A little salt to rub in the wounds now:

http://www.sacbee.com/state_wire/story/2397631.html

UC research workers call for pay raises

Should researchers in research departments get raises provided for by increased federal funding? Is the answer to deny researchers a pay raise because it would make students "feel bad" as their tuition was hiked due to a lack of state funds?

Does one have anything, at all, to do with the other?

The purpose of universities is to teach, not to conduct research. The only reason that universities conduct research is that they have a ready supply of intellectual workers in the students aspiring to PhD's and part of the necessary qualifications for a PhD is to be able to discourse on the frontiers of whatever the student is aspiring to master.

Research is the natural domain of private corporations. If research departments get funding it will be under the pretext, at least, of advancing the cause of educating people in whatever field is being funded. Sometimes private corporations offer grants to students and this makes them less vulnerable to tuition increases.

But of course the students that are the most likely to suffer from tuition increases (if any) are the least likely to be that far in their education.

One certainly has something to do with the other, but as it happens, has nothing to do with the people rioting and attacking the chancellor.

Most Universities have research departments and some of them are very good.

If you are saying that Universities should NOT have research departments because that is not a function of Universities, that's an entirely different subject. The students at the research department are normally graduate students.

The particular funding for the research department is not coming from the school or the state system. So an increase in research funding is removed from tuition hikes.

You're exactly correct. The tuition is completely separate and a small pittance of the cost to run a university. It's the deep pockets in business, medical, pharmaceutical etc. that fund the university research. They are the ones who 'tell' the school what direction the school should go. Follow the money.