SANTA MONICA, CALIF. — Police at a California college pepper-sprayed as many as 30 demonstrators as students angry over a plan to offer high-priced courses tried to push their way into a trustees meeting, authorities said, as state officials said they were reconsidering the policy.
“Let us in, let us in,” protesters shouted on video posted online Tuesday. “No cuts, no fees, education should be free.”
Santa Monica College students were angry because only a handful were allowed into the meeting and, when their request to move the meeting to a larger venue was denied, they began to enter the room, said David Steinman, an environmental advocate.
The state agency that oversees California’s community colleges asked the attorney general Wednesday to assess the legality of a school’s plan to charge students more for popular classes.
Officials at the California Community Colleges system chancellor’s office do not believe the plan is allowed under the state’s education law, spokesman Paul Feist said. Chancellor Jack Scott spoke to Santa Monica College President Chui Tsang, asking that the plan be put on hold, but Mr. Tsang was noncommittal, Mr. Feist said.
The pepper-spray incident occurred in a narrow hallway packed with shouting protesters. The videos show a chaotic scene with some struggles between demonstrators and police.
Two officers were apparently backed up against a wall and began using force to keep the students out of the room. Mr. Steinman said both officers used pepper spray. “People were gasping and choking,” he said.
Marioly Gomez said she was standing in a hallway outside the meeting with several hundred other students who wanted to get in. “I got pepper-sprayed without warning,” she said.
“It was the judgment of police that the crowd was getting out of hand and it was a safety issue,” college spokesman Bruce Smith said. He said he believed it was the first time pepper spray had been used to subdue students on campus.
Santa Monica College, which has about 30,000 students, was calm Wednesday.
The new plan involves the formation of a nonprofit foundation that would offer core courses for about $600 each, or about $200 per unit - about four times the current price. The extra courses at the higher rate would help students who were not able to get into in-demand classes that filled up quickly.
The program is designed to cope with rising student demand as state funds dwindle. The move has raised questions about whether it would create two tiers of students in a system designed to make education accessible to everyone.
Video of a pepper spray incident at University of California, Davis, in November drew worldwide attention. In that footage, an officer doused a row of student protesters with pepper spray as they sat passively. It became a rallying point for the Occupy Wall Street movement.
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