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Over 600 SFSU students walked out of their classes and blocked traffic May 1st to protest further cuts to California's education system. The students protested a proposed increase to next semester's fee increase, which is an increase of 113 percent since 2002. The proposed increase of student fees are a part of a $14.65 million cut to next year's SFSU budget and part of a larger $4.8 billion budget cut to California's education system. As a result essential services will have to be cut, people will lose their jobs, students will have fewer classes and be forced to pay more for less.
The All-Alumni Reunion Luncheon held in the College 9/10 multipurpose room at UC Santa Cruz on April 26th was interrupted when students marched in demanding fair contracts for UCSC's underpaid service workers. The luncheon was part of the annual UCSC Reunion Weekend where alumni were invited back to campus to "learn how innovation is going global, sip wine, tour new facilities on campus, explore the "unnatural" history of UCSC, and more..." The brief interruption was widely supported by alumni who clapped, smiled, listened, and took souvenir photos as students passed out flyers, chanted and spoke on stage to inform alumni about the contract campaign for UC service workers.
On April 22nd, Students Against War organized a counter-recruitment action against the presence of military recruiters at UCSC's "Last Chance Job & Internship Fair." Outside the career fair, students demonstrated with banners, flyers, zines, photos from Iraq, theatre of tortured detainees, juggling and more. Meanwhile on the inside, student protestors were dancing, questioning military and FBI recruiters, chanting and otherwise disrupting the recruiting efforts of the FBI, Army, Marines and Police.
Thousands of students from around the Monterey and San Francisco Bay Areas participated in a "Four Twenty" celebration in Porter Meadow at UC Santa Cruz on April 20th, 2008. Four Twenty (420) is a time of day when people, often a group of friends, smoke cannabis together or eat foods cooked with it. For that reason, April 20th has evolved into a counterculture holiday where people gather to celebrate and consume cannabis.
On April 17th, community supporters and student activists at D-Q University received letters from the Yolo County District Attorney that informed them that the charges against the 18 arrested on campus on March 31, 2008 have been dropped. D-Q University is California’s only Tribal College and was founded in 1971 by Native American and Chicano activists. Friends of D-Q U will continue to demand justice for the three students arrested on February 20, 2008 on campus, as well as the two who were arrested as they slept next to the sweat lodge on ceremonial grounds on April 2, 2008. D-Q U's ASB and supporters are demanding an end to the harassment against the students by the Board of Trustees, the Yolo County Sheriffs Department and the Yolo County Board of Supervisors by writing letters to local and national officials.
Addy writes, "Since the administration is closing campus on 4/20, the UCSC students are extending an invitation to everyone to come up on Friday, April 18th to take over the quad. We'll have our 4/20 celebration early, to let them know that it is our campus, that we pay THEM. This new 4/20 policy is draconian and unnecessary as there have been no issues in the past."
At 9:45 in the morning of March 31st, a large force of Yolo County Sheriffs stormed the buildings at D-Q University, battering their way into the hallway of the large dorm with guns drawn, and arresting 18 students, community supporters, and elders. In a similar incident on February 20th, Sheriff's deputies came onto the sovereign campus and arrested three students. The students arrested on February 20th have their court date on Wednesday, April 2nd at 7:30am at the Woodland Courthouse and they have put out a call for supporters to attend. The court date for the 18 people arrested on March 31st is not yet known.