This article covers the second day of the UC Regents’ meeting at the Luskin Conference Center (March 19, 2025). For our full coverage of the meeting, read here.
Pressure on the UC Board of Regents intensified Wednesday, the second day of their meeting at UCLA, as members of AFSCME Local 3299 disrupted the Board public comment session and the UC Divest Coalition launched an occupation of the Engineering IV building patio. UC President Michael V. Drake’s announcement of a systemwide hiring freeze soon emerged as a focal point as workers confronted the UC over stagnating real wages and students demanded a public meeting with the UC to discuss divestment.
Students gathered at the Luskin Turnaround around 10:30 a.m. to the sounds of drums and Palestinian music. The UC Divest Coalition is demanding that the Board of Regents agree to an open, public discussion with students and community members about divestment from funds linked to the US and Israeli military forces. An organizer led the crowd in chants before condemning the UC Regents for only offering to meet with 5 students provided that the organizers remove masks and agree not to record the meeting.
A speaker recounted Tuesday’s events, saying that protesters “were there for hours, rallying, picketing,” before asking “What did [the Regents] do?”. This question was met with cries of “Cowards!” from the crowd.
Around 11:05 a.m., student demonstrators began to march from the turnaround after a speaker affirmed that they were “going to force [the Regents] to come outside… on our terms.” Students ran up the stairs of the Engineering IV building, entering the patio and dropping large banners that read “Honor our martyrs,” “UCPD, KKK, IOF, you’re all the same,” and “Don’t look away, keep your eyes on Palestine,” among others. Shortly after, they declared the establishment of the “Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh Liberated Zone” and urged community members to mobilize to the scene.
Students named the protest for Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh, a leading surgeon at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City who died in an Israeli prison last April. According to the testimonies of released prisoners, Al-Bursh was tortured and killed after being arrested by Israeli forces in Al-Awda Hospital during their ground invasion of the Jabalia refugee camp in December 2023.
Engineering IV is home to UCLA’s Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE) Department, which has come under scrutiny by pro-Palestine groups on campus for its weapons-related research. Research within the MAE Department was mentioned multiple times for its contributions to weapons manufacturing in a white paper recently published by Graduate Students for Justice in Palestine (GSJP) and Rank & File for a Democratic Union (R&F) at UCLA. Engineering IV has also been the site of multiple marches on campus calling for divestment, including one that occurred last month in response to the suspension of SJP and GSJP at UCLA.
Less than half an hour after students launched their occupation on the patio, over 30 UCPD officers equipped with riot gear emerged from the Luskin Conference Center and entered the Engineering IV building from its south entrance. As the line of police walked under the patio, protesters chanted “UCPD, KKK, IOF, you’re all the same.”
After entering the building, officers closed the door and told nearby individuals not to enter the building, including reporters who explicitly identified themselves as members of the press. The doors to Engineering IV were locked to those without key access shortly after.
S, a member of GSJP, told UCLA Radio that they “wish [they] could say that we were surprised UCLA admin immediately escalated to calling in UCPD after very little interaction with [protesters] or willingness to negotiate,” adding that the quick response shows “how militarized our campus has become under the leadership of Rick Braziel and now Steve Lurie of the Office of Campus Safety.” The office was created days after police swept the UCLA Palestine Solidarity Encampment last May, and has been decried by activists for consolidating the UCLA Chancellor’s control over responses to protest.
Upon UCPD’s entry, protesters quickly vacated the patio and re-gathered outside the entrance to Engineering IV. As police officers emerged in a line formation, students turned to face UCPD and chanted “Money for jobs and education, not for war and occupation” and “We will not be pushed aside.”
Students marched back to the Luskin turnaround, decrying the “cowardly display… of the UC’s complicity [in] genocide, occupation, and apartheid” as police officers remained stationed outside Engineering IV. After UCPD left the scene, a speaker told the crowd that its response “is just a testament to how much the UC Regents fear our collective power,” and affirmed that UC Divest will continue voicing their demands throughout the entire Regents meeting. No arrests were made by UCPD.
S said that the Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh Liberated Zone protest, just across the street from the Luskin Conference Center, gave a “very clear message to the UC Regents that while they may feel safe inside their ivory tower, [UC Divest] knows who they are… and will confront the Regents in any way [they] have to to get [their] message across.”
A similar sentiment emerged just two hours prior when UCPD cleared the Regents Board public comment session in response to chants led by AFSCME Local 3299, a union representing service, patient care and skilled craft workers across the UC. Starting at 8:30 a.m., the session’s comments centered around workers’ welfare and the university’s response to campus protests, while students continued to advocate for improved meeting accessibility as well as paid training and research opportunities for undocumented students. In addition to the UC Regents Board, notable figures like UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk were in attendance.
Members of AFSCME 3299 highlighted the disparity between “market-based salary adjustments” for UC executives while real wages have declined for service and patient care workers by 5% since February 2021 according to union researchers. A hospital technician represented by AFSCME stated that “we are the builders,” questioning why the claim “that it takes money to retain talent… apply[s] only to the executives.”
It’s time you treat us as human beings because we are the ones who make this the #1 public university.
Worker represented by AFSCME 3299
Skye, an organizer with the Student Labor Advocacy Project (SLAP), told UCLA Radio that this disconnect between Regents and workers exists due to the “undemocratic system where corporate elites end up on the Board of Regents because [the Regents] have never experienced the struggles that students and workers across the UC system experience.”
She added that the application of the California Constitution’s designation of the UC as a public trust allows the Board of Regents to “operate like their own branch of government” with little oversight from the state legislature. She specifically noted instances where the UC was exempted from California labor laws by the courts, such as its overtime pay policies, and called the UC an “inherently anti-worker institution.”
As the UC Regents concluded the public session, a worker represented by AFSCME shouted out “You forgot two AFSCME speakers,” while another voice called from the back of the room to “Make that four!”. The board allotted five more minutes for comment as union members decried the “illegal healthcare increases” that catalyzed their November Unfair Labor Practice strike, telling the Regents that the union “will not sit back and wait for you.”
After the Board secretary cut off speakers, workers chanted “Shame, shame, shame on UC” and unfurled a banner facing the Regents. The Regents brought the meeting into recess and told security to clear the room as workers chanted for the UC to “put workers over profit.”
About 15 police officers equipped with riot gear streamed into the room, forming a line that faced workers and community members who did not leave the room. AFSCME leadership slowly led demonstrators outside the room in response, still directing their banner and chants toward the Regents until they exited.
Throughout the public comment session, several speakers also urged the UC and UCLA to more strictly apply Time, Place and Manner (TPM) policies to pro-Palestine protests. Commenters criticized student demonstrations as “radical,” with a student saying that they call for the “eradication of the American people” and a UCLA professor denouncing “violent Marxist ideology.” Throughout this academic year, UCPD has cited TPM violations to arrest protesters on multiple occasions.
Students also condemned masking restrictions at the Regents meeting, in which face coverings were prohibited except for transparent masks provided by staff. One student told the board that “designating disabled community members to an overflow room is discrimination based on disability,” accusing them of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by excluding immunocompromised community members from in-person public comment. UCLA’s undergraduate Internal Vice President also urged the Regents to increase funding for the Center for Accessible Education (CAE) and denounced the mask restriction as “extremely harmful to the disabled community.”
The transparent masks provided at the meeting were not tightly fitting and left open space on both sides of the face, also lacking the particulate filters present in N95 masks. In a statement shared last week by the Disabled Student Union at UCLA, the group criticized the Regents for the policy that “specifically limits disabled students from participating” in open sessions, including a 12:30 p.m. Academic and Student Affairs Committee meeting that discussed accessibility issues.
The Regents’ rationale for the masking restrictions was not shared but student organizers said they believe that their purpose was to aid campus security and UCPD in identifying protesters. Skye told UCLA Radio that this was only an example of the UC “expanding the surveillance state,” saying that it “is very clearly choosing to ally with fascism rather than with its students.” Surveillance by campus security staff, who frequently record demonstrations on campus, has become a concern with organizers following the arrest of Columbia students Mahmoud Khalil and Leqaa Kordia by ICE.
S echoed these concerns while discussing the Engineering IV occupation with UCLA Radio, saying that UCLA’s Associate Vice Chancellor for Campus and Community Safety Steve Lurie “has already said on the record that UCPD and security will collaborate with ICE if they are presented with orders to locate students in student housing or otherwise for ICE. We know that we are not safe, so we are keeping each other safe.”
During the open session, community members also expressed support for the $10 million budget proposal put forward by the Undocumented Student-Led Network that became a focal point of Tuesday’s public comment. The proposal aims to open 2,000 paid training and research positions across the UC system to ensure equitable opportunity access regardless of immigration status. Commenters also urged the Regents to implement an alternative to CalFresh at the UC for undocumented students, who are ineligible for the food assistance program.
Other comments urged the Regents to expand UCLA Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) to support LGBTQ+ students and survivors of sexual violence regardless of insurance, affirming that “survivor care is healthcare.” Speakers also advocated for increased resources for students with children and for the UC to maintain its DEI programs as the Trump administration dismantles diversity initiatives nationwide. Later that night, the UC Regents announced that the university would stop requiring diversity requirements in hiring.
Shortly after the public comment session concluded, UC President Drake released a statement responding to anticipated budget shortfalls from both state and federal levels. Earlier this year, Governor Newsom proposed a state budget that Drake said would cut the UC’s state funding by $271 million. The state budget proposal compounds with uncertainty in the wake of the Trump administration freezing NIH research grants, cutting $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University for its response to divestment protests and, more recently, $175 million from the University of Pennsylvania for its policies regarding transgender athletes.
UCLA and Columbia University are among the ten universities that the Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism will visit “to eradicate antisemitic harassment in schools,” according to a February press release published by the US Department of Justice’s Office of Public Affairs.
Drake’s plan to freeze hiring across the UC system was met with swift criticism from student organizers and labor unions. In a statement issued by AFSCME 3299 President Michael Avant, he wrote that “UC has effectively had a hiring freeze in place for the past four years,” with staff vacancies having tripled compared to before the pandemic. He decried the UC increasing “its ranks of high paid executives by 42%” and granting “these same elites hundreds of millions of dollars in obscene raises and housing assistance they don’t need.”
S told UCLA Radio that “the hiring freezes by the UC are just the most recent example of their acquiescence to the Trump administration,” echoing labor unions’ concerns about the impacts of staffing shortages. They said that “while faculty, students and researchers face extreme precarity, losing their research funding, the UC has been silent… neglecting its workers, students and faculty once again.”
The UC Regents clearly only answer to business and communicate in dollar signs — we will do whatever it takes for them to listen to us instead.
S, Media Liaison for the Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh Liberated Zone protest
Following the UC hiring freeze and in the wake of Israel resuming its ground operations in Gaza, student protesters remain firm in their demand for a public meeting to discuss divestment with the UC Regents. Ahead of the Regents meeting’s final day on Thursday, S affirmed that student protesters are “steadfast in their determination and will fight for the people of Palestine,” saying that the UC Regents “can no longer hide.”
