Official Support by Day and Threatened Arrest by Night for Cal State Fullerton Protesters
As reported by the student Daily Titan coverage here and here, administrators seemed to be behind protests against budget cuts, tuition hikes and employee furloughs as they sprawled across Cal State Fullerton much of Tuesday's daylight hours.
But, as evidenced in another Daily Titan story here, the official kumbayas dissipated by that evening, when about 40 students staging a Pollak Library "sit-in" were threatened with arrest by campus security.
"The students have a great opportunity to protest, and I agree with them. I think they should," CSUF president Milton Gordon told the Daily Titan. "I too disagree with the way the state has acted, but you know we were all cut $584 million, and for this campus alone it's going to be reduced over $38 million."
Protesters also won the backing of campus representatives from the associated student body and the California Faculty Association.But, that night inside the library, protesting students refused to leave before the 9 p.m. closing time until an administrator or university official would come answer their questions about how the budget cuts were implemented and who decided which departments would be scaled back by how much, the Daily Titan reported.
The demonstrators claimed they were willing to undergo arrest as three campus police officers arrived at the scene. An eyewitness told the Weekly the confrontation then became more heated and at least one student was handcuffed.
However, the protesters apparently left without confrontation after a library official spoke with them around 9:45 p.m., advising them of the university's "open-door policy" regarding administrators responding to student concerns, according to the paper.
In other words, go tell it to President Gordon.
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