Protesters Greet UC President Janet Napolitano On Visit To Berkeley Campus
BERKELEY (KCBS) – University of California President Janet Napolitano spent Thursday meeting with students and faculty at UC Berkeley, though many were not pleased she was on campus.
A small, but noisy band of protesters shadowed Napolitano during her day of meetings on campus.
Cal graduate Justin Chiang said Napolitano's tenure as head of Homeland Security, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, makes her the wrong choice to lead the UC system.
"We want to demand that the UC Regents, who hired Janet Napolitano, to remove her immediately, and replace her with a great educator, who can really champion public education," he said.
Napolitano said she was too busy to respond to KCBS personally, but her spokeswoman, Dianne Klein, said she is not about to resign because of these kind of protests, and that it comes with the job.
"Berkeley is a cradle of free speech, as is the University of California in general," Klein said. "This is part of the fabric of the university."
Napolitano's visit was her 10th and final stop of a UC campus listening tour that began last year, and she has been met with protesters throughout her tour of the system.
Despite the protest, Klein said Napolitano is the ideal choice to lead the UC system, and not just because she is a good fundraiser.