In response, a large group of students declared a strike and blockaded the main campus to the point of institutional paralysis.
The blockades intensified and eventually led to the university's closure, during which there were violent encounters between opposition groups, students, guards and faculty.
Tuition at the UNAM is not free, and it had last been raised in 1948 to 200 pesos per academic year (tuition became 20 cents in the 1993 currency revaluation); the amount is specified in the University bylaws, and changing it requires action by the University Council (a legislative body that comprises representatives of the faculty and students, and all directors of schools, faculties, and institutes).
In June 1999, the 132-member government council of the university, which includes faculty and students, modified the proposal to make the tuition increase voluntary.
Meanwhile, UNAM issued multiple warrants against strikers who were accused of stealing computers, vehicles and earthquake monitoring equipment.
[2] On June 2, after three months of the strike, president of Mexico Ernesto Zedillo spoke about the importance of the issue and what he termed the "brutal aggression against the university that is hurting the enormous majority who want to study to get ahead".
[3] The next day, about fifteen thousand students held a rally at a stadium in Ciudad Universitaria to support the strike and hurl insults at Rector Barnés.
The same day, female professors held banners on Mexico City overpasses asking motorists to turn on their lights if they opposed the strike; thousands did so.
[5] De la Fuente indicated that 125,000 votes (out of a student population of around 333,000) would be sufficient to give him more bargaining power to negotiate with the strikers.