Op-Ed: An Account of the Last CSU Trustees Meeting
On Wednesday, November 16th, I was a part of the California State University anti-austerity protest at Long Beach. The police present beat students and facilitated the passing of the CSU Trustees’ anti-democratic, extortive, and unnecessary fee hike. I was arrested for four violent felonies stemming loosely from the breaking of a door; despite the fact that video evidence has surfaced which clearly exonerates me from breaking the door, and despite the fact that the District Attorney has explicitly rejected these and other charges, the CSU Trustees and their police have been adamant about pinning whatever they can on me, and the Long Beach City Prosecutor has finally caved to their demands. I am facing ridiculous but serious charges—and I need your help to get them dropped.
Around 30 UCLA students—including me—bussed over to CSU LB that morning to join CSU students from across the state in solidarity, to protest their Trustees’ proposed 9% fee hike. The Trustees are a completely undemocratic body—they are unelected financiers who rule with impunity over their school system, and have been actively raising student fees (a code-word for tuition, since—according to the California Mater Plan—tuition at public universities is illegal). There is no effective or substantive mode of student input, and so no way for us to
