A man wearing a jacket that reads “Anti Genocide Social Club” records a livestream of a line of CHP officers between Royce Hall and Haines Hall on May 2, 2024.
The “Palestine solidarity encampment” was set up a week ago, joining national student protests calling for universities to divest from companies with military ties to Israel and opposing the crackdown on student protesters nationwide.
The heavy police presence included a mix of officers from the Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, California Highway Patrol and UC Police Department, according to multiple news sources.
A police officer grabs a protester by the back of their jacket to stop him from moving toward the encampment on May 2, 2024. Credit: Brandon Morquecho / Daily Bruin Photo Editor
As of late Wednesday night, hundreds of students remained gathered both inside and near the encampment. Students inside the encampment reportedly prepared for police to enter by fortifying the encampment with “makeshift walls” as police in riot gear began lining up near the encampment.
Some students were willing to be arrested or defend the encampment, with others expecting the police sweep to occur sometime after 1 a.m. Protesters were seen wearing hard helmets, goggles and respirators, according CalMatters, as they waited for police to take action.
Increasing numbers of police began arriving shortly after issuing the unlawful assembly order at 6 p.m. Wednesday, CBS News rteported. By around 10:30 p.m., police officers in riot gear began approaching one of the encampment’s barricaded entrances as a crowd of students chanted “Viva, viva Palestina,” or “Free, free Palestine” in Spanish.
In recent weeks, hundreds of university students and faculty have been arrested across the nation for setting up similar pro-Palestinian encampments.
Increasingly, faculty have spoken up about the campus leaders’ reliance on police to disperse student protests. Such decisions have been made by campus leaders at the University of Southern California, Columbia University, Cal Poly Humboldt, University of Texas Austin, Emory University and several other schools.
“What I found appalling is, to send armed riot police means you practically take into consideration that students might get harmed. So the university, again, kind of failed to protect its students,” said tenured professor of genocide studies Wolf Gruner in a recent Los Angeles Public Press interview.
Faculty have also joined some student encampments, such as Graeme Blair, UCLA associate professor of political science and a member of Faculty for Justice in Palestine.
In a text to the Daily Bruin, UCLA’s student paper, Blair confirmed that “professors inside the encampment ‘plan to be arrested alongside students who have done nothing but talk about a genocide taking place in Palestine.’”
He also stated: “I’m disgusted that after the university failed to protect students simply standing up for causes they believe from an anti-Palestinian mob that tonight they have chosen to endanger students once again by calling in the police. Any harm on students tonight is on them.”
In his comment, Blair referred to the violent events that unfolded at the UCLA campus between Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning when students within the encampment were attacked by around 100 counterdemonstrators supporting Israel.
The counterprotesters arrived on the campus around 10:30 p.m. Tuesday and within the hour began trying to tear down the barricades at the encampment, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The violence escalated within hours, as the pro-Israel protesters threw objects at the encampment and fireworks rained down. Fights also broke out when counterprotesters attempted to break the barricade. Students in the encampment also told the Times that they were hit by a substance they believed was pepper spray. Some people in the encampment were seen being treated for eye irritation, the Times reported.
During the altercation, journalists reporting for the Daily Bruin were also attacked. A group of four student reporters were verbally harassed, beaten, kicked and pepper sprayed. At least one of them went to the hospital and has since been released.
Police were slow to respond to the violence, according to multiple reporters at the site, which local, state, and federal leaders condemned.
One such person was Gov. Gavin Newsom, who commented on the events Wednesday morning on X, formerly Twitter: “I condemn the violence at UCLA last night. The law is clear: The right to free speech does not extend to inciting violence, vandalism, or lawlessness on campus. Those who engage in illegal behavior must be held accountable for their actions — including through criminal prosecution, suspension, or expulsion.”
The violence waned by around 3:45 a.m.
Hours later, University of California President Michael Drake ordered an investigation into how UCLA handled the violent demonstrations.
Following Wednesday’s violence, the president of the union representing UC’s non-senate faculty and librarians called for the resignation of UCLA Chancellor Gene Block.
“We call for the immediate resignation of Chancellor Gene Block for his failure of leadership. Chancellor Block has refused to meet with protestors to discuss their interests; instead he has created an environment that has escalated tensions and failed to take meaningful action to prevent the violence that occurred last night,” said Katie Rodger, president of the University Council-AFT in a joint statement with Jeff Freitas, president of the statewide California Federation of Teachers.
Netty Hull, an instructor in Yakima Valley College’s teacher education program, speaks with a group of students.
Credit: Michael Burke/EdSource
Up the West Coast in Washington state, some students want a bachelor’s degree to enter careers like teaching and nursing but don’t have a local four-year university to attend. Fortunately for them, they have another option: getting that degree from a community college.
It’s an idea that California has taken steps to embrace, with the passage of a law three years ago allowing the state’s community college system to approve up to 30 new bachelor’s degrees annually, not just associate degrees and certificates. But some officials and advocates believe the colleges could be doing more if not for restrictions on what they can offer.
LESSONS IN HIGHER EDUCATION
California leads the nation in many areas of higher education, including educating the largest number of undergraduates at 2.3 million. The state is also grappling with issues that are being tackled by other public universities across the country. This story is part of a continuing EdSource series on issues and innovations that relate to California’s higher education systems.
— Rose Ciotta, Investigations and Projects Editor
The key, they say, is making bachelor’s degrees available to place-bound students — those who can only attend college close to home, usually because of work or family commitments. That has become a reality in Washington state, where community colleges in rural areas can offer essentially any bachelor’s degree as long as they demonstrate there’s a regional workforce need and that students will enroll in the program.
“Just because they’re in an isolated community, that does not mean the community members should not have access to higher education,” said Constance Carroll, president of the California Community College Baccalaureate Association.
In California, community colleges can only offer four-year degrees in programs not offered by the state’s four-year universities. That takes away the option to create degrees in majors like education and nursing, even as those industries face worker shortages. Reversing that would require legislative change and would surely face pushback from California State University. The 23-campus CSU system, with unstable enrollment at several campuses, is loath to lose potential students to the community colleges.
The rules even apply to community colleges in remote and rural areas without a CSU or University of California campus. That’s particularly troublesome for advocates who argue that students in those regions are being left behind. Instead of traveling to another part of the state to attend a CSU or UC campus, in many cases they are not going to college at all, leading to low degree attainment and workforce shortages in those regions.
“Duplication limitations hurt all of our students, especially those who are place-bound,” Melissa Villarin, a spokesperson for the community college system, said in an email.
The landscape could start to change with legislation being considered by California lawmakers, Senate Bill 895. The bill would permit up to 15 community colleges to offer bachelor’s degrees in nursing. If it passes, it could set a precedent for allowing community colleges to offer degrees already offered by CSU.
In Washington, a different reality
Saray Preciado decided to go to college during the Covid-19 pandemic after being laid off from her paralegal job. With a newborn daughter, she wanted to advance her career so her family didn’t have to rely only on her husband’s income.
A resident of Yakima, a city of about 98,000 in central Washington, Preciado initially considered a few colleges, including the closest four-year university, Central Washington University. But the 45-minute commute from Yakima made that untenable. With her husband working until 4 p.m. every day, Preciado needed to be with her daughter during the day.
Yakima Valley College’s campusCredit: Michael Burke / EdSource
Yakima Valley, which caters to students like Preciado by offering evening classes, was the obvious choice.
“I’ve always dreamed about being a teacher,” she said. “So I thought, let me just give it a shot.”
She graduated from the program last month and will start in the fall as a bilingual teacher at nearby Moxee Elementary.
Like California, bachelor’s degrees at Washington’s community colleges can’t duplicate what’s offered at the state’s four-year universities. But whether a degree is considered duplicative isn’t as simple as whether a similar program is offered at a four-year college. Officials there consider additional factors, especially location.
“There are a whole lot of students who are choosing not to go into higher ed,” said Valerie Sundby, director of transfer education with the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges. “We’re not competing for the students who are already choosing and have a pathway into higher ed. We’re trying to broaden that pathway.”
Washington’s community colleges have offered bachelor’s degrees since 2005. There are currently 33 colleges offering a total of 165 bachelor’s degrees, including in nursing and teacher education. The state has awarded nearly 1,200 bachelor’s degrees in teacher education and 790 in nursing. Unlike California, where CSU and UC have a say during the approval process for community college bachelor’s degrees, the final approval in Washington rests solely with the community college officials.
Preciado’s experience isn’t an unusual one. For many students in the region, their options are either to attend Yakima Valley College or get no postsecondary degree at all. According to the latest census data, 17.6% of adults in Yakima County have at least a bachelor’s degree, compared with 36.7% statewide.
“One day we have to get beyond that,” said Herlinda Ruvalcaba, Yakima Valley College’s director of applied baccalaureate programs. “Most of the students are here because they’re in the valley. They’re not looking to move. They’re staying here.”
That’s the case for Sofia Gonzalez, who in the fall will enter her final year in the college’s dental hygiene program.
Gonzalez lives with her mother and 8-year-old brother. Her mom is enrolled in English courses at Yakima Valley, and Gonzalez watches her little brother while her mom is at class.
“I’m very family-oriented. I wanted to help her out,” Gonzalez said.
Being able to live at home and not pay rent, making the degree more affordable, was also attractive to Gonzalez.
Gonzalez plans to find a job locally after she gets her degree next year. Most Yakima bachelor’s degree earners remain in the region after graduation, and that’s by design. When community colleges like Yakima are considering a new bachelor’s degree, they’re required to demonstrate that there’s a regional labor market need for that profession, something that’s also required for community college bachelor’s degree programs in California.
Sofia Gonzalez, a student in the dental hygiene bachelor’s degree program at Yakima Valley College, practices cleaning teeth on another student.Credit: Michael Burke/EdSource
In Washington, the degrees are called applied bachelor’s degrees because they are designed to give students applicable experience.
In Yakima Valley’s agricultural sciences bachelor’s program, the capstone project for seniors is to design an agribusiness plan that they can use outside the classroom. For Pedro Huecias, that meant coming up with a plan to own and live off his own vineyard. His project mapped out a multi-year plan to come up with the money to do that.
Huecias, who graduated last month, was one of six students in the agricultural program’s first cohort. He currently works in cheese production for Darigold, a dairy cooperative operating in Washington and three other states. But he’s always dreamed bigger than that: Since he was 14, Huecias and his cousin have planned on one day owning their own vineyard. He’s hopeful his new degree will help him accomplish that.
“I wasn’t happy where I was at, and I needed to do something different,” he said.
California’s landscape
In California, there are 42 bachelor’s degree programs that are currently offered or will be soon across 35 different community colleges. But another eight proposed degrees are currently in limbo because CSU has raised duplication concerns. Four of those degrees have been held up for more than a year.
Beyond that, there are colleges that would like to offer additional bachelor’s degrees but haven’t proposed them because of the duplication law. Francisco Rodriguez, chancellor of the Los Angeles Community College District, the state’s largest district, said colleges “have a strong interest” in being able to offer bachelor’s degrees in a wider array of programs, including education.
“There are workforce shortages, and the community colleges are perfectly situated and positioned to address some of these regional needs,” he said. “My instinct tells me there are enough students for everyone.”
Some shortages are especially dire in the state’s rural counties. Nine of the state’s rural counties are teacher education deserts, having struggled to recruit teachers, concluded a recent report by the UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools. One of the problems identified in the report is the lack of higher education options in those counties.
The UCLA report suggests allowing community colleges to play a larger role in preparing teachers. That could mean letting community colleges offer credentialing programs for students who already have a bachelor’s degree. It could also include letting the community colleges offer bachelor’s degrees in education, or at least parts of those degrees, said Kai Mathews, project director for the UCLA center that wrote the report.
“We’re in a teacher shortage. We need as many systems and supports and programs as possible to get students engaged into this profession,” Mathews added.
Under current state law, location isn’t considered at all when community colleges propose new bachelor’s degrees. When a degree is being considered, it goes out for review to all 23 CSU campuses, from San Diego to Humboldt.
“We try not to get emotionally involved or even consider it regionally,” said Brent Foster, an assistant vice chancellor at CSU.
State community college officials acknowledge that’s the law but say they wish it were different.
Being able to evaluate “regional labor market needs and the state’s existing ability to meet those demands” could be useful in determining whether a degree is duplicative, said Villarin, the spokesperson for the community college system.
Community college and CSU officials are working to find a third-party organization to serve as something of a mediator between the two sides and help smooth the review process.
At the same time, SB 895, the bill that would allow up to 15 community colleges to offer bachelor’s degrees in nursing, could be a turning point for the state. The bill cleared the Senate and is currently making its way through the Assembly. If signed into law, priority for the degrees would be given to colleges in underserved areas.
The legislation is opposed by CSU and by the Association for Independent California Colleges and Universities (AICCU), which represents the state’s private universities. In an opposition message submitted to lawmakers, the AICCU cited the state’s duplication law.
“Respectfully, we view this proposal to be a significant shift away from that recently agreed upon framework,” the AICCU wrote.
In an analysis of the bill, Senate staff said it “establishes a precedent for permitting duplication of degree programs and expands CCC’s ability to establish baccalaureate degrees independent from California’s other public universities.”
Carroll, whose organization supports the legislation, said the intent is not for the bill to be “a harbinger of lots of duplication.” Instead, she said it was specifically proposed to address nursing shortages facing the state.
Carroll added, though, that she’s hopeful the state will nonetheless be able to offer a wider range of community college bachelor’s degrees at some point in the future.
“As people learn more about it, and they see how the bachelor’s programs have benefited students and local communities, we’re hoping that they will become supportive,” she said.
Linda McMahon, Trump’s nominee for secretary of education, answers questions from senators during her confirmation hearing while surrounded by family members in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.
Credit: Allison Bailey/NurPhoto via AP
The nominee to become the next and, President Donald Trump vows, last secretary of education assured U.S. senators on Thursday that there are no plans to shut down the Department of Education or to cut spending that Congress has already approved for the department.
Linda McMahon, however, said she would be open to moving programs to other departments, such as sending the Office of Civil Rights to the Justice Department.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La, who chairs the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, brought up funding early in the two-hour hearing on the nomination.
“If the department is downsized, would the states and localities still receive the federal funding that they currently receive?” he asked.
“Yes, it’s not the president’s goal to defund the programs. It’s only to have it operate more efficiently,” she said.
Closing the department, a longtime goal of conservative Republicans, was one of Trump’s campaign promises. Calling the department a “con job” this week, he has said repeatedly that McMahon’s goal should be to shrink the department, to “put herself out of a job.”
But Trump also acknowledged that only Congress can dismantle what it established in 1980 during the Carter administration. At the hearing, McMahon affirmed that she would work with Congress to follow the law.
With husband Vince, McMahon, 76, founded a successful sports entertainment company that later became World Wrestling Entertainment, and served as its president, then its CEO for 30 years. McMahon served as Trump’s administrator of the Small Business Administration in his first administration. She also served for a year on the Connecticut State Board of Education in 2009 and is a longtime trustee of Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, but otherwise has had little involvement in education.
Democratic senators did not press her on her lack of education experience, although Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, did push her to name a requirement for schools to show improvement under the Every Student Succeeds Act, the principal law determining accountability for K-12 schools. She could not.
Instead, they questioned her on Trump’s plan to ship federal funding to states as block grants without federal oversight, his intention to expand parental school choice, and his threats to cut funding for colleges that allow transgender athletes to participate in women’s sports and for schools that continue policies for diversity, equity and inclusion, known as DEI.
‘Invest in teachers, not bureaucrats’
McMahon made clear in her opening statement she is in sync with the president’s assessment of education.
Calling the nation’s schools a “system in decline,” she said, “we can do better for elementary and junior high school students by teaching basic reading and mathematics; for the college freshmen facing censorship or antisemitism on campus, and for parents and grandparents who worry that their children and grandchildren are no longer taught American values and true history.”
“So what’s the remedy?” she asked. “Fund education freedom, not government-run systems. Invest in teachers, not Washington bureaucrats.”
McMahon expressed support for continuing federal funding for Title I in support of low-income students, and for students with disabilities under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). However, she will investigate whether IDEA should remain in the department.
“When IDEA was originally set up, it was under the Department of Health and Welfare. After the Department of Education was established, it shifted over there,” she said. “I’m not sure that it’s not better served in Health and Human Services, but I don’t know. If I’m confirmed, it is of high priority to make sure that the students who are receiving disability funding (are) not impacted.”
Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-New Hampshire, called her commitment to continued funding “gaslighting.”
Even as the hearing was happening, Republicans in the House were working on “reconciliation” bills that called for possibly balancing massive continued personal income tax cuts with hundreds of billions in funding cuts for Medicaid and education.
This week, Elon Musk’s budget-cutting SWAT team known as DOGE, cut $881 million in research contracts without notice. Other education grants associated with DEI received termination notices, too.
McMahon said DOGE’s “audit” of the department was appropriate. “I believe the American people spoke loudly in the election last November, to say that they want to look at waste, fraud and abuse in our government.” Trump recently fired the Department of Education’s independent inspector general, Sandra D. Bruce, whose job was to root out waste, fraud and abuse.
Watch: Linda McMahon said DOGE’s “audit” of the department was appropriate.
“I understand an audit,” Murray said. “But when Congress appropriates money, it is the administration’s responsibility to put that out, as directed by Congress who has the power of the purse. So what will you do if the president or Elon Musk tells you not to spend money Congress has appropriated to you?”
“We’ll certainly expend those dollars that Congress has passed,” McMahon responded. “But I do think it is worthwhile to take a look at the programs before the money goes out the door. It’s much easier to stop the money before it goes out the door than it is to claw it back.”
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said schools across the nation are “scrambling because they have no idea what DEI means” and are worried they will lose funding. He presented two scenarios that pointed to ambiguities in the executive order.
If a school in Connecticut celebrates Martin Luther King Day events and programming teaching about Black history, does it violate or run afoul of DEI prohibitions? he asked.
“Not, in my view, that is clearly not the case,” McMahon said. “That celebration of Martin Luther King Day and Black History Month should be celebrated throughout all of our schools.”
Murphy continued, “What about educational programming centered around specific ethnic and racial experiences? My son is in a public school. He takes African American History. Could you perhaps be in violation of this executive order?”
“I’m, I’m not quite certain,” McMahon said. “I would like to take a look at these programs and fully understand the breadth of the executive order and get back to you on that.”
As with all of Trump’s nominees so far, McMahon is expected to win a majority vote in the Senate, possibly along party lines, later this month.
