Raucous protesters fill SF Civic Center

By William Chamberlin, Alex Emslie and Greg Zeman
The Guardsman

More than 5,000 students, labor representatives and citizens concerned with California public education arrived at San Francisco Civic Center Plaza at 5 p.m. on March 5.

United Educators of San Francisco helped organize the San Francisco portion of a 40-California-county and 34-state cry against educational and labor budget cuts.

“Right now we are all suffering,” UESF President David Kelly said. “We don’t want to suffer anymore. We are here to change the priorities of California’s government.”
At the rally’s high point, the crowd swelled to approximately 10,000 and filled the plaza to Larkin Street.

“Look around you!,” Ocean campus Associated Students President Ryan Vanderpol shouted from the stage attached to a teamster semi. “If you are with me, you are outraged too!”

There were over 30 different community organizations on foot handing out flyers and signs.
There were dancers in assorted places through the crowd and even a girl walking by on stilts.

“I’m hoping that we can double or triple this for the March in March,” City College trustee Chris Jackson said. “We need that type of a movement to get these politicians to recognize that prisons are one thing and education is a whole separate other thing, and to prioritize prisons over education is an abomination.”

Numerous speakers at the rally encouraged students to sign petitions and vote to change California tax and budget policies they blamed for the current crisis in public sector funding.

Hal Hundsman, president of the City College Academic Senate, said the large turnout was indicative of the dire situation faced by state-funded schools.

“It reflects the fact that this is the most serious crisis in City College’s budget, ever,” Hundsman said. “You talk to people who have been at City College for forty years and they’ll tell you it’s never been this bad before. The state has never said, ‘we’re going to cut you’ like it has been.”

Some of the loudest voices at the rally came from a large group of SF State students.
“We do not have a future without an education,” SF State student Maisha Johnson said. “We cannot put this on the back burner.”