San Diego students walk out

SAN DIEGO--March 31 was a National Day of Student Walkouts and Strikes, and students at San Diego City College answered the call.

Students here are angry after finding out that San Diego Community College District plans to cut more than 1,000 classes, with as many as 20,000 students will be turned away in the coming semesters. Summer school has been canceled at Mesa Community College, and it will most likely be canceled at San Diego City College. Tuition is set to rise from $26 a unit to $36 a unit.

Meanwhile, California's community colleges are facing a $400 million reduction in funding, including $10 million in reductions for San Diego Community College District alone, which will mean fewer resources and classes for students to choose from and layoffs for workers.

Education For All and the City College Socialist Club organized the day's events and originally made a call for students to walk out at 11:30 a.m. That call was later extended to include a walkout at 9:45 a.m. as a way to try to link up a yearly Cesar Chavez March, organized by the San Diego and Imperial County Labor Council, which was starting at City College.

The 9:45 a.m. walkout managed to draw out about 70 students that linked up with the Cesar Chavez March. Unfortunately, the speeches at the march emphasized electoral strategies, withheld criticism of the Gov. Jerry Brown's austerity plan and excluded critical voices.

As the labor-led Chavez march was heading downtown, a handful of students turned back to City College to rally people for the 11:30 a.m. walkout. These militant students made their way back to campus, chanting "Tax the rich, sí se puede!" and "Money for jobs and education, not for war and incarceration" through the streets of downtown.

The 11:30 a.m. walkout was electrifying with about 100 students gathering to make their way around all corners of the campus chanting "Walk out, walk out, walk out for your education."

The numbers swelled to about 400 students, and chants included "No cuts, no fees--education should be free" and "Tell me what democracy looks like--this is what democracy looks like." Then students headed inside the library, disrupting the library's quiet policy and making it clear: "Who's library? Our library!"

As students exited the library, they headed to the street. B Street was taken over as students sat on the street and halted traffic. After some more spirited chanting and feeling confident, the students continued on the streets and marched into more school buildings before ending up at the initial gathering point, where a speakout was held, and about a dozen student speakers and faculty addressed the crowd about the budget cuts, ongoing wars and the broken capitalist system, among other things.

AS THE speakout was coming to an end and students were getting ready to make their way downtown, the Cesar Chavez march was making its way back to City College--where a few rank-and-file unionists joined the students for another go around campus before marching downtown again.

When the students finally started their way downtown, there was a scary moment as a women driving a white SUV tried to push her way through protesters--hitting students along the way. Students then surrounded the SUV to plead with the driver to stop, to no avail.

Protesters continued downtown until reaching the Federal Building. There, a debate took place among students as to where to go next. Organizers argued that protesters should march to the State Building, sit on the street and talk about next steps in the movement. Others argued that protesters should march in front of the NBC building to get the media's attention so that to get a wider hearing. An organizer countered that the media is not our friend, and that in fact, most of the time, the media does a good job of distorting our message.

By a slim margin, students voted to go to the State Building and set off, chanting, "The students, united, will never be defeated!"

When protesters arrived at the State Building and sat down on Front Street, police were forced to shut down traffic. There, student organizers and others talked about what it will take to keep the movement going to make an impact on the budget cuts, referencing what the youth have been able to do in Egypt, Tunisia and Wisconsin as examples on how to fight back.

As the students made their way back to City College, they were still loud, energetic and enthusiastic, even after hours of marching in what felt like a hot summer day.

As the event came to an end, cops pulled to the side one of the protesters, who happened to be Black, apparently to question him about damaging the white SUV that earlier tried to run over protesters. As soon as the remaining protesters heard, they confronted the cops and chanted, "Let him go, let him go!" relentlessly until the cops let the student go--but not before the cops got his information and advised him that the women driving the white SUV would press charges. Organizers are now considering following up with a lawsuit of their own against the driver.

Students came out of the day feeling confident that their collective voice was heard.