California Needs to Fund Public Education and Social Services, Not Prisons
By Amy Vanderwarker, Critical Resistance and Matt Haney, University of California Students Association
Last Wednesday night, more than one thousand students and campus workers at University of California Berkeley held a day of action protesting budget cuts and fee increases to build momentum toward a state-wide demonstration at the UC Regents meeting on November 17th. Like other Occupy movements around the country, the crowd was cleared with police violence and mass arrests. The irony was not lost on one professor, who noted that the sharp rise in student debt has occurred during a period where prison funding has consistently been prioritized over funding for higher education.