Students Protest Occupy Crackdowns At UC Meeting
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — University of California students have disrupted a UC board meeting, forcing officials to move to another room.
UC leaders attending Monday's Board of Regents meeting at the San Francisco-Mission Bay campus left the meeting hall after protesters began shouting and chanting.
UC spokesman Steve Montiel says the regents are moving to a different room and plan to resume the meeting.
Students are protesting at four campuses where board members are gathering by teleconference after worries about violence led to the cancellation of a previous meeting.
Board members, university administrators and the public are attending Monday's meeting at locations on the Los Angeles, Davis, Merced as well as San Francisco-Mission Bay campuses.
During the public comment period, students spoke out against recent police crackdowns on Occupy camps on the Davis and Berkeley campuses.
UC leaders said they support students' right to demonstrate peacefully and will investigate a widely publicized UC Davis incident in which police pepper-sprayed sitting protesters.
"Today's meeting was a perfect opportunity for students and allies to show their solidarity with UC Berkeley and UC Davis students and speak against the UCPD's brutal beating and pepper spraying of students. Students also stood up to demand that the Regents join students in pushing for progressive tax measures and commercial property tax reform in 2012." said Claudia Magaña, UCSA President.
The regents were originally scheduled to meet in mid-November at the San Francisco-Mission Bay campus, but the session was scrapped when law enforcement warned that protests could turn violent.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.
