grad students

University of California President Janet Napolitano has threatened to fire a group of UC Santa Cruz graduate students who have been on strike and withholding students’ grades over better pay, according to a report from KSBW.

Police surrounded demonstrators sitting in circles in the intersection with their arms linked and dragged them away one by one. More demonstrators poured into the intersection and took the places of those being arrested in a tense standoff between hundreds of demonstrators and dozens of police, the Santa Cruz Sentinel reported.

University of California, Santa Cruz graduate students started a strike Monday to demand higher wages to keep up with living costs in an area that has recently seen housing costs skyrocket.

After demanding a cost of living increase from the University of
California at Santa Cruz in September, the school’s unionized graduate student workers are now on strike. Marianne Favro reports.