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UC Tuition Hike Protests: Santa Cruz Students Block All Campus Entrances Thursday Morning

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Students at the University of California (UC) - Santa Cruz protested the school system's impending tuition hikes by forming a human wall to block the campus' main entrance.

According to the San Francisco Gate, the protesters arrived on campus at 4:30 a.m. Thursday and blocked all campus entries. At 5:30, the school advised people not to come to the campus.

Per the school's official website, the advisory stood as of 7:45 a.m., but the College 8 dining hall was announced to be open at 8:45 a.m.

The protest is directly related to previous demonstrations contesting the UC system's decision to increase tuition.

Preceding Thursday morning's demonstration was one that took place Tuesday, where officials were forced to close Highway 1 for several hours. Six students were arrested in connection with that protest and were binding themselves to one another with chains and steel pipes.

UC - Santa Cruz suspended the six students arrested Tuesday for 14 class days, the Santa Cruz Sentinel reported. The newspaper reported Tuesday's demonstration came from the same organizers as Thursday's.

Robert Cavooris, a UC - Santa Cruz graduate student, told the Sentinel he plans to picket at the campus Thursday, acknowledging he could be arrested.

"Ideally for me, the police wouldn't be involved," he said. "Yet we've seen in the past that this is not how the university chooses to respond to free speech so it's hard to know what will happen tomorrow.

"I think we live in a society where opportunities are being restricted at every level, for people to live the kinds of lives they want to live, and I think that tuition hikes and excessive police violence in certain communities are a big part of that."

The school's last update was at 8:43 a.m., so the message remains: "Please do not come to campus today."

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