Rutgers Board Builds Wall Between Itself, Angry Crowd

Yesterday’s Rutgers Board of Governors meeting got a little awkward, with the board literally building a wall between itself and an angry audience. Dozens of students, professors, and campus workers attended the public meeting to protest an employee salary freeze and the university president’s high professor salary. But the biggest disruptions occurred when student leaders, who missed a deadline to register, were not allowed to speak about the university budget and tuition.

As the crowd got rowdy, accusing the board of sending out the meeting agenda late and causing the students to miss the deadline, security ushered some people out of the building and the board called in maintenance workers to bolt up a temporary wall so the meeting could continue in private. “Shame on you! Shame on you!" protesters chanted. But the chairman said he had no choice, since “I don’t know how you conduct a meeting with people shouting at you.” The wall was reopened several minutes later when much of the crowd had dispersed, the Star-Ledger reports. (More Rutgers stories.)