with social studies curriculum and was a real life lesson in civics. “Students need to know that they have a voice and that voice can be heard if we speak together,” she said.
The students were well prepared to make their voices heard. “Hey, hey! Ho, ho! The budget cuts have got to go,” the students yelled as passing cars honked.
With colored construction paper signs asking for more education funding slung across her front and back, 10-year-old Darla Sorensen said she’ll need a good education to fulfill her dream to be a brain surgeon.
“I’m just here because I don’t think the budget cuts are right,” she said. “I don’t want bigger classes.”
The protest – in what some are calling March Forth! – began as an idea on the UC Berkeley campus last fall and spread quickly to college campuses in dozens of states, where activists also protested dramatic cuts to their own public education budgets.
California faces a $20 billion budget gap this year, on top of $60 billion last year. The state has cut millions of dollars from education budgets at all levels to help make ends meet.
The result is soaring tuition at the University of California and California State University. Courses are jammed, and many students can’t get in at all. Lecturers have been laid off, and employees furloughed. CSU wouldn’t let new students enroll at all this semester.
More than 20,000 students will be turned away from community colleges next fall because there won’t be enough classes for them, Chancellor Jack Scott said.
School districts across the state have issued nearly 19,000 pink slips to public school teachers, warning that they may lose their jobs at the end of the semester, the California Teachers Association reported.
University students began protesting Sept. 24, as UC and CSU were poised to raise tuition by 32 percent. UC had just raised tuition by 9.3 percent the previous May.
The protests continued during the fall semester, growing increasingly angry and occasionally violent, as students seized buildings at UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz and San Francisco State University.
In the middle of all this, hundreds of students, faculty and employees from several schools convened at UC Berkeley on Oct. 24 to decide how to keep the momentum alive in the spring semester.
The result was March 4, the Day of Action. Students set up listserves, Web sites and Twitter and Facebook pages. They formed committees to connect with high schools, community colleges, union leaders, teachers and workers. And the event went viral.
“It is our chance to make a clear stand for transparency, solidarity, and to demand full funding and equal access to quality public education in California,” says one March 4 missive from students on the site ReclaimUC.org.
It’s unsigned because students have avoided anointing any leaders or organizers. They say they want to focus attention on their movement rather than individuals. They may also want to avoid disciplinary action for being linked with violent or destructive actions.
Chronicle staff writers Demian Bulwa, Henry K. Lee and Jill Tucker contributed to this report. E-mail the writers at nasimov@sfchronicle.com, mkuruvila@sfchronicle.com and jberton@sfchronicle.com.