Mark Yudof and the regents ignore this movement at their own peril-their plans to raise tuition by 32 percent will likely spark a real revolt on campus, and Sept. 24 is simply the very beginning of what promises to be a long, hot autumn. UC graduate students have now begun organizing, too. We have had nearly 700 graduate students from every campus in the system declare that they will honor the walkout and suspend teaching on that date. We understand that the issues here are complex, but the fault for the current crisis can’t simply be blamed on the state budget. The crisis we face is both real and artificial: real because the recession, combined with deep-seated inequalities in California’s tax structure, has resulted in a severe drop in state funding; artificial because the university can easily meet the budget gap by tapping unrestricted reserve funds from its revenue-generating wings and by trimming its substantial administrative excess.

Read full article [here].
by Jasper Bernes and Chris Chen, The Daily Californian.

Posted: September 15th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.