Thousands Expected at Today's Cal State Protests

A ``Stand up for public higher education'' rally will be held at all statewide California State University campuses including Long Beach State on Thursday, with thousands of students and faculty expected to protest tuition hikes and other policy.

Locally, some of the demonstrations include a 10 a.m. ``Occupy Education'' walk-out at the Cal State Los Angeles bookstore, at 5151 State University Drive; a noon rally and march protesting tuition increases at Cal State Dominguez Hills, Loker Student Union, 1000 E. Victoria St., in Carson, and a noon rally against privatization at Cal State Long Beach's upper quad.

Long Beach State's student organizer Donnie Bessom, a graduate student and campus academic tutor, said Wednesday that student and faculty rallies have been drawing about 2,000 to 3,000 attendees, and word has spread about this latest.

"It's a student protest but we have a pretty big teacher-activist community," said Bessom, president of The Graduate Student Assn., organizer for Students for Quality Education, which is a statewide student body-led group that will be at all the campus protests today.

Bessom said the plan is for students and faculty to walk-out of classes underway at 11:30 a.m. and protestors will meet at the campus upper quad by noon. Faculty organizers have staged protests previously about high salaries of CSU executive officers and college presidents while contractor teachers have been hired rather than real employees who work closest with students.

"The rally is directed at the state legislature and at the (CSU) Chancellor, Bessom continued. "And Chancellor (Charles E.) Reed was brought in to privatize the university system in 1998. He's trying to bust the teacher's union. He pays an outside consulting firm $4,000 a day to figure out how to bust the teachers union."

A spokesman for Reed could not be reached late Wednesday but said during faculty protests in November that the statewide budget crisis that is forcing tuition hikes has required tough budget cutting choices, including the hiring of temporary rather than permanent professors.

The Long Beach State faculty union representative, Asian American Studies professor Teri Yamada, will be an organizer of today's rally on campus.

Elsewhere, more protest rallies include a 12:30 p.m. ``Occupy Education: Reclaim Your Education'' rally and workshops at Cal State Northridge, Oviatt Library steps.