Sacramento -- Five UC students were arrested Monday
at the office of Assemblyman Jim Nielsen after refusing to leave unless the Gerber (Tehama County) Republican pledged to preserve funding for higher education and increase student diversity.
Dubbed "the Nielsen Five" by fellow students, those arrested at the Capitol were part of a 200-student lobbying effort intended to be a departure from the raucous, sometimes violent student protests on university campuses in recent months. More buttoned-down but equally angry, the students aimed their demands for more funding at state legislators Monday.
As Nielsen refused to meet with the students, California Highway Patrol officers guarded his door, and Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, tried to mediate the situation. He praised the five as they were led away.
"My hat's off to them," said Yee, who favors increased funding for UC. "Those are brave students."
It was a dramatic moment that stood in contrast to a day when small groups of students in business attire met with lawmakers or their aides to express frustration at Sacramento's failure to maintain its world-class public university systems. The students urged them to create a dedicated funding stream for higher education, fully fund Cal
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/02/BATB1C769N.DTL#ixzz0h1Sl2But