Hayden Assails UC System Policies, Attracts Hecklers

IRVINE —  Fee increases and budget cuts at California’s public universities constitute “the breakdown of a covenant” between generations, gubernatorial candidate and state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica) told an audience at UC Irvine Thursday.

He likened the University of California system to the Roman Empire, which he said was laced with privileged groups and “disintegrated of its own weight.”

The candidate said the state is “underfunding the schools in order to pay for ‘Three Strikes You’re Out.’

“Since 1991, vast multimillions of dollars have gone from education in California to prisons in California,” he said.

Hayden is campaigning for governor, primarily on a platform of reforming the political system, which he says serves moneyed interests more than the general public. He suggested limiting contributions to candidates to $250 and limiting expenditures as well.

“I can see this is an affluent audience, so I want to ask you all for money,” he said, asking for a maximum of $94. Hayden volunteers passed around a plastic bag with folded dollar bills and quarters.

About 75 people attended the talk by Hayden, which was spotted occasionally by catcalls from about 10 members of the conservative student group Young Americans for Freedom.

“Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, Ron Unz is gonna win!” the students yelled at the beginning of the meeting, referring to Republican gubernatorial candidate Unz.

Hayden responded, “Gee, you learned this in school?”

YAF members pelted Hayden with questions about his past as a radical student activist and questioned his stance against a bill to lock up three-time felons for life.

Hayden, 54, was a Vietnam War resister and prominent student protester, who by the 1980s and ‘90s joined the system by gaining a seat in the state Assembly.

When a YAF member asked about Hayden’s statement in the 1970s upon return from a trip to North Vietnam that American prisoners of war were not tortured, Hayden conceded he had been wrong.

“I wasn’t tricked (into saying it); I said what I wanted to believe,” he said.

Scott Shields, a member of a campus Democrats group, said many students are frustrated with the college system and politics.

“There’s a lot of anger out there, and tonight it was directed at him,” Shields said, motioning to Hayden, “I guess because he’s a different kind of candidate.”