Thousands Parade at SDSU to Protest Proposed Cutbacks in Classes, Faculty

Thousands of students and faculty members jammed the “free speech” area of San Diego State University Wednesday in a mass walkout to protest proposed budget cuts that would cancel hundreds of classes and lay off hundreds of teachers this fall.

Organizers promised that the day-long rally--the third in less than a month at the Montezuma Mesa campus, would not be the last and called for a statewide march of students on the Capitol in Sacramento for June 1.

On Wednesday, the crowd first listened for much of the morning to dozens of impassioned speakers who denounced what they called the state’s low priority for education and warned of disastrous effects on campus as a result of the cutbacks. President Thomas Day has ordered 10% cuts throughout the university, totaling $19.6 million of a planned $151-million budget, as a consequence of the state’s $12.6-billion budget deficit.

At noon, the protesters then surged into marching formation and began moving through campus. At the height of the march, the line was a quarter of a mile long, and reached 6,000 people, according to campus police.

The marchers had stopped in front of the administration building, where their clapping and chanting reached a feverish pitch, when a group of people suddenly stormed the doors.

“A couple hundred entered,” campus Police Chief John Carpenter, said. “That kind of detracted from the positive energy they had all day. The employees were a little scared in there.” Day, whose office is on the first floor, was in Washington attending a National Science Foundation meeting.

The protesters marched around the first floor, which houses student records, for about 10 minutes, then sat on the floor for another 10 minutes, according to student Nina Sakamoto, who works at the counter where the protesters entered.

“It was pretty peaceful,” she said. “I wish I could have been in it, but I was working. It was exciting to me, because people say how they protested during the Vietnam War, and we never got to experience that.”

Several students made their way to the top of the three-story building and held a sign out the window which read, “CUT WILSON,” drawing a huge cheer from the crowd below.

Organizers of the day-long protest, mostly students, later apologized to Carpenter for the unplanned invasion. There were no arrests or reports of damage, police said.

The day began with panel discussions of students and teachers presenting the background behind the cuts and their probably impacts on SDSU. Another panel met in the afternoon to discuss what could be done to soften the impact of the state-wide crisis in college funding.

“Today is a crucial day,” student organizer Tim Doring said. “Schools across the state know we are having this. They’re watching to see what happens, how much attention we draw. This is really just the beginning.”

Doring said organizers are trying to gather support the Sacramento march on June 1. He hopes to gain the full support of the student government to help network with colleges across the state to participate in the march.

About 8,000 students have signed a petition asking the state legislature to reject Wilson’s proposed budget cuts, Doring said. Meanwhile, students signed related petitions and wrote messages on giant-size letters stapled to plywood boards surrounding the free-speech area. Other students made videotaped messages that would also be sent.

Although most of the students at the teach-in had skipped classes for the day, some went to class only to find few students, or that the class had been canceled altogether.

Sophomore Leila Campbell went to an African studies class to find she was one of three people there. The teacher came in and announced he was canceling class to attend the protest.

“There’s only three weeks left in school,” Campbell said. “This is going to put our lectures behind and we could have gotten through it today.”

But in some classes, most students showed up despite their sympathy for the teach-in. Abdullah Hussain, a computer science major, said all but four or five of the students in his morning calculus class showed up.

“I need to make good grades,” he said. But he made time for the noon march. “I’m out here now.”

Between panel discussions, rock music was played, and an airplane flew overhead towing a protest banner.

A microphone was passed around in the crowd. Students took turns expressing their fears of not being able to pay the increased tuition fees. English Prof. Fred Moramarco took the microphone.

“I’ve been a teacher here for 20 years,” the adviser for graduate studies in the department, told the crowd, “and I’ve never been more proud of the student body than on this day.”

University spokesman George Cole said that Day, although out of town this week, will listen very carefully to the concerns raised by the students. Day has met with students and faculty several times in recent weeks.