Thirty-one student supporters of local activist group Students Stand Up (Twitter feed) were arrested during protests against budget cuts at the University of Vermont yesterday.

At three o’clock yesterday a group of about a hundred UVM students staged a sit-in at the offices of university president Dan Fogel. Seven of those students sat in inside Fogel’s suite, and were arrested in the afternoon, while the rest of the students, protesting immediately outside the presidential offices, were allowed to remain for a time.

According to the Burlington Free Press, the students’ list of thirteen demands included “revoking recent reductions in faculty, capping tuition increases at the rate of inflation and recovering all the bonuses paid to administrators in 2008 and 2009.”

At 9:30 in the evening the university shut the building to incoming students. It was announced that the building would close at ten o’clock, and that students who remained after closing would be subject to arrest. About half the sixty students then occupying the building left before arrests began, but at least twenty-five — including at least one who had been arrested earlier in the day — were booked on trespassing charges. 

By the time police began making arrests, several hundred students had gathered outside the building in support of the sit-in. All but one of the protesters were released immediately after being booked.

A rally at the university’s library is planned for noon today. I’ll update this post as news comes in.

April 24 morning update: About a hundred students attended the noon rally, where students called for UVM president Dan Fogel’s resignation. Plans for more actions are in the works. Also, Students Stand Up has a Facebook group.