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It’s seven thirty on Sunday morning in California, and news is beginning to roll in from the two building occupations at UC Santa Cruz.
There were reports last night that the UCSC campus had been locked down, and claims that the police were planning to retake Kerr Hall and Kresge Town hall at midnight, but that deadline, real or imaginary, came and went without incident. Twitter reports this morning suggest that preparations for police action may be underway, though.
Another tidbit recently posted on Twitter is the news that UCSC professor Bettina Aptheker is planning to enter occupied Kerr Hall. No confirmation on that one either, yet, but Aptheker has made public statements in support of the activists. “I don’t understand why we’re afraid of students,” she said on Friday, reminding the university the protesters are committed to nonviolence.
Kresge Town Hall has been occupied since Wednesday night, and Kerr Hall since Thursday. The occupiers initially released a flamboyant 35-point list of demands, but on Friday they trimmed that back to a more moderate — and shorter — list.
Administrators turned off internet access to Kerr Hall on Friday evening, but communication with the outside world, previously minimal, picked up on Saturday anyway. One student on the scene kept up an ongoing liveblog Saturday evening, and as many as half a dozen Twitterers on the campus have been providing updates — you can find those feeds in the Student Activism UCWalkout2 Twitter list.
7:45 am | Multiple sources, including the UCSC student newspaper, confirm new police activity at Kerr Hall. One unconfirmed Twitter report says riot police have stormed the occupation.
8:05 am | Twitterer @geoffwildanger says the Kerr occupiers have rejected a request from police on the scene to remove the barricades they have set up.
8:25 am | Fifteen minutes after tweeting that the Kerr occupiers had chosen to hunker down behind their barricades, rejecting an offer from the police to end the occupation peacefully,@geoffwildanger tweets that the Kerr occupation has ended without arrests. I’m going to hold off on making any more updates until I get reliable, detailed new info.
9:05 am | New updates at Occupy California and Indybay shed light on the situation. According to OccupyCA, police breached the barricades at Kerr, but occupiers were then allowed to leave without charges. The group — of about fifty — marched en masse to Kresge, which is still under occupation. Indybay tells a similar story, adding the detail that an anthropology professor, Marc Anderson, “fell off a 12 foot staircase as police were forcing students and faculty off of the Kerr patio” and was removed from the scene by emergency personnel.
9:25 am | A new Santa Cruz Sentinel article quotes history professor Emily Honig, who was at Kerr since five o’clock this morning, as saying that “the way in which police force was called out in full gear and weaponry” was “regrettable,” and that she didn’t “think the situation demanded it.”
2:45 pm | The Santa Cruz Sentinel is reporting that Professor Anderson has been released from the hospital and has no major injuries. The Associated Press reports that students involved with the demonstration may still face criminal or disciplinary charges.
4:10 pm | The Kerr hall occupiers have released a statement giving their account of the end of the occupation. They say that the professor’s fall from the balcony was caused by “the administration’s use of force,” and that it took place at a moment when “students and neutral faculty observers were cornered by riot police on an outdoor balcony.” Responding to administration claims that Kerr Hall was left damaged or dirtied, they say that “over 75 students have already volunteered to help clean the space.”
The big story out of California on Friday was obviously the student takeover of Wheeler Hall at UC Berkeley, which lasted the entire day and ended in 41 arrests. With the 52 protesters arrested at Davis on Thursday and the 14 students arrested at the regents meeting in UCLA on Wednesday, that brings the week’s total to more than a hundred.
Berkeley wasn’t the only campus where Friday saw ongoing protests. At UC Santa Cruz, a student occupation of two buildings on campus — Kerr Hall and Kresge Town Hall — continued. Administrators cut off internet access to Kerr on Friday evening, but the occupation remained in effect overnight. In an effort to spur negotiations, activists trimmed their original 35-point list of demands to just seven.
At UC Davis, the site of more than fifty arrests on Thursday, students occupied administrative building Dutton Hall early Friday afternoon, but dispersed at the end of the day.
At CSU Fresno, part of the Cal State system, students took over the campus library on Friday evening, protesting cutbacks and calling for greater student involvement in university governance. The Fresno takeover, which as of early Saturday morning was still going on, is the latest in a string of library “study-ins” that have taken place this semester.
National media coverage of the protests continues to grow, with the New York Times and Time magazine running major new stories this morning.
I’ll have more details on yesterday’s events, and updates on today’s, in the coming hours.
12:00 pm | Students in Vienna, Austria report (Google translation) that they are demonstrating in front of the US embassy in that city at this hour, condemning the police violence associated with this week’s California student protests. Also, two students were arrested in New York City the night before last during the course of a roving march in support of the California protesters.
12:30 pm | The Cal State Fresno library sit-in ended peacefully this morning, in an agreement reached with the head of the library late last night. A report from Twitter posted moments ago states that the UCSC occupations are still ongoing, though it provides no details.
6:15 pm | A story posted to CNN’s website just one hour ago says that the UCSC administration intends “to wait out the takeover” rather than bringing in police and ending it with arrests.
I’ve just put up a short think piece about the events of the last few days at the University of California, but those events are worth describing in detail — particularly since they’re a long way from over. Here’s what happened yesterday:
The UC Regents, as expected, voted to impose huge fee increase on undergraduate and graduate students in the university. These new fees represent a tripling of undergraduate costs in the last decade, and a 50% jump since 2007.
After the vote students at UCLA surrounded Covel Hall, where the meeting had taken place, trapping the regents inside. When a group of regents tried to leave campus students surrounded their van, forcing them to retreat to a nearby building. It would be nearly three hours before they, and UC president Mark Yudof, were able to make their escape.
Even before the vote students had occupied two buildings in the UC system, and the afternoon saw two more takeovers.
Fifty-two students were arrested Thursday night at Mrak Hall, the UC Davis administration building, after they defied police orders to clear the building. One local media source said this morning that “dozens” of those arrested were held overnight.
Students at UC Santa Cruz had occupied Kresge Town Hall, an auditorium, on Wednesday evening, and on Thursday they expanded their action to include Kerr Hall, an administration building. Students in Kerr released a 35-point list of demands on Thursday night, and both occupations were apparently still ongoing as of early this morning.
At UCLA itself an occupation generated some controversy, as activists took over Campbell Hall, a building that houses tutoring facilities and services for students of color on campus, in the early morning hours before the regents’ vote. An article in the Daily Bruin suggested that the takeover was initiated primarily by non-UCLA students, and that local and non-local activists disagreed about the wisdom of occupying that building. The Campbell occupation ended peacefully last night with no arrests.
Afternoon update: The Campbell Hall occupiers have issued a response to their critics, and it’s well worth reading. You can find it here.
Yesterday’s events broke through into the national media in a way that student protests rarely do, gaining major coverage at CNN, the New York Times, and USA Today.
8:00 am | Several dozen students have apparently barricaded themselves inside Wheeler Hall in Berkeley, making that the fifth building occupation in the UC system in the last two days.
The University of California regents approved a 32% increase in undergraduate fees at a few minutes before one o’clock this afternoon. Student regent Jesse Bernal was the only vote in opposition.
Students are occupying Campbell Hall at UCLA and the Kresge Town Hall at UC Santa Cruz at this hour, as protests in front of the now-adjourned regents meeting continue.
One protester was arrested earlier today, but there have been no reports of any repeats of yesterday’s police violence.
Watch this space for further updates over the course of the afternoon.
1:20 pm | Student protesters have surrounded Covel Hall, where the regents meeting was held. As one Twitterer put it, “The #UCRegents aren’t leaving for a while.”
4:05 pm | It’s been a busy afternoon. The regents were stuck in or near Covel for more than two hours, and officials and police launched several failed attempts to move them before they were able to get them off campus. Most of the student demonstrators dispersed after the regents and UC President Mark Yudof left the area.
4:15 pm | Four buildings at three UC campuses are currently under occupation — Campbell Hall at UCLA and Kresge Town Hall at UCSC, both mentioned earlier, along with Kerr Hall at UCSC and Mrak Hall at UC Davis. Students at Kerr have been holding a mass meeting to discuss the terms and demands of their occupation, and students at Campbell are planning evening events. More on those occupations soon.
4:45 pm | There have been some clashes between police and the remaining student protesters around Covel. Not clear if any arrests have been made. Unconfirmed reports earlier suggested cops had detained at least two students, and Tasered at least two others. Will report more fully when verified information becomes available.
It’s afternoon in Croatia, day two of the international student protest symposium. I haven’t had internet access during the sessions, and I’ve been out drinking with the group in the evening, so I haven’t had a chance to post yet, but I’ve been taking lots of notes and I’ll have reports on all the presentations soon.
The conference is tremendous. Student activists and scholars from seven countries, sharing news and analyses of movements that most Americans haven’t yet had a chance to learn much about.
You’ll be hearing much more from me about their work long after the symposium ends.
studentactivism.net 
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