Affirmative Action Rally Turns Ugly Affirmative Action Rally Turns Ugly
Thursday March 08 11:53 AM EST
By KPIX - Cynthia Gouw
A lunchtime rally demanding the return of affirmative action got out of hand this afternoon. A thousand people were protesting at U.C. Berkeley when a sizable splinter group broke off, starting fights and vandalizing stores. An unruly crows of about 150 high school students got out of control and raced down Telegraph Avenue before the noontime rally was to begin. Terrified shopkeepers kept their gates closed. "I was thinking I was glad we didn't open," says Tamara Riley of Sam and Libby shoe store. "I was thinking these kids were going to kill each other or themselves."
Before and after the rally, fist-fights broke out as students hit bystanders and then ran. Blood still remains on Robin Lee's sweatshirt and on the front of his store after he got hit in the mouth, nose, and head. "Some guy punches me for no reason," he says. "Thirty kids instigating more violence. There were just as many people apologizing for it. And they got be back in the store." A group of hoodlums also descended upon the Athlete's Foot store and started throwing shoes to the crowd outside. Berkeley Police Captain Bobby Miller says, "The specific intent was to loot.
Officers came up quickly, but as a result, there were no windows broken." Despite the high school students' unruliness, police report rally participants were peaceful. Thousands of people spilled over the edges of Sproul Plaza. The passion of their voices urged the U.C. Regents to reverse the ban on affirmative action at their meeting next week at UCLA. "We demanded that the Regents of U.C. stop with the political shenanigans and maneuvering and reverse the ban at the upcoming (meeting)," says Cal student Luke Massie.
The students say they want increased minority outreach and enrollment. They also want to see more women hired by U.C. faculties. California voters approved Proposition 209 in 1997, a state ban on all forms of affirmative action. The controversial new law was delayed in the courts for almost a year before going into effect.
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