UC Berkeley students, SJSU protest against Trump Higher Ed Agenda

Students and teachers of California and the nation organized coordinated demonstrations on Thursday to collectively repel what they consider as attacks by the Trump administration against higher education.

In the Greater Bay region, protest rallies against federal funding cuts and others took place at the University of Stanford, California State University – East Bay, UC Santa Cruz, UC Berkeley and San Jose State University.

“This is a problem that goes beyond questions of academic freedom,” said Robert Reich, former labor secretary and current professor of the public policy of the Berkeley, during the University’s demonstration on Thursday. “It goes in the fundamental sense of freedom in this country.

The national day of action comes when the Trump administration has unveiled several decrees and policies targeting higher education, ranging from the revocation of international student visas and the reduction of research funding for the reduction of the participation of transgender athletes and the opening of investigations on alleged anti -Semitism on campuses, including hundreds of faculty members at the University of California.

The administration threatened to retain the financing of elite universities if they do not comply with the requests – the threats that Trump officials have confirmed $ 400 million in Federal funding at Columbia University and, more recently, the freezing of $ 2 billion at Harvard University after university officials refused to eliminate the diversity, equity and inclusion programs Masks to campus demonstrations and modification of admission policies.

Hundreds of people gathered on Thursday at the Plaza Sproll of the UC Berkeley, the place of birth of the movement of freedom of expression. Students and professors have held posters with the student’s face of Columbia University, Mahmoud Khalil, who was detained by immigration agents in his house belonging to Columbia University last month for his role in the demonstrations against the War of Israel-Hamas, and bore pins with the name of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man from Maryland, El Salvador series. A range of signs and banners reading “education and not censorship”, “do not break, the kill cuts” and “the freedom to learn and protest” pointed out what motivated people to present themselves.

Caden Payne, a Junior UC Berkeley studying data science, said that he had never been manifested before, but said it was important to attend the demonstration.

“The threatening reductions for research for organizations fighting climate change affect people like me who do important work,” said Payne. “It is important to have the power of people who meet in a group. We may not be powerful individually, but we are when we meet. ”

For Tianna Paschel, professor of African-American studies by emphasizing authoritarianism, Thursday’s demonstration aimed to live the community while resulting from what it said to be attacks on African-American studies, women’s rights and progress made under the third party and UC Berkeley Liberation Front in the late 1960s.

“All what I think is being attacking,” said notchel, who released his class from the class and in Sproul Plaza to attend the demonstration. “What makes me feel full of hope and gives me energy is that it is a place where you can find a community in courage. It is a place where you will not feel alone to retaliate and it is a place where there will always be a sustained resistance of a certain kind. It is good.”

At the San Jose State University, more than 100 educators, students and local and state leaders met to defend academic freedom, freedom of expression and diversity. The members of California Faculty Association also called on the State to provide additional funding to California universities following Trump funding discounts.

The San Jose State speaker, Amanda Smith, said Thursday as an opportunity to “plant the seed” so that students and teachers feel empowered to denounce Trump’s actions, while the speaker and poet Anne F. Walker said it was important to protest against her colleagues who were not able to do so.

“I am a white woman of American origin of average age at the end of a teacher career. I have more protections than many people,” said Walker. “For me, being here is important … for people who cannot. I no longer want to be in a situation where we can no longer speak. ”

Karen Reyes, an elderly person from San Jose’s state, said that Thursday, it was the first time that he has protested since he protested the victory of Trump’s first term in 2016. She said she was missing the course to attend the rally because if she did not fight for education, she is worried, they “will not have any education”.

“Our current president wants us to be without instruction so that they can shape us in what they want us to be,” said Reyes.