March 4, with its nationwide student demonstrations, proved a national “Day of Action.” Across the country, from Massachusetts to California, college students held protests to show their anger over state budget cuts and rises in tuition fees.
At the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, students met in the Student Union and marched to the Whitmore Administration Building, where they, along with some community members, voiced their concerns about the fate of public higher education and espoused their view that public higher education should be free. In Alabama, demonstrators urged legislators to avoid budget cuts and save the state’s prepaid tuition program. At the main campus of the University of Illinois, graduate students and professors carried signs saying “Furlough Legislators.”
Though most protests went on peacefully, a few involved violence. In one case, protesters threw ice chunks at campus officers and broke window shields. In Olympia, Washington State, students attempted to hold a mock funeral in the State Senate Building, but were tossed out when their singing of “Amazing Grace” was deemed too disruptive. At the University of Wisconsin, the police broke up crowds using pepper spray and arrested 15 people.
California was arguably the epicenter of the March 4 protests. In total thousands of students gathered on University of California campuses, many arguing that public education in California is being privatized as budgets go down and tuition soars. Layoffs and furloughs became more commonplace, they said, as students suffered greatly from reductions in course offerings. When throngs moved from the UCB campus to Oakland, where the university system headquarters are located, 150 people were arrested when they stopped the traffic along an interstate in Oakland.
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