A.R.'s Day of Action

I think that this protest was highly under-publicized and ill-planned.
Prior to the day of the protest, friends of mine were surprised to hear
that one of my classes was going to be cancelled because they weren’t
aware of the protest at all. Even walking through campus didn’t feel
like it was a protest day. Last spring, there were picketers stationed in
numerous locations on campus. Aside from the picketers at Telegraph and
Bancroft, the only similarity I noticed between this fall and last spring
was the pulling of fire alarms in classrooms. I don’t think the
protesters should try to gain support in that way because some students
still go to class and try to get work done on protest days and pulling
the fire alarms inhibits that. Also, the mob of protesters going into
lecture halls during class time and yelling for people to leave bothered
me because if people had wanted to participate in the walkout, they would
have.

I understand the frustration with fee increases, but I feel as
though it is impossible things at Cal to remain the same when the
state of California is disinvesting money in public education. In
order for the school to continue to be the high caliber institution
that it is, money has to come from somewhere. I think it’s strange
that students protest fee increases that will help to keep Cal a
premiere university when the students themselves voted in favor of
the B.E.A.R.S Initiative last spring, as that increased the student
fees as well.