Superintendent: Students Actions Regrettable

It's regrettable that hundreds of student protesters stormed the Santa Monica College Board of Trustees meeting Tuesday night, disrupting the meeting and setting off fire alarms, Superintendent Chui L. Tsang said today in a statement.

As many as 30 of the students and college staffers were treated by firefighters  after a campus police officer discharged pepper spray, hospitalizing three people. Tsang said the police used pepper spray to "preserve public and personal safety."

He did not weigh in on the use of pepper spray to quell the crowd.

"Santa Monica College regrets that a group of people chose to disrupt a public meeting in an unlawful manner," Tsang said. "Although a number of participants at the meeting engaged in unlawful conduct, Santa Monica College police personnel exercised restraint and made no arrests."

The angry students were rallying in opposition to the college offering higher-priced courses this summer and winter that aren't subsidized by the state. The to save classes that would otherwise be eliminated in the wake of state budget cuts.

The Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday that the California Community Colleges Chancellor Jack Scott has asked Tsang to put the plan on hold. Trustees said during their meeting Tuesday night that they would move forward with it, despite demands from students to initiate a campus-wide referendum.

The plan is to augment 700 regularly scheduled state-subsidized classes at $46 per credit unit for California residents, an increase of 25 percent more classes than last summer. About 50 extra self-funded classes in the pilot program will be offered at the college’s actual cost, which is $180 per credit unit, or $540 for a typical 3-unit course.

"As California’s public post-secondary educational capacity contracts, so do the life prospects of many young Californians. A tragic number of students are currently being turned away from community colleges and CSU campuses," Tsang said. "SMC’s move comes in the midst of a State budget crisis that has had devastating effects on college students in California for the last four years."

In reacting to the campus police's use of pepper spray, Trustee Judge Finkel called it a "black eye" on the college.

Tsang said students who were pepper-sprayed could submit their hospital bills to the Student Affairs Office.